Font issues with the browsers installed using Flatpak

Font issues with the Flatpak versions of browsers like Brave, Firefox, and Google Chrome are common because the sandboxed applications cannot access system fonts. Using Flatseal to grant filesystem permissions usually resolves this.

Install the Flatseal app

Either use the software centre to install the app. Otherwise, apply the following command to install the Flatseal app,

flatpak install flathub com.github.tchx84.Flatseal

Run the app using the following command,

flatpak run com.github.tchx84.Flatseal

Select the browser, e.g. Chrome Flatpak. Scroll down to Filesystem. Under Other files, add the following paths:

xdg-config/fontconfig

~/.local/share/fonts

Restart the browser.

Setup Flatpak in Debian

Flatpak is a package management system for building and distributing desktop applications on Linux. It packages applications with all necessary dependencies, creating isolated containers (sandboxes) that prevent apps from tampering with the host system. Flatpak is ideal for easily getting the latest app versions.

Flatpak support is available in Debian 10 (Buster) and later. Here are the steps to install and enable Flatpak in the Debian operating system with the GNOME and KDE desktops:

Install Flatpak 

sudo apt install flatpak

For GNOME users

Install the Flatpak plugin for GNOME Software. 

sudo apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak -y

For KDE users

Install the Plasma Discover Flatpak backend.

sudo apt install plasma-discover-backend-flatpak -y

Flathub is the best place to get Flatpak apps. Add the Flathub repository.

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

To finish the setup, restart your system.

How to use Flatpak

New apps can be installed using the GNOME software centre.