Do not recommend restarting the system if it is not needed

[probonopd]

https://flatpak.org/setup/Ubuntu/ says

4. Restart

To complete setup, restart your system.

Actually a restart may not be necessary, logging out of the desktop and logging in again may be sufficient.

(Why is this even needed?)

[TingPing]

(Why is this even needed?)

It adds to $XDG_DATA_DIRS for desktop files to be picked up. This should probably be explained.

[probonopd]

If it would use $HOME/.local/share/ then the log out and log in would not be needed?

[TingPing]

It wouldn't but a core design of Flatpak is to never conflict with files provided elsewhere.

[probonopd]

You are pointing out a deficiency of the current XDG desktop spec - it seems to assume that each application is available on the system in one version only. In AppImage, we are using an ugly workaround by using names such as /home/me/.local/share/applications/appimagekit_2cbea0c6c0e442620923ecddcaa1e87f-xchat.desktop in order to prevent collisions. Same goes for icon files and the like.

Would you like to collaborate on improving the XDG specs? (More on this topic)

[TingPing]

Flatpak exports a few file types that are picked up via $XDG_DATA_DIRS such as icons, mime types, and dbus services. So improving the desktop-file-spec or doing ugly renaming cannot work in those cases.

[probonopd]

The suggested desktop database (similar to Launch Services on the Mac) would do away with files altogether, like on the Mac. It would allow for multiple versions coming from multiple places to co-exist peacefully.

[TingPing]

I can't speak for Flatpak but I believe such an invasive redesign of how applications work isn't the current goal.

[matthiasclasen]

Reinventing the world to solve corner cases is going to be an uphiill battle.

And it will never work for all the distros that flatpak is targeting.

[probonopd]

This was closed. Does this mean that it is no longer recommended to restart the system?

[matthiasclasen]

No, I think we want to keep the instructions simple and obvious. No need to go into details of how things are implemented.

The simple and obvious way to restart a session is to restart the system.

[probonopd]

Only that on Live ISOs this completely breaks.

[matthiasclasen]

True. But thats your special niche. We are not trying to provide setup instructions for live images.