1y ago

Make Inkscape installed through Flatpak callable in the terminal as 'inkscape'?

I have a Python-package that calls Inkscape as part of a conversion process. I have it installed, but through Flatpak. This means that calling inkscape does not work in the terminal, but rather flatpak run org.inkscape.Inkscape. I need the package to be able to call it as inkscape.

What is the best way to go about this?

26 comments

alias inkscape="flatpak run org.inkscape.Inkscape" into your .bashrc.
- Yeah, I tried this, and it works from my session, but I still got the same error from trying to run the program. I figured it was because it is called outside the bash session so the run commands have not been run, but is that perhaps not true?
  
  If that's the case, it's a bit of an ugly hack but you could make a wrapper script placed in /usr/local/bin/inkscape like this:
  
  #!/bin/bash flatpack run org.inkscape.Inkscape ${*}
  (the ${*} will pass along all the arguments that the wrapper script was called with)

Flatpak already creates executable wrappers for all applications as part of regular installs, though they're by default named as the full package name.
For when inkscape has been installed into the system-wide Flatpak installation, you could simply symlink it like; ln -s /var/lib/flatpak/exports/bin/org.inkscape.Inkscape /usr/local/bin/inkscape
For the user-local installation, the exported runnable is in ~/.local/share/flatpak/exports/bin instead.
- I handle it more like ln -s /var/lib/flatpak/exports/bin/org.inkscape.Inkscape ~/.local/bin/inkscape
  .local/bin is a directory that you may have to make, but your shell's startup scripts should automatically add it to the PATH after that.
  
  I personally use ~/.bin for my own symlinks, though I also use the user-specific installation instead of the system-wide one.
  I wouldn't guarantee that any automation handles ~/.local/bin or ~/.bin either, that would depend entirely on the distribution. In my case I've added both to PATH manually.

Put a shell script in your PATH named inkscape with the following content:

#!/bin/sh flatpak run org.inkscape.Inkscape
Note that you can use a local folder in your home directory to house small executables and scripts like this, so you don't have to touch your system config. I generally recommend using something like ~/.local/bin and add it to your PATH via your Shell's RC file.
- How does this deal with any flags passed?
  
  If you need to pass flags you can use
  
  flatpak run org.inkscape.Inkscape "$@"
  To forward all of the arguments to the script. Note that this might be a bashism, so you might need to change your hash bang to /bin/bash as well. Double check though.
  (An easy way to check if something is working as you assume is just prepend the line with echo.)
- Or instead just make it an alias in your .bashrc

Two utilities that may be handy for you here:
Pakrat: Automates and simplifies the process of creating alliases for flatpaks, good if you just need to make a few programs be simplified
Fuzzpak: Lets you do fuzzy searches for flatpaks(as in you just write fuzzpak inkscape and it auto looks for something with inkscape in the flatpak folder and launches it), good for when you want to simplify launching flatpaks in general without doing the process of configuring stuff manually

You can do an alias for the shell you use or make a symlink to /usr/local/bin/ for the entire system.
There are importany reasons why this is not the default, but you can do it as long as you are away you have done it. Like when programs installed via package manager and flatpak starts conflicting, you'll know why.

alias?

Why don't you check for both and use the one that's available, otherwise print an error. Additionally you could read an env INKSCAPE_BIN and also include that in your checks.
So one could for example do INKSCAPE_BIN='distrobox enter arch -- inkscape' python main.py
- It is not my package, but I could of course go ahead and change the source code directly to handle this. But I'd prefer a solution that would persist through updates.

You can use symbolic links, alias...
- I actually didn't know about the symbolic link meathod. Thanks!

Use this https://github.com/DLopezJr/fp

A good argument against containerization of programs tbh.
- Yup, pack it up folks. We spent years working to solve containerized applications with a granular permission system, but we can't figure out how to make an executable run a command. It was a good run, but it's over now.
  
  Finally someone got the point instead of just downvoting. 🤣
- A good argument against DOS 2.0 adding directories

26 comments