Flatpak

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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.

Known Issues

• We do not ship the Python Bindings,
• no direct report printing (printing to file works) and
• an only on Ubuntu derivates watched bug that causes guile to attempt to recompile all scm sources:

  :
  ;;; 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 '{}' ';'

• To use smart cards, at least Flatpak 1.3.2 needs to be installed on your system. Complain against your distribution if they do not offer it.
• Current list

Installation

Examples for Ubuntu or Debian (in Buster, Flatpak is already included, for Stretch and Jessie backports exist):

Hint

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

zypper install flatpak

for many rpm based distributions.

Regular releases from flathub.org

You can have both the regular, currently GnuCash 5.10, and beta branches installed at the same time.

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

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

Test version from 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 5.10 plus all recent bug fixes, but no new features: code.gnucash.org/builds/flatpak/maint/

Master

Version 5.10 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.

The current version contains Aqbanking 6.1.0 (PSD2 capable of online banking via FinTS/HBCI (german) protocol; date of this information: 2020-02-20).

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.

Tips

Maintenance

You should — also if no new GnuCash version was announced — sometimes run

sudo flatpak update  # sudo is only required for systemwide installations

to to look for updated components of your Flatpak environment. That might look like:

        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]:

It is primarly important, if you reported a problem about which the Gnucash-Developers said, its cause lies not in Gnucash but one of the by Flatpak installed Gnome libraries. But also for security reasons you should keep your environment up to date.

Note

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

Getting Console Output

In case of trouble get the console output:

flatpak run org.gnucash.GnuCash

or even better

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

To call command line tools like aqbanking-cli

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

opens a shell inside the sandbox of GnuCash.

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

Granting Access to Other Resources

Each flatpak is a sandbox. To allow it e.g. access to your USB drive, execute

sudo flatpak override org.gnucash.GnuCash --filesystem=<path-to-your-usb>

See also

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

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.

Other

Migration from normal package to flatpak (german)