Revision as of 08:25, 20 October 2021

Flatpaks are bundles which besides the program also contain all required libraries. Use cases:

• If your Linux distribution is too old to offer all required libraries but has Flatpak support, you can install a recent released version of GnuCash from the FlatHub repository.
• If a developer asks you to test a patch, you can use a nightly version from our Flatpak repository.

Note flatpak's Sandbox concept: it uses files in

$HOME/.var/app/org.gnucash.GnuCash/ and

$HOME/.local/share/flatpak/app/org.gnucash.GnuCash/

Known Issues

• We do not ship the Python Bindings,
• no direct report printing, but printing them to file and direct printing of checks works and

Potential loss of settings

This happens when a few conditions coincide:

• On your host system you are using (or have been using) GnuCash 4.7 or older
• You install or upgrade to flatpak GnuCash 4.5 or newer

Under these conditions your flatpak GnuCash preferences will be reset due to changes internal to flatpak itself. We have created a fix for this in GnuCash 4.7 (native) in combination with flatpak GnuCash 4.8-1. Unfortunately this fix can only work if you have run GnuCash 4.7 (or more recent) at least once natively on your host system before running GnuCash 4.8-1 or more recent in flatpak. This is currently (at the time of the flatpak 4.8-1 release) unlikely to happen unless the user makes quite an effort. Over time this situation will improve.

In case you hit this issue there are a few ways forward:

• If you can run GnuCash 4.7+ natively on your host and you have installed GnuCash flatpak 4.8-1+

• do run GnuCash 4.7+ natively at least once and
• (re)move the file $HOME/.var/app/org.gnucash.GnuCash/config/glib-2.0/settings/keyfile. The next time you start GnuCash flatpak it will import your preferences from your host GnuCash.

• If you're not in a position you can run GnuCash 4.7+ natively on your host and you didn't tweak a lot of preferences

• the easiest fix then is probably to manually go through and set the preferences you tweaked before the first time you start flatpak GnuCash 4.5 or above. They should stay set after that.

• If you do want to restore your preferences while not able to run GnuCash 4.7+ natively on your host

• you can run the following commands in a shell:

  # Backup your current sandbox settings:
  cp $HOME/.var/app/org.gnucash.GnuCash/config/glib-2.0/settings/keyfile \
    $HOME/gnucash-settings.save
  # Real conversion:
  dconf dump /org/gnucash/ > \
    $HOME/.var/app/org.gnucash.GnuCash/config/glib-2.0/settings/keyfile
  perl -pi.bkp -e's!^[[]![org/gnucash/!' \
    $HOME/.var/app/org.gnucash.GnuCash/config/glib-2.0/settings/keyfile
  

For the nitty-gritty details that causes this issue, refer to Bug 798194

• Current list

Resolved

• To use smart cards:
  1. At least Flatpak 1.3.2 needs to be installed on your system.
  2. Because the software on our build server is to old, you have to follow the inststruction in #Granting Access to Other Resources.
• All current versions are PSD2 capable—a EU directive—of online banking via FinTS/Online-Banking (german) protocol.
• Current versions of GnuCash flatpak will no longer attempt to recompile all scm sources though it will continue to emit warnings about obsolete .go files:

  :
  ;;; note: source file /app/share/guile//2.2/ice-9/eval.scm
  ;;;       newer than compiled /app/lib/guile/2.2/ccache/ice-9/eval.go
  :
  

Workaround:

# --system install
cd /var/lib/flatpak/app/org.gnucash.GnuCash
# OR --user install
cd $HOME/.local/share/flatpak/app/org.gnucash.GnuCash

sudo find . -name '*.go' -exec touch '{}' ';'

Installation

You can configure many package managers like Gnome Software or KDE's Discover to at least install or update Flatpaks from Flathub, but on this page we will use the more powerful flatpak command line tool. The examples to install flatpak itself are written for Debian (in Buster Flatpak is already included, for Stretch and Jessie backports exist) and its derivates like Ubuntu.

Hint

For other distributions replace apt* <command> by your preferred commandline software managment tool and its command, i.e. for many rpm based distributions

zypper install flatpak

FlatPak.org offers Instructions for several distributions.

Regular releases at flathub.org

You can have both the regular, currently GnuCash 5.9, and beta branches installed at the same time.

Note

The current versions contain Aqbanking 6.5.4.

Betas (GnuCash 5.9xx) are previews and only released in the last months before the next main version, see Release Schedule.

See also Flathub

For Stable Releases

# Install FlatPak (on debian based distributions, others have to replace 'apt-get install'):
sudo apt-get install flatpak

# Register FlatHub repository for a system app (available to all users):
sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
# or only you:
flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

# Install GnuCash ...
# for all users:
#  sudo is only needed for a --system install, if the user is not in the 'sudo' group
#  --system is the default if --user is not specified
sudo flatpak install --system flathub org.gnucash.GnuCash
# or only you:
flatpak install --user flathub org.gnucash.GnuCash

# Run GnuCash:
flatpak run org.gnucash.GnuCash

Default App Installation Locations

  --system (all users)    /var/lib/flatpak
  --user                  ~/.local/share/flatpak

Tip

To get the most recent version, run each quarter year (see Release Schedule):

flatpak update

For Unstable (i.e., beta) Releases

Do the process for stable releases, but register, install, and run as follows.

