Is there a way to not have shared apps between profiles?

General system Newbie
1

So.. I’m a bit new to endeavouros and all, and things have been going pretty good when it comes to the whole functionality of the operating system, though i decided to try and create a new profile in the os for me to do things related to my projects (so i don’t have any of the normal distractions that my normal profile has), but all of the apps currently in my normal profile are in there, and if i try to remove them they also get removed from my normal profile. I’m not sure if that’s normal behavior..? I mean, in a few other operating systems that i used it wasn’t.

Basically what i’m trying to ask: is there a way for apps to not be shared through different profiles in the os?

2

The applications themselves are shared for all users. However, the data, config and information in those applications are not shared.

If you don’t want that, you have a few options:

  • You could remove the system packages for the applications you don’t want shared and replace them with user flatpaks or appimages.
  • You could hide the menu entries for the applications you don’t want to see in the other profile
3

Wait, how exactly would I do the first option? Sorry if i sound stupid, but i have no idea how i would even start doing that.

4
  1. Go through your applications and make a list of the ones you want in only user profile or the other
  2. Go to flathub.com and verify that all the applications you need are available on flathub
  3. If they are, uninstall all the applications using pacman or yay
  4. Login to the first user account, and install the applications for that user with the flatpak command. It would be something like this: flatpak --user install application. Replace application with the name of the application you want to install.
  5. Then login to the second user and do the same for those applications.
5

Arent Flatpak, Snap and AppImage installed by default in the users $HOME directory and not in the /usr or /opt directory like packages/applications from the official repos are?

And since they are installed in the $HOME directory they are not accessible to other users of Linux?

@48a48a48a48a are you referring to the behavior that is exhibited by Microsoft Teams and possibly Google Chrome too on Windows systems where they are installed in the %USERPROFILE% directory and are not accessible by others users?

6

They aren’t always installed there by default but they can be installed that way. This is my recommendation above.

7

Oh I always assumed that this was the only way to install Flatpak, Snap and others, i.e. per user.

8

No, appimages are just files. They are placed where ever you save them.

Flatpaks and snaps can be installed systemwide in /var.

9

There are user and system Flatpaks, when using “flatpak --user” they will be installed for that user only and if you don’t use the flag “–user” then they will be installed as system flatpaks so system wide.

10

@48a48a48a48a, based on the comments by @dalto and @Cphusion, Flatpak, Snap, AppImage might be the path for you.

Thanks @dalto, @Cphusion for clearing my doubts.

11

I would never recommend snaps to anyone but I guess people can use them if they want.

12

Why? Arent they a different way to achieve the same outcome.

13

Yeah, but they are only under the control of Canonical, and their store definitely has been used to spread malware.

14

Oh then Flatpak and AppImage it is then.

Having said that, malware in Linux?

15

Yeah, at least one of them was a crypto-scam. Impersonating a legit application.

16

Yes, but they report usage telemetry to canonical and the develoeprs and, last I checked, you couldn’t even opt out.

17

Sorry for responding so late, had to do some things.. anyway, i’ve read everything you all said, and i uninstalled every single application installed in my system (that i want to separate), though when i run flatpak --user install application for any application i always get the same notification: error: No remote refs found for ‘application’. And from what i saw that only happens when i put --user in the line.. i’m not sure if there is any difference between the user version and the system one (there probably is), but i think it should work..? I saw on flathub at least that it should.

18

Nvm, i’m just so stupid.. i forgot that flathub acts on the system side of things, so i just needed to make a “new” remote flathub that only acts in the user, basically all i did was just execute the flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists --user flathub ``https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo , which contains --userand all.. anyway, thank you all so much for helping me!!