Making Flutter Desktop Work on openSUSE: The No-BS Guide
Ever tried getting Flutter to play nice with openSUSE? The official docs are fine, but they’re built for Ubuntu users. Here’s how to make this work on our chameleon distro without the headaches.
What You Need First
Look, I’m assuming you’ve already got Flutter SDK installed—and not from that bloated snapd mess. If you haven’t, grab it from flutter.dev and set it up manually. Trust me, it’s worth the extra minute.
The openSUSE Twist
Flutter desktop needs some extra packages, and they’re not named what the official docs claim. Classic.
You need:
- Clang (for compiling)
- CMake (build system)
- GTK dev headers (for the UI stuff)
- Ninja (build tool that doesn’t suck)
- pkg-config (handles the dependency hell)
Here’s the command that actually works:
1sudo zypper in clang gcc cmake ninja pkg-config gtk3-devel
Notice that? The Ubuntu package names (ninja-build and libgtk-3-dev) are different here. This has burned me before—wasted an hour wondering why things were breaking.
Getting It Running
Fire up your terminal and check if Flutter can see your system. If you get ”flutter: command not found,” your PATH is screwed up. Fix that first.
Enable the Linux desktop support:
1flutter config --enable-linux-desktop
Now check what devices Flutter can see:
1flutter devices
You should get something like:
11 connected device:23Linux (desktop) • linux • linux-x64 • openSUSE Tumbleweed
No Linux? Something’s broken. Double-check those packages.
Adding Desktop to Your Existing Flutter Project
Got a Flutter app already? Cool. Add desktop support with:
1flutter create --org com.example --platforms=linux .
That dot at the end matters. It tells Flutter to use your current directory.
Build That Thing
Ready to build? It’s simple:
1flutter build linux --release
This spits out a proper Linux binary. Not some Electron garbage that eats RAM—a real native app.
For packaging and distribution stuff, check the official docs. But honestly, just tar it up and let people extract it wherever. Or learn AppImage if you’re feeling fancy.
Final Thoughts
Flutter on Linux is surprisingly solid once you get past the setup. And on openSUSE? It’s smooth sailing after you know the right package names. No need for bizarre workarounds or hacks like some other frameworks demand.
But here’s the kicker—Flutter gives you actual native performance, not the “we promise it’s just as good” web-wrapper junk. Your users will thank you.
