Create an app from a distro package

[Alexander Larsson]

On ons, 2016-09-21 at 05:33 +0000, Hervé Werner wrote:
> Hello
> 
> 
> I'm looking to be able to run a browser in a sandboxed environment,
> so that I may install flash and all kind of dubious plugins in an
> isolated context. Also being able to launch ephemeral containers is
> interesting for me as I may want to start from a blank profile
> sometimes.
> 
> I've read about Flatpak, it seems great for that use. However I'd
> rather not compile myself all the stuff to create my application as
> everything I need is already available from my distro. So I'm
> currently wondering how I could leverage distro repositories (Debian
> in my case) to extract packages and install them in a Flatpak app.
> 
> I've though about extending the SDK to add apt* tools in it, but I'm
> not sure if it's doable. Other way would be to tell apt to install
> stuff in a custom directory but that's not handy as it also needs
> /etc/apt configuration and creates various files underneath /var.

Its possible to build flatpaks from .debs. For instance, endless
(endlessm.com) does this for their apps. However, there are two
complications. First of all you need the apps to be relocatable or
build with /app as the prefix. Secondly, you need the runtime to be
composed of the debs that the apps depend on. I.e. if you want to build
apps from debian packages you need a matching runtime built from
packages from debian (of the same version, etc).

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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
       alexl at redhat.com            alexander.larsson at gmail.com 
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