[Feature] add Flatpak support

[Red-Eyed]

As far as we know that not all linux distribution uses snap by default.
I think that adding flatpak package would be a nice addition for the RHEL/Fedora/Silverblue/CentOS users and others (clear linux, POP OS, and other who relise on flatpak as default)

I have a bit of experience with flatpak, so can try to look in that direction.

@AdnanHodzic if you consider flatpak support, than you can assign this issue to me.

[AdnanHodzic]

Sure, feel to to start working on it. The more ways users have to install the app the better.

Although if a user has snapd, snap should also work on RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and etc ...

[jdferron]

Agreed, Linux Mint as of LM20 does not support snap packages. Flatpak support would be awesome!

[Red-Eyed]

@jdferron Linux mint does support it, it's just Ubuntu/Debian with whistles.
Just don't confuse, you probably wanted to say that snapd is not preinstalled by default :)

[ghost]

@Red-Eyed It is not just not pre-installed by default, though. snapd is actively blocked from being installed without running a command first. (Check here: https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/snap.html)

I would also like to say that I think Linux Mint is a great distro and I believe it is a valuable contributor to the Linux community. Therefore, I think it isn't fair to say that they are just Ubuntu/Debian with whistles. It's just my opinion, though.

[mmstick]

This kind of software cannot work as a Flatpak. Flatpak is designed for desktop applications, rather than system services, and applications run by it are executed in a separate namespace with limited access to the host. You can't do anything that requires root, without having a DBus system service installed and running on the host that can do what's needed.

[AdnanHodzic]

Thanks for your confirmation @mmstick as this was my suspicion from the very beginning from my (limited) knowledge on how Flatpak works.

Since this is a "wont fix", I'm closing the issue. If someone has anything else to add, or would like to have further discussions please feel free to re-open it.