Questions regarding host services

[Debarshi Ray]

On Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 10:49:38AM +0000, Simon McVittie wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Jan 2018 at 11:19:15 +0530, Umang Jain wrote:
> > Can flatpak ensure that requested services in manifest (--talk-to) are
> > available on host side?
> 
> Not really. They're provided by the OS, which is outside Flatpak's
> scope. If that service isn't present then that feature won't work.

The application should at run-time check for the availability of any
features or services that it needs from the host OS, and should
gracefully handle their absence. This is because the same Flatpak can
be run on an older version of the OS, a newer version of the OS, or a
different flavour of the OS.

(Flatpak only guarantees those bits that are directly linked to the
application's binaries, and are part of the Flatpak itself or the
designated runtime.)

I think that the screenshot that you showed [1] is an example of just
that. One possible improvement would be to special case such errors
and make them a little less cryptic. :)

[1] https://imgur.com/a/Ww3B0