Provide Flatpak or AppImage for immutable/atomic OS

[BadCo-NZ]

Evening,

Thanks for providing this linux app, unfortunately I could not get it going on Fedora Kinoite.

Are you able to supply the app as a Flatpak or AppImage?

[BadCo-NZ]

I'm no developer, but here are some guides I found.

Flatpak:
https://opensource.com/article/19/10/how-build-flatpak-packaging

AppImage:
https://opensource.com/article/19/10/how-build-flatpak-packaging

[sam-k0]

Packaging as a flatpak is something I wanted to do for ages now. I will take a look at how to do it.
Problem is, due to the structure of how this works, its a bit tricky and will most likely take time to figure out.

[sam-k0]

I managed to build a local flatpak version.

Make sure you have flatpak-builder, git and python dependencies installed:

sudo dnf install flatpak flatpak-builder git python3-pip

Then, clone the repo and build flatpak locally, because I haven't submitted to flathub:

git clone https://github.com/sam-k0/WoTModAssistantCore.git
cd WoTModAssistantCore
git checkout flatpak
mkdir -p ModManagerGUI/wheels
pip wheel --wheel-dir=ModManagerGUI/wheels -r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt
flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build-dir eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant.yaml

[BadCo-NZ]

Nice one! I will have to give this a try.

[BadCo-NZ]

I failed trying to build this in a fedora toolbox (because I am on Kinoite and can't install dependencies)

⬢ [badco@toolbx WoTModAssistantCore]$ flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build-dir eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant.yaml
Downloading sources
hint: Using 'master' as the name for the initial branch. This default branch name
hint: is subject to change. To configure the initial branch name to use in all
hint: of your new repositories, which will suppress this warning, call:
hint:
hint:   git config --global init.defaultBranch <name>
hint:
hint: Names commonly chosen instead of 'master' are 'main', 'trunk' and
hint: 'development'. The just-created branch can be renamed via this command:
hint:
hint:   git branch -m <name>
hint:
hint: Disable this message with "git config set advice.defaultBranchName false"
Initialized empty Git repository in /var/home/badco/WoTModAssistantCore/.flatpak-builder/git/https_github.com_sam-k0_WoTModAssistantCore.git-33HBF3/
Fetching git repo https://github.com/sam-k0/WoTModAssistantCore.git, ref refs/heads/flatpak
remote: Enumerating objects: 37, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (37/37), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (36/36), done.
remote: Total 37 (delta 1), reused 20 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (37/37), 519.87 KiB | 3.02 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1/1), done.
From https://github.com/sam-k0/WoTModAssistantCore
 * [new branch]      flatpak    -> flatpak
Initializing build dir
Committing stage init to cache
Starting build of eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant
========================================================================
Building module modmanager-gui in /var/home/badco/WoTModAssistantCore/.flatpak-builder/build/modmanager-gui-1
========================================================================
Switched to branch 'flatpak'
Running: pip3 install --no-index --find-links=ModManagerGUI/wheels --prefix=/app -r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt
Looking in links: ModManagerGUI/wheels
Processing ./ModManagerGUI/wheels/pyside6-6.10.0-cp39-abi3-manylinux_2_34_x86_64.whl (from -r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt (line 3))
Processing ./ModManagerGUI/wheels/requests-2.32.5-py3-none-any.whl (from -r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt (line 6))
Processing ./ModManagerGUI/wheels/pyinstaller-6.16.0-py3-none-manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (from -r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt (line 9))
Processing ./ModManagerGUI/wheels/shiboken6-6.10.0-cp39-abi3-manylinux_2_34_x86_64.whl (from PySide6>=6.0.0->-r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt (line 3))
Processing ./ModManagerGUI/wheels/pyside6_essentials-6.10.0-cp39-abi3-manylinux_2_34_x86_64.whl (from PySide6>=6.0.0->-r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt (line 3))
Processing ./ModManagerGUI/wheels/pyside6_addons-6.10.0-cp39-abi3-manylinux_2_34_x86_64.whl (from PySide6>=6.0.0->-r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt (line 3))
INFO: pip is looking at multiple versions of requests to determine which version is compatible with other requirements. This could take a while.
ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement charset_normalizer<4,>=2 (from requests) (from versions: none)
ERROR: No matching distribution found for charset_normalizer<4,>=2
Error: module modmanager-gui: Child process exited with code 1

