Support flatpak

[baimafeima]

The best solution is obviously to have mullvadvpvn-app included in the repositories of an operating system. But as this will take lots of time and people use different operating systems, could you make an additional flatpak release for easier cross-platform installation? This would also allow to have it hosted on Flathub and attract more potential users. When making a Flatpak release, keep in mind that the security will depend on how well it is packaged by the vendor.

[thomhoess]

Please! I'm on Solus and it's a hassle to get up and running, if not Flatpak maybe Appimage (#1123 ) or Snap (#847 ) - one of them would be sufficient, it would be great to have it in an format in which it can run everywhere - my personal taste would say to make a flatpak. Thank you!

[encryptophile]

+1 for this. I've been a Mullvad user years, and strongly support the project. Offering a universial installation package (Flatpak, Appimage, etc) would be extremely helpful.

[joffaMac]

Please, make a flatpak of your great product. Please. Thank you.

[Ramblurr]

The Silverblue team at Fedora offered to help do this.. https://twitter.com/teamsilverblue/status/1273212527137165313

Did anyone at mullvad ever followup? The Silverblue team would be a great resource to tap to create a flatpak.

[joffaMac]

Thanks for following up but alas no, Mullvad seem to have absolutely no interest in making a flatpak. Back on 1Nov2020 I sent an email asking and got this reply:

 We currently don't offer any flatpack. We do only offer a rpm and .deb package currently.
 I will forward the information to our developers but I don't think we currently will add any flatpack.

I've done a couple of reply tweets to some of the Mullvad news updates since that email, trying to suggest they make a flatpak, but never had a comment/reply back.

As I'm just a user and not a developer, I've decided Mullvad clearly have no interest in flatpak, so I use the CLI on my 2 Fedora Silverblue machines (as per this url - https://blogs.gnome.org/thaller/2019/03/15/wireguard-in-networkmanager/) and their app on my Android phone.

[1player]

Any update? This has been open for 3 years, and Flatpaks are here to stay. Can the community help in any way?

[joffaMac]

Any update? This has been open for 3 years, and Flatpaks are here to stay. Can the community help in any way?

No update from me as I read somewhere recently that Mullvad don't have the resources/time to look at a flatpak version - if the community can help, then please go for it.

[poperigby]

Still no update?

[ghost]

Any update? This has been open for 3 years, and Flatpaks are here to stay. Can the community help in any way?

No update from me as I read somewhere recently that Mullvad don't have the resources/time to look at a flatpak version - if the community can help, then please go for it.

Still no update?

Any update why not drop Snap one and do Flatpak instead ?
Snap is used exclusivly on ubuntu, so dropping it for flatpak (any distribution is better).

[faern]

We don't have any Snap support to drop. Any Snap package you find is a third party package. We only distribute the Linux app via the RPM and DEB files we upload to our website and Github. ANY other distribution method is an unofficial third party distribution of our app on Linux.

[Kabouik]

This is not a great long term solution, but you might be interested in this: #3412

simplescreenrecorder.mp4

[ghost]

I wish for an official flatpak support as well. I've been using Mullvad for months, but I recently moved to Linux and decided to use Arch distro, and while the GUI client is available through AUR, it's not maintained by Mullvad, is it?

The installation instructions for Linux on Mullvad website mentions AUR package here:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mullvad-vpn-bin
The arch wiki mentions this one instead:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mullvad-vpn

Both are maintained by the same maintainer.

Might be unrelated, but the package requires importing GPG key from Mullvad itself during installation, which enhances security. I have checked the PKGBUILDS, and while they don't have malicious code in them, does Mullvad trust this maintainer, and can I trust this them too? Having unofficial maintainer of a sensitive application gives me slight concern. Of course, I can always use wireguard, but I just want to be sure.

[faern]

Arch distro, and while the GUI client is available through AUR, it's not maintained by Mullvad, is it?

Correct. The AUR packages are not maintained by us!

Regarding mullvad-vpn-bin vs mullvad-vpn. The former just unpacks a prebuilt package. The latter builds the app from source. If packaged correctly both should yield the same app.

I have checked the PKGBUILDS, and while they don't have malicious code in them, does Mullvad trust this maintainer, and can I trust this them too?

We don't endorse the usage of this third party package. We have also not seen any malicious code in that package. But since we are not in control of the package we can't give any guarantees as to how it will behave in the future. You are correct to be concerned. If you want to be careful, check out the PKGBUILDS before each upgrade, or use vanilla WireGuard IMO.

[dginovker]

I've posted a Request on Flathub's Discourse, if everyone can go show support over there we might get the attention of someone in the community with the talent to do this 🎉! https://discourse.flathub.org/t/vpn-mullvad-vpn/2594

[who-biz]

@thomhoess

Please! I'm on Solus and it's a hassle to get up and running, if not Flatpak maybe Appimage (#1123 ) or Snap (#847 ) - one of them would be sufficient, it would be great to have it in an format in which it can run everywhere - my personal taste would say to make a flatpak. Thank you!

