Considering there are several apt’s that we do not currently have the ability to run as flatpak, most notably VPN’s among others. I was wandering if someone could make a snap emulator to run such app’s.
While many can be run in a VM it is often the case that that the purpose of the apt is defeated by the virtual environment being isolated from the main os, and / or drives.
I have seen several posts on other sites that mention vpn’s can not work as flatpak because they require elevated privileges to create tap or tun devices. If that is the case for one castigatory of networking software I imagine other categories of networking software will have similar issues
While I understand the concept of a VM I am not well versed in the deployment of them, and the few I have seen on flathub do not seem to allow for access to a drive external to the virtualised environment. This makes applications used for downloading, and ripping inconvenient to use in a VM.
I propose a flatpak that emulates an environment in which instances of snap apt’s can be run.
the flatpak would contain snap and it’s dependencies a gui and be able to load a snap apt and it’s dependencies and then run it.
installing a snap apt and it’s dependencies in to a flatpack would mean the flatpak would take up alot of space. So I would suggest the flatpack creates some kind of partition or reserved space in RAM to install snap, it’s dependencies and the instances of snap apt’s and their dependencies.
To create a quick and automated start-up the flatpak could work on some kind of code that contains a list of where the repositories are on the web and the commands to run in order to install them in to RAM.
Maybe my hardware knowledge is not up to scratch this area. However I read that Private Internet Access VPN run their entire service off RAM and not off HDD’s, SSD’s, or Media Drives.
If they can do that for a global service, surly a flatpak application can use RAM to emulate and run the snap environment while keeping it, any snap apt instances and the dependencies required sandboxed by the flatpak apt. While still providing access to the main os, elevated privileges and storage.
I do not have the necessary skill in coding to create such an apt.
The largest apt I created was a python program that said hello, asked me my name and then said hello to me. That was yesterday.
I am still learning how to use python, and it’s syntax, so I would not be the person to code this.
However I would be happy to work with someone who has the necessary skills to create such an apt for flatpak.
I have a few ideas about layout and design, however python is my first programming language, so please do not expect me to present in code. I will try and present them as technicaly as I am able to however I am not even up to scratch on BBS code (I think that is the code used for making posts online)
I know little bits of different languages, but not enough from any one language to write any kind of useful script or code line.
If you would like to work with me on this expect lots of long plain text posts and hash tag comments in between bits of code.
I look forward to hearing everyone’s replys and hope to find someone who would be willing to program this.
FYI I am just starting a computer science course on khan academy in preparation for doing an online GCSE in the subject once I have the money saved up.
So what I may lack in knoledge about the subject at the moment, I am already on my way to learning.