# Register:
flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo
# Install
flatpak install --user flathub-beta org.gnucash.GnuCash
# Run
flatpak run --branch=beta org.gnucash.GnuCash

Downgrading

It can't be done from the average package manager, but it can be done from the command line. It's a two-step command:

flatpak remote-info --log flathub org.gnucash.GnuCash # list all commits in the repo
flatpak update --commit=HASH org.gnucash.GnuCash # checkout commit HASH in the repo

The only gotcha is that if you have more than one repo that has org.gnucash.GnuCash I haven't found a way to tell the command which repo you want to manipulate. It seems flatpak will update all installed versions. If you have one app installed from our nightlies and one from flathub, the above command will fail as only the flathub repo will have the proper commit hash.

Nightly Test Versions at gnucash.org

Warning

Save your data before using test versions!

Often you can find test versions on the build-server. They come in two flavours:

Maint

Version 5.9 plus all recent bug fixes, but no new features: code.gnucash.org/builds/flatpak/maint/

Master

Version 5.9 plus new features, but bug fixes can be delayed a few days: code.gnucash.org/builds/flatpak/master/

Tip

The file names in these directories can be used in the example below after trimming the „gnucash-“ prefix and „.flatpakref“ suffix.

Note

The current version contains Aqbanking 6.5.12beta.

sudo apt install flatpak  #install Flatpak
# register repositories:
sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists gnucash https://code.gnucash.org/builds/flatpak/gnucash-nightlies.flatpakrepo
sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak --arch=x86_64 remote-ls gnucash  # show all packages
# output should be:
# org.gnucash.GnuCash
# org.gnucash.GnuCash.Debug
# org.gnucash.GnuCash.Locale
sudo flatpak --arch=x86_64 install gnucash org.gnucash.GnuCash//maint-C3.8b-163-g0e6c9e219-D3.8b-15-g0479ece  # <-- change version here!
flatpak run org.gnucash.GnuCash  # start program

Note

flatpak --arch=x86_64 is only required, if you have a 64-bit processor with a 32-bit OS.

Configuration

Granting Access to Other Resources

As each Flatpak app runs in a sandbox, you have to unloock additionally required resources like

USB Drive

# After configuring automatic mounting of the drive in the host system
sudo flatpak override org.gnucash.GnuCash --filesystem=$PATH_TO_DRIVE

Smartcard Reader

To use smart cards in AqBanking

1. on the host—your Linux PC—the demon pcscd must be running,
2. the related socket must become unlocked for your GnuCash-Flatpak once:

   sudo flatpak override org.gnucash.GnuCash --socket=pcsc
   

If sudo is required depends on the rest of your installatiom.

See also

https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/en/latest/sandbox-permissions.html

Changing the Locale

Refer to Locale Settings to determine the settings required.

Refer to Configuration Locations - System-wide for instructions on how to change Flatpak environment variables using flatpak override.

Tips

Getting Console Output

flatpak run org.gnucash.GnuCash

flatpak run org.gnucash.GnuCash --logto stdout

The latter will print all logs to the console rather than to an inaccessible trace file.

Using Command Line Tools

flatpak run --command=sh org.gnucash.GnuCash

Inside you can call related shell commands for Online Banking like aqbanking-cli… or Online Quotes gnc-fq-* etc.

flatpak run --command=gnucash-cli org.gnucash.GnuCash --quotes get /path/to/file.gnucash

Notice the order of the arguments!

SQL Connection

Use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost. The latter will tell the mysql client to use unix file sockets. These are not permitted by default by the flatpak sandbox. You can enable permissions for this on your gnucash flatpak, though I don't know offhand where the unix socket is located. You'll have to figure that out first (it will look like a file on your system somewhere) and then use the flatpak override commmand to tell it to allow access to that file for the org.gnucash.GnuCash package.

Using 127.0.0.1 on the other hand will force mysql to use a real network connection. Those are not restricted in the GnuCash flatpak.

More details: FlatHub GnuCash issue 17

Maintenance

sudo flatpak update  # sudo is only required for systemwide installations

        ID                                    Zweig  Op  Remote   Download
 1.     org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default   19.08  u   flathub   < 85,1 MB
 2.     org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel  19.08  u   flathub    < 8,7 MB
 3.     org.gnome.Platform.Locale             3.34   u   flathub  < 322,2 MB (partial)
 4.     org.gnome.Platform                    3.34   u   flathub  < 320,4 MB
 5.     org.gnome.Sdk.Locale                  3.34   u   flathub  < 325,8 MB (partial)
 6.     org.gnome.Sdk                         3.34   u   flathub  < 663,9 MB

Proceed with these changes to the user installation? [Y/n]:

Note

You can learn more about the Available Runtimes, Sandbox Permissions Reference …

Crash: Stacktrace

$ flatpak-coredumpctl --help
usage: Debug in gdb an application that crashed inside flatpak. It uses (and thus requires) coredumpctl to retrieve the coredump file.
       [-h] [-b BUILD_DIRECTORY] [--extra-flatpak-args EXTRA_FLATPAK_ARGS] [-m [COREDUMPCTL_MATCHES]]
       [--gdb-arguments GDB_ARGUMENTS]
       [app]

positional arguments:
  app                   The flatpak application to use. eg. `org.gnome.Epiphany//3.28`.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -b BUILD_DIRECTORY, --build-directory BUILD_DIRECTORY
                        The build directory to use. It allows you to retrieve a coredump for applications being built
  --extra-flatpak-args EXTRA_FLATPAK_ARGS
                        Extra argument to pass to flatpak
  -m [COREDUMPCTL_MATCHES], --coredumpctl-matches [COREDUMPCTL_MATCHES]
                        Coredumpctl matches, see `man coredumpctl` for more information.
  --gdb-arguments GDB_ARGUMENTS
                        Arguments to pass to gdb.

For other debug options see Debugging.

GTK Inspector

flatpak run --env=GTK_DEBUG=interactive org.gnucash.GnuCash

Other

Migration from normal package to flatpak (german)