[Flatpak] Run render binaries from host

Packaging
1

Is there an easy way to provide a Flatpak Freecad + Render workbench with access to render engines on the host?

I’ve seen discussion of setting up access to host binaries for other Flatpak applications (e.g. qutebrowser), but can’t see how to apply it to Freecad.

In Flatseal org.freedesktop.Flatpak is listed in Talks, and I’ve tried enabling filesystem=host-os, but can’t get PovRay from the host to run.

PovRay is installed on the host:

$ which povray
/usr/bin/povray

These are the excutable paths I’ve tried in Render workbenrch:

flatpak-spawn --host /usr/bin/povray




/usr/bin/povray

Both give the error: “No such file or directory”

I guess using the weekly dev binary would avoid this problem, but it’d be good to figure out how to make it work for the Flatpak.

Any ideas?

–
Debian Trixie

OS: KDE Flatpak runtime (GNOME/gnome/wayland)
Architecture: x86_64
Version: 1.1.0dev.40267 (Git) Flatpak
Build type: Release
Branch: (HEAD detached at 04d2bcb)
Hash: 04d2bcbf45ab96f3895ac3d0e8b5ae9becbaf5cd
Python 3.11.11, Qt 6.7.3, Coin 4.0.3, Vtk 9.2.6, IfcOpenShell 0.0.0, OCC 7.8.1
Locale: English/United Kingdom (en_GB)
Stylesheet/Theme/QtStyle: FreeCAD Dark.qss/FreeCAD Dark/
Logical/physical DPI: 96/161.962
Installed mods:

  • Render 2024.12.15
2

I had a similar problem with running the external ElmerGrid and Solver from flatpak.
Finally I could manage it with info from https://forum.freecad.org/viewtopic.php?style=4&t=85751. I inserted for the path to ElmerGrid which is originally ‘/usr/bin/ElmerGrid’ inside the flatpak-FreeCAD-settings ‘/var/run/host/usr/bin/ElmerGrid’.
Hope this is of any help.