Firefox Flatpak Packaging

This page explains interactions between Firefox and Flatpak packaging format.

Where is the upstream

The code reference itself is mozilla-central and the repackaging is under the mach repackage flatpak command.

Where to report bugs

All bugs should be reported to Bugzilla in the appropriate component depending on the bug and marked as blocking the flatpak meta-bug.

Build process

Perform a build and then run mach repackage flatpak, e.g.:

$ mach repackage flatpak \
                 --input target.tar.xz \
                 --name org.mozilla.firefox \
                 --arch aarch64 \
                 --version 137.0a1 \
                 --product firefox \
                 --release-type nightly \
                 --flatpak-branch nightly \
                 --template-dir browser/installer/linux/app/flatpak \
                 --langpack-pattern $PWD/langpacks/*.xpi \
                 --output test.flatpak.tar.xz,

Where target.tar.xz can be a downloaded artifact from try build or built from a local build. You will also want to download some langpack.

How to hack on try

Pushing to try is basically just:

$ mach try fuzzy --full -q "'repackage 'flatpak !shippable"`

This will produce a repackage flatpak task at the end that generates a target.flatpak.tar.xz.

Installing the try build

Download and extract the previously generated target.flatpak.tar.xz and it will produce a ./repo directory that you can directly use with flatpak:

$ flatpak --user --no-gpg-verify remote-add firefox-try ./repo/

This should add you a user-level firefox-try flatpak remote, you can verify with (flathub remote may be a user or a system level remote):

$ flatpak remotes
Name        Options
firefox-try user
flathub     user

Then you can install your local build:

$ flatpak install firefox-try firefox
Looking for matches…
Found ref ‘app/org.mozilla.firefox/x86_64/nightly’ in remote ‘firefox-try’ (user).
Use this ref? [Y/n]: y

org.mozilla.firefox permissions:
    ipc          network                cups                  fallback-x11            pcsc                         pulseaudio       wayland       x11       devices
    devel        file access [1]        dbus access [2]       bus ownership [3]       system dbus access [4]

    [1] /run/.heim_org.h5l.kcm-socket, xdg-download, xdg-run/speech-dispatcher:ro
    [2] org.a11y.Bus, org.freedesktop.FileManager1, org.gtk.vfs.*
    [3] org.mozilla.firefox.*, org.mozilla.firefox_beta.*, org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.firefox.*
    [4] org.freedesktop.NetworkManager


        ID                                              Branch                 Op            Remote                 Download
 1. [✓] org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default             24.08                  u             flathub                 67,3 Mo / 156,6 Mo
 2. [✓] org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default             24.08extra             u             flathub                  3,9 Mo / 156,6 Mo
 3. [✓] org.freedesktop.Platform.Locale                 24.08                  u             flathub                282,1 Ko / 380,3 Mo
 4. [✓] org.freedesktop.Platform                        24.08                  u             flathub                 25,4 Mo / 264,4 Mo
 5. [✓] org.mozilla.firefox.Locale                      nightly                i             firefox-try              1,0 Ko / 1,6 Mo
 6. [✓] org.mozilla.firefox                             nightly                i             firefox-try              1,0 Ko / 111,5 Mo

Changes complete.

And after that you can just run flatpak run org.mozilla.firefox//nightly.