Flatseal: Utility to check and modify permissions of Flatpak Apps
A few days ago, we covered in a post the latest version of the app called Bottles. And in it, we explain that this app has the objective or purpose of allowing the easy execution of Windows software on GNU/Linux Using some kind of containers called bottles. In addition, we explore the latest news, features and graphic interfaces of its current version Bottles 2022.2.28-trento-2, installed through your Flatpak installer. Therefore, we believe that it would be very useful now to explore one associated with it, called "Flat-seal".
Y "Flat-seal" it is a great app for manage Flatpak app permissions graphically, simply and quickly on our GNU / Linux Operating Systems.
Bottles: An alternative application for the easy management of Wine
And as usual, before getting into today's topic about the application Flat Seal, which is directly related to application management Flatpak, we will leave for those interested the following links to some previous related publications. In such a way that they can easily explore them, if necessary, after finishing reading this publication:
"Almost exactly a year ago, we talked about the Bottles app. For those who do not know it yet, it is basically an application whose objective or function is to allow the easy execution of Windows software on GNU/Linux using a kind of container called Bottles. And a few days ago it was updated again to the version: "Bottles 2022.2.28-trento-2". Therefore, we have decided again to explore its novelties, both technical and graphical (interface), to see how much has changed since the last time we reviewed it.". Bottles 2022.2.28-trento-2: New version available – March 2022
Flatseal: Basic Permissions Manager for Flatpak Apps
What is Flatseal?
According to its maintainers in its official website on GitHub, "Flat-seal" is a software development briefly described as follows:
"Flatseal is a graphical utility to review and modify the permissions of your Flatpak applications".
In addition, they add the following to it:
"Simply launch Flatseal, select an app, and modify its permissions. Then restart the app after making the changes. If something goes wrong, just press the reset button".
Why use Flatseal?
Creating "Flat-seal" more than anything, it is because, many times, when installing and using apps under the Flatpack technology, we find that they require certain permissions and settings, to be able to function fully on our Operating System.
Un good example of it, for example, the one that I will quote below and that has surely happened to many of us, is the following:
"We install any WinApp, with Bottles installed with Flatpak, on our GNU/Linux Operating System, and it runs very well and allows us to work from it, new files without any problem. But, when we want to open an existing file located on the Home of our user, we realize that said WinApp cannot access any file of the user who installed it".
And how do we solve this permission problem and other related ones?
Obviously, installing Flat Seal. Then we run Flatseal and select the application Bottles to proceed to give read/write permissions on the user's Home folder who executed it.
Next, we go to the “File system” section and enable the "All User Files" option, and we will have already solved the problem, by launching the Bottles application again, and opening any of the Win Apps installed with it, all of them will have read/write permission on the Home of the user who executed it.
Install Flatseal: «flatpak install flathub com.github.tchx84.Flatseal»
Screen shots
And also, we can configure (enable/disable) much others permissions and settingsthrough their other sections and options. As we will see in the following images:
Bottles Flatpak without permission to access the user's Home
Grant permissions to Bottles Flatpak via Flatseal
Bottles Flatpak with permission to access the user's Home
For more information on the use of Flatseal to correct this problem and others related to permissions for the application Bottles Flatpack, you can explore the following link.
Summary
In summary, we hope that this guide or tutorial for install and use Flatseal, for among many things, allowing installed Flatpak apps to access the files of the user who installed them, is very useful for many, especially for those who need to run Windows apps or games on platforms GNU / Linux.
We hope that this publication is very useful for the entire «Comunidad de Software Libre, Código Abierto y GNU/Linux». And don't forget to comment on it below, and share it with others on your favorite websites, channels, groups or communities of social networks or messaging systems. Finally, visit our home page at «DesdeLinux» to explore more news, and join our official channel Telegram from DesdeLinux.