How to use flathub-beta

In addition to the existing stable repository Flathub offers a repository for beta builds. This isn’t meant to be used for nightly builds, but for releases that has some level of testing and are expected to mostly work and be usable to non-developer end-users.

Adding flathub-beta:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo

Note: --if-not-exists is not really needed

Install an application:

flatpak install flathub-beta org.godotengine.Godot

Note: --user installs the application for only the current user, others cannot see/use the app!

Alternatively, you can use a flatpakref, which are generated for each app:

flatpak install https://flathub.org/beta-repo/appstream/org.godotengine.Godot.flatpakref

If you install both the beta and the stable version of an app then they will be installed in parallel. However, only one will be showed in the menus. You can switch which one is currently showed like this:

flatpak make-current org.godotengine.Godot *[beta|stable]*

But from the command line you can always start any installed version explicitly, like this:

flatpak run --branch=beta org.godotengine.Godot

or

flatpak run org.godotengine.Godot//beta

Removing flathub-beta:

flatpak remote-delete flathub-beta

Further reading/sources

6 Likes

I don’t see .Debug extension is available for beta channel:

$ flatpak install --user flathub-beta  app.organicmaps.desktop.Debug
Looking for matches…
error: Nothing matches app.organicmaps.desktop.Debug in remote flathub-beta

Is the debug info included there already maybe?