Flatpak 1.18 now with AMD ROCm compute support and improvements

The main technical innovation is support for the /dev/kfd device provided by the AMDKFD kernel compute driver. Previously, applications that required AMD ROCm or OpenCL compute support had to use Overrides to gain access to all system devices, which weakened sandbox isolation. Flatpak 1.18 solves this by adding a specific DRI device permission for /dev/kfd, allowing sandboxed applications to safely access compute resources. This change follows a feature request submitted in 2023.

In addition to hardware support, the update improves the user experience for developers and administrators. The flatpak-coredumpctl command now provides better output and optimized error handling. The output generated during the flatpak update process has also been updated for better clarity.

Performance optimizations have also been made to the fish shell, reducing startup times when launching applications. The release is rounded off by a number of minor bug fixes designed to increase the stability of the distribution tool.