• Flutter Flatpak Example
  • Requirements
    • VSCode dev container
    • GitHub actions
    • Manual Requirements
  • Instructions

Flutter Flatpak Example

An example of how to package a Flutter application as a Flatpak for distribution on Linux, using the default counter example app.

Flatpak documentation

Requirements

Note: Building a flatpak should be done in a predictable environment or it may fail.

Set up Flathub, and choose one:

VSCode dev container

Use the VSCode dev container provided in this repo that will run everything through Docker

1. Install the Dev Containers extension

2. Open this directory in VSCode.

3. Accept the prompt to re-open in the dev container, or from the Command Palette search for Reopen in Container

GitHub actions

There is a GitHub action for this purpose, which is demonstrated in this repo. This action's page also lists the docker containers it uses.

If you fork this example repo you can run the example workflow, and install the .flatpak file it generates with flatpak install <path-to-.flatpak>.

Manual Requirements

Install flatpak and flatpak-builder

On ubuntu:

sudo apt install flatpak flatpak-builder

Add the FlatHub repo:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Install flatpak build dependencies:

flatpak install -y org.freedesktop.Sdk/x86_64/22.08
flatpak install -y org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/22.08
flatpak install -y flathub org.freedesktop.appstream-glib

Instructions

We have two directories that each represent what would be separate git repositories for a real project:

counter_app is the Flutter app, view the README there for info on configuration and building.

flathub_repo is separate from the Flutter app and is where the Flatpak is assembled, view the README there for info on configuration, building, and publishing of the flatpak after building the counter_app.