After a lot of work from the team in Ikarus Technologies, we have a preliminary Flatpak with KStars + INDI working. It’s still quite preliminary and not fully tested, so please test it and give us your feedback.
This should work on Debian/Ubuntu/Arch/Fedora. Check the README and follow the instructions.
We add arm64 support, so now the flatpak is available for Raspberry PI.
The KStars flatpak includes everything including all INDI drivers. This is going to be our plan moving forward so we can provide one flatpak for all OSes. If you have an issue, you can simply switch versions. Switching from Stable to Nightly is also very easy and does not affect your system at all.
For those of us that have not used flatpaks before, can you give us some brief instructions or point us to a good reference?
From my side also some questions:
I installed flatpack on Opensuse 15.6 and run your script from your “readme”. A bunch of indi files are installed, but when I run
flatpak run org.kde.kstars
the output is: app/org.kde.kstars/x86_64/master not installed
If I run
flatpak search kstars
then I see two “kstars”, one from smhub, one from flatpack, both 3.7.3:
KStars Elektronisches Planetarium org.kde.kstars 3.7.3 master smhub
KStars Elektronisches Planetarium org.kde.kstars 3.7.3 stable flathub
We updated the readme.
Please follow the README again and install the app; then, try running it.
The installation works now, thank you. One question: the version of Kstars is 3.7.7 Build: 2025-06-01T12:18:36Z. On ppa there are newer builds?
I have tried installing on StellarMate OS (RPi 4). Seemed to go we but it is not clear to me how to answer the last question in the screenshot.
[code
]Installing KDE Platform and SDK runtimes…
Looking for matches\u2026
ID Branch Op Remote Download
Installation complete.
Looking for matches\u2026
ID Branch Op Remote Download
Installation complete.
KDE Platform and SDK runtimes installed.
Installing KStars Flatpak package…
Looking for matches\u2026
Similar refs found for \u2018org.kde.kstars\u2019 in remote \u2018smhub\u2019 (system):
Which do you want to use (0 to abort)? [0-2]:
[/code]
What is the difference between master and 1.0.0? Is one nightly and one stable?
I decided to choose the 1.0.0 ref to install. I seemed to download for a while and then:
Error: While pulling app/org.kde.kstars/aarch64/1.0.0 from remote smhub: While fetching https://smhub.stellarmate.com/objects/cf/f210218fe814193d61864fd50e16bb9010b6883e82725304b2792933caf409.filez: [55] Failed sending data to the peer
error: Failed to install org.kde.kstars: While pulling app/org.kde.kstars/aarch64/1.0.0 from remote smhub: While fetching https://smhub.stellarmate.com/objects/cf/f210218fe814193d61864fd50e16bb9010b6883e82725304b2792933caf409.filez: [55] Failed sending data to the peer
Error installing KStars Flatpak
I tried a second time with the same error. Any thoughts?
I dont had a choice with my Opensuse Linux: but as far as I can see “master” was installed on my machine.
But this is the first time I work with flatpak, so I can not really help further…
OK, I tried using “master” and that seemed to work. As specified, I used the command “flatpak run org.kde.kstars” to run it. It seemed to work but it came up as a new installation and didn’t recognize any of my previous settings. Here is the terminal output.
stellarmate@stellarmate:~ $ flatpak run org.kde.kstars
kf.i18n: KLocalizedString: Using an empty domain, fix the code. msgid: “Name” msgid_plural: “” msgctxt: “”
kf.i18n: KLocalizedString: Using an empty domain, fix the code. msgid: “Hours” msgid_plural: “” msgctxt: “”
kf.i18n: KLocalizedString: Using an empty domain, fix the code. msgid: “Type” msgid_plural: “” msgctxt: “”
kf.i18n: KLocalizedString: Using an empty domain, fix the code. msgid: “Size” msgid_plural: “” msgctxt: “”
kf.i18n: KLocalizedString: Using an empty domain, fix the code. msgid: “Alt” msgid_plural: “” msgctxt: “”
kf.i18n: KLocalizedString: Using an empty domain, fix the code. msgid: “Moon” msgid_plural: “” msgctxt: “”
kf.i18n: KLocalizedString: Using an empty domain, fix the code. msgid: “Const” msgid_plural: “” msgctxt: “”
kf.i18n: KLocalizedString: Using an empty domain, fix the code. msgid: “Coord” msgid_plural: “” msgctxt: “”
org.kde.kstars: Failed to create local astrometry directory
Call to writableLocation without an application-based location.
