André Ximenes
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Screenshot of the On-demand Linux app manager: Flatpak, APT, and fwupd in one app project

On-demand Linux app manager: Flatpak, APT, and fwupd in one app

I built Vekt, an on-demand Linux app manager that unifies Flatpak, APT, and firmware (fwupd) with no background daemons. The core is Tauri 2 with a Rust backend and Preact UI: the frontend only calls typed commands, and long-running processes emit logs and progress in real time. Out of scope: Snap, AppImage, and system services.

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Technical context

I modeled Vekt as an on-demand Linux desktop app, in the spirit of KDE Discover, but without background services: Flatpak (Flathub catalog via AppStream), APT (system repositories), and fwupd (firmware) only run while the window is open. I chose Tauri 2 to isolate the shell in the Rust backend and leave the UI in Preact/TypeScript with Vite, modular state, and custom routing. The front only talks via invoke and listens for task events; Rust validates arguments, runs flatpak, apt-get, fwupdmgr, and elevation with PolicyKit, and keeps catalogs in memory with on-disk cache.

Engineering challenges (how and why)

  • Closed command surface: TypeScript never builds a shell string. App IDs, APT package names, remotes, and fwupd devices go through regex and size limits before becoming argv; Tauri capabilities stay minimal (core and events).
  • Task queue with streaming: a TaskManager spawns long-running processes, emits task-log and task-progress, keeps up to 500 log lines, and cancels with an atomic flag plus kill on the child. Progress comes from parsing stdout by task type.
  • Update everything in sequence: update_everything enqueues APT (dist-upgrade via pkexec in a single call), then Flatpak and fwupd, waiting for a terminal state with timeout. If the APT lock is active (fuser on dpkg/apt locks), I skip APT with a marked task and continue with Flatpak and firmware.
  • Local AppStream catalog: I download the Flathub XML, decompress, parse, filter, and write it under ~/.cache/vekt/ with TTL and filter version. Search and categories run on the backend with scoring by name, id, and summary, without scanning on the front.
  • APT alongside Flatpak: inventory from the repos’ Packages files, own cache, and scored search; in Explore, APT packages come after Flatpak apps. Details unify metadata, Flatpak permissions, screenshots, and anonymous ODRS reviews when a compatible app_id exists.
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