{"id":484,"date":"2025-09-08T10:25:54","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T10:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/?p=484"},"modified":"2025-09-08T10:25:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T10:25:55","slug":"install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak-march-27-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/?p=484","title":{"rendered":"Install Podman Desktop on Debian (without flatpak) March 27, 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FONT: <a href=\"https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak-\">https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak-<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak-\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak-\">Install Podman Desktop on Debian (without flatpak) <time datetime=\"2024-03-27T00:00:00.000Z\">March 27, 2024<\/time><\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since there is no official Debian package for Podman Desktop, we need to download the official binary archive and install it manually, in case you don&#8217;t want to use Flatpak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This tutorial assumes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You have a working Debian installation (or a Debian based distro like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Kali, MX Linux etc.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You are comfortable with using terminal and have sudo access<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You have the latest stable <a href=\"https:\/\/podman.io\/docs\/installation#debian\">podman<\/a> installed on your machine. If not just run: sudo apt install podman<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"1download-podman-desktop\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#1download-podman-desktop\">1.Download Podman Desktop<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First, head over to <a href=\"https:\/\/podman-desktop.io\/downloads\/linux\">Podman Desktop Download<\/a> page and download the latest version archive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/aliefee.page\/podman-download.jpg\" alt=\"Podman Desktop Download Page\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2move-the-downloaded-file-to-opt\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#2move-the-downloaded-file-to-opt\">2.Move the downloaded file to \/opt<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We will install Podman Desktop inside \/opt directory. Open your terminal and move the downloaded file to \/opt.<br>Now open terminal and run the command below.<br><em>Change &lt;download-directory&gt; and &lt;version&gt; with the path to directory where you downloaded the file and the version you downloaded.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>sudo mv &lt;download-directory&gt;\/podman-desktop-&lt;version&gt;.tar.gz \/opt\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3extract-the-archive\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#3extract-the-archive\">3.Extract the archive<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>cd \/opt\nsudo tar -xvf podman-desktop-&lt;version&gt;.tar.gz\nsudo rm podman-desktop-&lt;version&gt;.tar.gz\n\nsudo mv podman-desktop-&lt;version&gt; podman-desktop\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>On the question of why we put binaries into \/opt:<\/strong><br>It is recommended to install software from official repositories whenever possible to avoid clashes of different packaging of the same software. But in our case, since there is no official Debian package for Podman Desktop as of the date i composed this tutorial (March 2024), we installed it into \/opt as a convention.<br>You can read further about the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard <a href=\"https:\/\/refspecs.linuxfoundation.org\/FHS_3.0\/fhs\/ch03s13.html\">https:\/\/refspecs.linuxfoundation.org\/FHS_3.0\/fhs\/ch03s13.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I recommend you to check if there is an official package available in apt repositories before going ahead:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>apt search podman-desktop\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you find an official package, you can install it using apt. And you can easily retract the process at this step easily:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>sudo rm -rf \/opt\/podman-desktop-*\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"ensuring-podman-desktop-can-be-executed\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#ensuring-podman-desktop-can-be-executed\">Ensuring podman-desktop can be executed<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>sudo chmod +x \/opt\/podman-desktop\/podman-desktop\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"4create-a-symbolic-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#4create-a-symbolic-link\">4.Create a symbolic link<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At this step, we will put a symbolic link in \/usr\/local\/bin directory.<br>So that it can be executed in your terminal<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>sudo ln -s \/opt\/podman-desktop\/podman-desktop \/usr\/local\/bin\/podman-desktop\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can check if you can run podman-desktop from your terminal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>which podman-desktop\n# \/usr\/local\/bin\/podman-desktop\n# if you see this output, you are able to run podman-desktop from your terminal\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"5put-a-desktop-entry\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#5put-a-desktop-entry\">5.Put a Desktop Entry<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can now run podman-desktop from your terminal.<br>But you will want to run it from your desktop environement&#8217;s menu too right?<br>To achieve that we need to create a .desktop file in \/usr\/local\/share\/applications<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\/usr\/local\/share\/applications\/podman-desktop.desktop<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[Desktop Entry]<br>Name=Podman Desktop<br>Exec=podman-desktop<br>Terminal=false<br>Type=Application<br>Icon=podman-desktop<br>StartupWMClass=Podman Desktop<br>Categories=Development;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">let&#8217;s do it with a few commands:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>cd \/tmp\necho -e \"&#91;Desktop Entry]\\nName=Podman Desktop\\nExec=podman-desktop\\nTerminal=false\\nType=Application\\nIcon=podman-desktop\\nStartupWMClass=Podman Desktop\\nCategories=Development;\" &gt; podman-desktop.desktop\nsudo desktop-file-install --dir=\/usr\/local\/share\/applications .\/podman-desktop.desktop\nrm podman-desktop.desktop\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"6optional-install-icon-file\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#6optional-install-icon-file\">6.[Optional] Install icon file<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can copy and run all the commands at once<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>cd \/tmp\nwget https:\/\/aliefee.page\/podman-desktop-icons.tar # download\ntar -xvf podman-desktop-icons.tar # extract\nmv podman-desktop-icons icons # rename\nsudo cp -r .\/icons \/usr\/local\/share # copy\nrm -rf icons podman-desktop-icons.tar # clean up\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congrats! You have now Podman Desktop set and up perfectly!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FONT: https:\/\/aliefee.page\/blog\/post\/install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak#install-podman-desktop-on-debian-without-flatpak- Install Podman Desktop on Debian (without flatpak) March 27, 2024 Since there is no official Debian package for Podman Desktop, we need to download the official binary archive and install it manually, in case you don&#8217;t want to use Flatpak. This tutorial assumes: 1.Download Podman Desktop First, head [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-programari-lliure","category-virtualitzacio"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":485,"href":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions\/485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aran.cat\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}