⬢ [badco@toolbx WoTModAssistantCore]$ flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build-dir eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant.yaml
Emptying app dir 'build-dir'
Downloading sources
Fetching git repo https://github.com/sam-k0/WoTModAssistantCore.git, ref refs/heads/flatpak
remote: Total 0 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Starting build of eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant
Cache miss, checking out last cache hit
fusermount3: failed to access mountpoint /var/home/badco/WoTModAssistantCore/.flatpak-builder/rofiles/rofiles-PeqIkE: Permission denied
Error: Failure spawning rofiles-fuse, exit_status: 1024

⬢ [badco@toolbx WoTModAssistantCore]$ sudo flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build-dir eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant.yaml
Emptying app dir 'build-dir'
Downloading sources
Fetching git repo https://github.com/sam-k0/WoTModAssistantCore.git, ref refs/heads/flatpak
remote: Total 0 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Starting build of eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant
Cache miss, checking out last cache hit
Error: opendir(rofiles-PeqIkE): Permission denied

[sam-k0]

Okay so there seems to be a couple of things going on here.
First, I think the issue has to do with python dependencies not being found:

INFO: pip is looking at multiple versions of requests to determine which version is compatible with other requirements. This could take a while.
ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement charset_normalizer<4,>=2 (from requests) (from versions: none)

This is probably caused by the fact that not all transitive dependencies have been downloaded to the wheels cache.

I changed the command to the following:
pip wheel --wheel-dir=ModManagerGUI/wheels -r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt --no-cache-dir
This should download all required build wheels to the wheels directory.

As for that, I also changed the requirements.txt to include more explicit instructions for pip, in hope that it will resolve the issue.

So just try to build again using the instructions in readme, or only do the things that really changed (if you already set up a wheels directory etc.):

pip wheel --wheel-dir=ModManagerGUI/wheels -r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt --no-cache-dir
flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build-dir eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant.yaml

Thanks for your help in this, these errors and limitations are kinda new to me as I've never used an immutable distro before 💀

[BadCo-NZ]

Thanks for the reply, I will re-attempt tonight.

I'm no developer, and also not super familiar with github, but couldn't this all be done through github actions?

https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak-github-actions

[BadCo-NZ]

Another attempt, not sure why there is a permission error, the Toolbox should have access to the home directory.

⬢ [badco@toolbx WoTModAssistantCore]$ flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build-dir eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant.yaml

** (flatpak-builder:17894): WARNING **: 21:00:09.449: Unknown property network for type BuilderOptions
Emptying app dir 'build-dir'
Couldn't empty app dir 'build-dir': Removing /var/home/badco/WoTModAssistantCore/build-dir: unlinkat(.gitignore): Permission denied
⬢ [badco@toolbx WoTModAssistantCore]$ sudo flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build-dir eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant.yaml

** (flatpak-builder:17901): WARNING **: 21:00:20.834: Unknown property network for type BuilderOptions
Emptying app dir 'build-dir'
Downloading sources
Fetching git repo https://github.com/sam-k0/WoTModAssistantCore.git, ref refs/heads/flatpak
remote: Enumerating objects: 11, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (11/11), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: Total 6 (delta 4), reused 3 (delta 1), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (6/6), 781 bytes | 781.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (4/4), completed with 4 local objects.
From https://github.com/sam-k0/WoTModAssistantCore
 + c466c44...fb191c7 flatpak    -> flatpak  (forced update)
Starting build of eu.samk0.WoTModAssistant
Cache miss, checking out last cache hit
========================================================================
Building module modmanager-gui in /var/home/badco/WoTModAssistantCore/.flatpak-builder/build/modmanager-gui-2
========================================================================
Switched to branch 'flatpak'
Running: pip3 install --no-index --find-links=ModManagerGUI/wheels --prefix=/app -r ModManagerGUI/requirements.txt
bwrap: Can't find source path /var/home/badco/WoTModAssistantCore/.flatpak-builder/rofiles/rofiles-PeqIkE/files: Permission denied
Error: module modmanager-gui: Child process exited with code 1

[sam-k0]

Thanks for trying. Coming up, I will try to build a flatpak file which I will try to share directly with you, if building doesn't work for whatever reason.
Will try it in a couple of hours 😄

[sam-k0]

Greetings, I managed to export a .flatpak bundle file which I attached to the releases, you can find it at the link below:

https://github.com/sam-k0/WoTModAssistantCore/releases/tag/2025.11.05-flatpak

Install instructions are your typical flatpak install ...

The file size is quite bloated due to the fact that I bundled all runtimes with it, to minimize compatiblity issues. I'll see if I can get it smaller.