I have made an AppImage-compiling source available here: https://github.com/who-biz/mullvadvpn-app-appimage. I am running it on Solus. See README for additional information, and use these steps as support if you get confused: https://discuss.getsol.us/d/7853-mullvad-client-20215.

Converting the build config in gui/tasks/distribution.js should not be difficult if you'd like to modify it further to generate a Flatpak instead.

[sunjam]

Every time my Mullvad VPN statusbar icon has a yellow dot I have to manually download a deb file, then search online for the terminal command

Try adding the repository to your sources list. That will make it part of the regular system update process on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora. This is will assuage the need for any searching or additional commands.

[Mosswool]

I would like to voice my support for a mullvad flatpak as well.

If the concern is that the platform is too containerized, it is my understanding that individual packages can disclose the the access they'll need beforehand, including firewall, network, etc., presumably anything a VPN client may need. I've even seen apps who's requirements simply list "full system access".

Having a flatpak would be a boon to many users on immutable linux distributions. Thank you very much for considering it.

[codenyte]

+1 for Flatpak, as I just tried to install Mullvad on Bazzite (Universal Blue/Fedora Atomic) and bricked my system. Not the fault of Mullvad, rpm-ostree isn't a particularly great solution, but that's why Flatpak is needed for the image-based future of Linux distributions.

[Kabouik]

Actually installing Mullvad's .deb package on Droidian (droidian.org, basically Deian onto the Android kernel) also soft-bricked the system. This was more than a year ago and I didn't mention it because I thought it was specific to that unusual OS, ut if that was observed on another one, maybe it's worth mentioning. I could fix the sysh1stem from a recovery shell, to manualy uninstall the package and revert all the changes it made.

…

On 2024-09-23 08:59 codenyte ***@***.***> wrote: +1 for Flatpak, as I just tried to install Mullvad on Bazzite (Universal Blue/Fedora Atomic) and bricked my system. Not the fault of Mullvad, rpm-ostree isn't a particularly great solution, but that's why Flatpak is needed for the image-based future of Linux distributions. -- Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #524 (comment) 369959 You are receiving this because you commented. Message ID: ***@***.***>

[Dark-Thoughts]

+1 for Flatpak, as I just tried to install Mullvad on Bazzite (Universal Blue/Fedora Atomic) and bricked my system. Not the fault of Mullvad, rpm-ostree isn't a particularly great solution, but that's why Flatpak is needed for the image-based future of Linux distributions.

How did you even install it? If I try to install the .rpm file it just gives me an error. I tried installing Mullvad through various DistroBox instances but also without any success, since they don't seem to work with the needed background service or something. I can only use the static wireguard option but that's very limiting with how many sites block the various Mullvad IPs, which usually require for a quick switch of the servers. I'm already contemplating to shell out the addition 5 bucks for Proton-VPN, since they seem to have a Flathub hosted client. :(

[codenyte]

How did you even install it?

Just a simple rpm-ostree install file.rpm It initially appeared to have worked, but after rebooting, I realized that it broke my system.

Proton-VPN, since they seem to have a Flathub hosted client

Just so you know, it's an unofficial package. And their Linux client is incredibly buggy, I randomly get logged out all the time, connections fail, the app crashes or the server list just disappears. It's borderline unusable on all the distros I tried (Arch, Artix, Fedora, Fedora Silverblue, openSUSE)

I just switched back to regular Fedora, since Silverblue is to annoying and restrictive for me

[eylenburg]

Just so you know, it's an unofficial package.

Not for much longer though: flathub/com.protonvpn.www#349

[Dark-Thoughts]

Just a simple rpm-ostree install file.rpm It initially appeared to have worked, but after rebooting, I realized that it broke my system.

That's exactly what errors out for me, but I guess that's a good thing if it indeed breaks the system. I've heard layering installs is generally not recommended though.

I just switched back to regular Fedora, since Silverblue is to annoying and restrictive for me

Tried Fedora KDE before Bazzite and using the provided guides to install the media codecs broke the system for me. lol
I get the frustration too though. I just don't know what Distro to even try at this point because a lot of them either break or have issues straight out of the box and I guess the immutable nature of Bazzite causes it to already have a somewhat secure system backup function.

[randshell]

I appreciate the Mullvad team added the rpm repository actually. I think it's great to not have to do the package install manually and also have everything updated on a new release.

As for the immutable distros, at least for me, I had no issues layering the app from the Mullvad repo on Fedora Kinoite. In fact, it's been all working smoothly since an year ago when the repo was online.

[ZethiaZ]

+1 for this request as well. I understand flatpaks are a bit complicated for VPNs but at least SurfShark has an official Linux flatpak now too so it can be done. This would be a game changer for me as I could use my favorite distro instead of having to stick to something supported by mullvad.

[iMonZ]

+1 for this request as well. I understand flatpaks are a bit complicated for VPNs but at least SurfShark has an official Linux flatpak now too so it can be done. This would be a game changer for me as I could use my favorite distro instead of having to stick to something supported by mullvad.

Definitely a +1

[bertob]

Something to note is that there are immutable OSes that are not based on Silverblue, with no package layering systems. GNOME OS is one example, but I suspect there will be many more as adoption of systemd's update model with A/B partitions instead of OStree accelerates.

