Flatpak

Flatpak is for 64 bit Linux Clients only. All Flatpak commands accept the optional --user parameter, making the operation affect the current user only and not the whole system.

A word of warning first, though: If you are short on hard drive space or hate bloat, Flatpak is not for you. Every Flatpak app requires that you also install a runtime; we use the most lightweight one with about 700 Mb. Runtimes are shared between apps so in a world where Flatpak has taken over, their space usage does not matter that much; you can think of it as a Linux distribution, or rather a family of distributions, that sits on top of your own Linux system. The initially large download is minimally compensated for later by savings in downloads for updates; those use differential compression and will not transfer unchanged data and libraries again. Still, it is a lot of data over the wire and on your system.

Flathub

Armagetron Advanced can be installed from Flathub using the instruction there, or with

flatpak install https://download.armagetronad.org/flatpak/armagetronad-flathub.flatpakref

Own Repository

The most current Armagetron Advanced builds are in our own small repository, you can add it to your system with

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists armaflat https://download.armagetronad.org/flatpak/armaflat.flatpakrepo

You can browse the repository in the usual way (flatpak remote-ls armaflat on the command line) and install the builds from the repository:

# releases
flatpak install armaflat org.armagetronad.ArmagetronAdvanced//stable

# release candidates
flatpak install armaflat org.armagetronad.ArmagetronAdvanced//rc

# betas
flatpak install armaflat org.armagetronad.ArmagetronBeta

# alphas
flatpak install armaflat org.armagetronad.ArmagetronAlpha

# experimentals
flatpak install armaflat org.armagetronad.ArmagetronExperimental

There are more branches for org.armagetronad.ArmagetronAdvanced; if you are not interested in having multiple branches installed without older versions overwriting configuration files of newer versions, you can install the alpha and beta branch for that. If you want a version that will stick to the 0.2.9 series forever, install stable_0.2.9.

Direct References

If you don’t want to add the repository, you can also install them using these direct references (just click; your system may have an app installed that knows what to do with them):

• Stable Releases
• Release Candidates
• Beta Builds
• Alpha Builds
• Experimental Builds

Or over the commandline:

flatpak install https://download.armagetronad.org/flatpak/armagetronad-stable.flatpakref
flatpak install https://download.armagetronad.org/flatpak/armagetronad-rc.flatpakref
flatpak install https://download.armagetronad.org/flatpak/armagetronad-beta.flatpakref
flatpak install https://download.armagetronad.org/flatpak/armagetronad-alpha.flatpakref
flatpak install https://download.armagetronad.org/flatpak/armagetronad-experimental.flatpakref

(This will still add the repository, but in a hidden way so it won’t appear in GUI browsers.)

Running

There will be a start menu entry added for you. It is set up so that it can play back debug recordings, you should be able to assign it to be used when you open an .aarec file.

On the command line, a basic run is done with either one of

flatpak run org.armagetronad.ArmagetronAdvanced
flatpak run org.armagetronad.ArmagetronBeta
flatpak run org.armagetronad.ArmagetronAlpha
flatpak run org.armagetronad.ArmagetronExperimental

If you have both the release and release candidates installed, you can either select the one you want with an additional --branch=rc or --branch=stable argument, or permantently set the one to run with

flatpak make-current org.armagetronad.ArmagetronAdvanced <branch name>

You have to be aware of the big specialty of Flatpak: Armagetron runs in a sandbox and cannot see most of your files. That’s a problem if you want to record or play back debug recordings. The Flatpak developers thought of that and implemented file forwarding. Give it the --file-forwarding extra command line argument and everything between @@ and @@ in the command line is made visible. So you can playback a recording with

flatpak run --file-forwarding org.armagetronad.ArmagetronAdvanced @@ bug.aarec @@

Creating a recording requires you to create a dummy file, or forwarding will not work:

touch bug.aarec; flatpak run --file-forwarding org.armagetronad.ArmagetronAdvanced --record @@ bug.aarec @@

And if you want to use custom data directories, things get really hairy. To help you, we have an external Flatpak that just contains a script for building the correct command line. Install it with

flatpak install https://download.armagetronad.org/flatpak/armagetronad-launcher.flatpakref

Call it with

flatpak run org.armagetronad.ArmagetronLauncher <your arguments>

As an additional argument, you can specify --branch <branch name>. That selects one of the non-default branches.

The default configuration data is also not in its usual space, but in the sandboxed areas ~/.var/app/org.armagetronad.Armagetron*/. Use the game’s “About” page for details.

Further Remarks

All these packages can coexist; only Release Candidates and Releases share data. flatpak update updates you to the current versions.

Uninstallation

You can get rid of all installed versions with one simple command:

flatpak uninstall org.armagetronad.

and remove the repository with

flatpak remote-delete armaflat