org.kde.kstars: Welcome to KStars 3.7.8 Beta
org.kde.kstars: Build: 2025-06-01T12:18:36Z
org.kde.kstars: OS: “org.kde.Platform”
org.kde.kstars: API: “arm64-little_endian-lp64”
org.kde.kstars: Arch: “arm64”
org.kde.kstars: Kernel Type: “linux”
org.kde.kstars: Kernel Version: “6.6.31+rpt-rpi-v8”
org.kde.kstars: Qt Version: 5.15.15
org.kde.kstars: User DB does not exist. New User DB will be created.
org.kde.kstars: Rebuilding User Database
org.kde.kstars: Processing “unnamedstars.dat” , HTMesh Level 3
org.kde.kstars: Sky Mesh Size: 512
org.kde.kstars: Loaded DSO catalog file: “unnamedstars.dat”
org.kde.kstars: “Star HD20,794 not found.”
org.kde.kstars: “Star HD98,230 not found.”
org.kde.kstars: Loaded DSO catalogs.
org.kde.kstars: Loading asteroids
org.kde.kstars: Loading asteroid objects failed.
org.kde.kstars: " → was trying to read /home/stellarmate/.var/app/org.kde.kstars/data/kstars/asteroids.dat"
org.kde.kstars: Loading comets
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
QObject::connect(QAction, Ekos::Scheduler): invalid nullptr parameter
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
org.kde.kstars: Current icon theme is “PiXflat”
QImage::scaled: Image is a null image
org.kde.kstars: Loading comets
org.kde.kstars: Releasing INDI/Ekos resources…
Could someone please clarify, is this going to be the recommended way to install KStars on Linux going forward? It seems to install around 2 GB of extra stuff in addition to KStars itself. Could you please clarify the difference between “master” and “1.0.0” (which doesn’t seem to work)?
On my system the files are located here:
/var/lib/flatpak/app/org.kde.kstars/
The “problem” is, that one has to use root priviliges to copy files (e.g. settings) into the folders. Wouldnt it be better, to install it for the user with flatpaks --user command? As far as I know, then kstars and all the files would be located under the home-folder of the user.
Version 1.0.0 was for testing purposes. Sorry for any inconvenience it caused.
Currently, there are two versions available for KStars: stable and 3.7.7, which are the same for now. We will keep the 3.7.7 for a while, and stable will change to 3.7.8 and go on.
The script is also updated to install the stable version by default.
I haven’t tested the user-limited installation yet, you can run flatpak install --user smhub org.kde.kstars//stable -y and test.
If I do flatpak install --user smhub org.kde.kstars//stable -y
I get the error: No remote refs found for ‘smhub’
But smhub has to be installed, because if I search for kstars I get:
KStars Elektronisches Planetarium org.kde.kstars 3.7.3 master smhub
We’re updating the script. Later today, hopefully we’ll have a flatpak using Qt6 + KF6 for both stable + nightly.
I just tested your updated script. There was an error installing KStars Flatpak stable, Can’t check signature: public key not found. Here the outpu after updating firmware:
QHY firmware files copied.
Reloading udev rules…
Udev rules reloaded.
Cleaning up repository directory ‘indi-firmware’…
Cleanup complete.
Adding Flathub remote if it doesn’t exist…
Flathub remote added.
Adding SM Hub remote if it doesn’t exist (no GPG verification)…
SMHub remote added.
Installing KDE Platform and SDK runtimes…
Suchen nach Übereinstimmungen …
Wird übersprungen: org.kde.Platform/x86_64/5.15-24.08 wurde bereits installiert
Suchen nach Übereinstimmungen …
Wird übersprungen: org.kde.Sdk/x86_64/5.15-24.08 wurde bereits installiert
KDE Platform and SDK runtimes installed.
Installing KStars Flatpak package version stable…
Suchen nach Übereinstimmungen …
Fehler: Unable to load summary from remote smhub: Signature made Do 12 Jun 2025 14:43:23 CEST using RSA key ID 1C53A7E13522CDA5
Can’t check signature: public key not found
Error installing KStars Flatpak stable
We are building new Qt6-based KStars and will publish that soon, please stay tuned.
You need to remove the smhub and re-add it as we changed the GPG key.
flatpak remote-delete smhub
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists smhub https://smhub.stellarmate.com/smhub.flatpakrepo
Ok, installation works.
BUT: how do I copy my settings? I tried to copy the ~/.local/share/kstars/ to /var/lib/flatpak/app/org.kde.kstars/x86_64/stable/d15bc9e40344a7324484e952f8456db1ee230826c63cd90e32acfabb1e7caff3/files/share/kstars/ but I have to go through the setup assistant.
I have installed the flatpak version with master kstars source. Works fine in Ubuntu 22.04. on odroid N2+. But i was wondering how can kstars be updated in flatpak? Chatgpt says flatpak update org.kde.kstars I didn’t want to test it now for risk of breaking something.