For those cases you really need Flatpaks, as the only alternative is manually creating a sysext from the RPM package, or similar horrible hacks.

[SomeRandomCpu]

Please Mullvad team, make a flatpak! I'm on alpine Linux on one of my computers and I want Mullvad on it, but it's not supported.

Doing this would also mean they wouldn't need to maintain 2 separate repos.

[TheAnnoyingFruit]

I think the decision here is quite obvious considering there are vpns available as flatpak so it is absolutely doable. You either maintain packages for the distros you choose and people will always complain as you can’t possibly properly support all of them. Or you make a flatpak that by just existing supports all distros that support flatpaks. Even if it costs a little bit more development time the benefits here far outweigh that and you have been offered help doing so by people in the community.

[GuyDebord]

Wow it has been more than 7 years and nothing has been done about it. This is just sad. Others have done it so it can be done and it works. At this point there is no excuse. The problem is not Flatpak, it's simply a lack of will.

[randshell]

If anyone would like to try again, since new Fedora / Bazzite versions were released in the meantime, there's always an easy way to do a rollback to the previous working state, if anything goes wrong. I've added the Mullvad repo on my Fedora Kinoite and layered the app with no issues since a couple of years.

I think that, aside from edge cases like switching to Gnome from a Kinoite (KDE) system, layering and doing a rollback should be painless and not breaking. Layering is not necessarily the last resort. How would you go installing VirtualBox without it? If it makes you feel more at ease, this is my list of layered packages:

State: idle
Deployments:
  fedora:fedora/43/x86_64/kinoite
                  Version: 43.20251105.0 (2025-11-05T01:00:56Z)
               BaseCommit: b53ce02c638cad1f550904f8379e6c302a2ada4f5b5fd66d71fb3871c1aca414
             GPGSignature: Valid signature by C6E7F081CF80E13146676E88829B606631645531
                     Diff: 12 upgraded
      RemovedBasePackages: libavdevice-free libavfilter-free libavformat-free ffmpeg-free libpostproc-free libswresample-free libavutil-free libavcodec-free libswscale-free 7.1.2-2.fc43
          LayeredPackages: bleachbit blender bpftool distrobox ffmpeg gamescope hashcat kernel-devel-matched kmod-VirtualBox
                           libavcodec-freeworld libayatana-appindicator-gtk3 mullvad-vpn pipx plasma-wallpapers-dynamic
                           python3-libguestfs realtime-setup rocm-clinfo rocm-hip rocm-opencl rocm-runtime rocminfo
                           rpmfusion-free-release rpmfusion-nonfree-release scrcpy syncthing virt-manager virtiofsd VirtualBox zsh
            LocalPackages: akmods-keys-0.0.2-8.fc37.noarch opensnitch-1.7.2-1.x86_64 opensnitch-ui-1.7.2-1.noarch
                           proton-mail-1.10.0-1.x86_64

I think the most problems I had was with the rpmfusion repository when using VirtualBox or Steam, as sometimes the dependencies and versions get out of sync with the official Fedora repo and you need to wait a few days for the updates to work again.

Ultimately it's your choice, these are my 2c if there's of any help to you. As usual, the disclaimer is to have proper backups if anything goes wrong.

Another user at the time reported that layering worked for them, but then their system wouldn't boot anymore

Perhaps there was some issue with the mullvad-early-boot-blocking.service SystemD service?

[Dark-Thoughts]

Layering is not necessarily the last resort. How would you go installing VirtualBox without it?

I don't know. I ended up using Virtual Machine Manager since they have flatpaks, but I only really need it for Windows exclusive firmware apps anyway. Had to layer Java for jDownloader 2 though, since I could not get that to run exclusively in a distrobox. But all the documentary sources and other sites say so. Only as a last resort [layer the VPN with rpm-ostree](https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/rpm-ostree/)
https://docs.bazzite.gg/General/VPN/

Perhaps there was some issue with the mullvad-early-boot-blocking.service SystemD service?

I couldn't tell you. There was not much documentation or discussion, let alone actual help, and it's been quite a while since. Maybe I'll try again in a year when my current payment runs out and if there's still no flatpak available then.

[TheAnnoyingFruit]

I don't know. I ended up using Virtual Machine Manager since they have flatpaks, but I only really need it for Windows exclusive firmware apps anyway. Had to layer Java for jDownloader 2 though, since I could not get that to run exclusively in a distrobox. But all the documentary sources and other sites say so. Only as a last resort [layer the VPN with rpm-ostree](https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/rpm-ostree/)
https://docs.bazzite.gg/General/VPN/

Fully unrelated but there is a jdownloader flatpak

[Dark-Thoughts]

Fully unrelated but there is a jdownloader flatpak

Yes, but it says it is 15 years old.

[TheAnnoyingFruit]

Fully unrelated but there is a jdownloader flatpak

Yes, but it says it is 15 years old.

It’s wrong if you check the flatpak manifest it has been updated multiple times and if you install it you will see it is not out of date