In Linux there are distributions with all kinds of development models. The ones that receive the updates before are the Rolling Releases, although there are some, like Manjaro, that are said to be, but their stable branch restrains the updates a bit to ensure stability. Then there are others, like Fedora or Ubuntu, that receive many every six months, and then we have the "Debian-type" that do so every two years. As for the applications, they can also be installed before or after, and one way to test the apps before is by using the repository Flathub Beta.
Many developers, and entire projects, trust and prefer Flathub to distribute their software. For example, GNOME is uploading everything there, And it's not the only one. It is precisely GNOME that mentions a lot that some of its applications can be tested beforehand from Flathub Beta, but to do so you have to install the repository.
Add the Flathub Beta repository
- If we didn't have it, we installed the package flatpack (for example, sudo apt install flatpak o sweat pacman -S flatpack).
- Next we add the Flathub beta repository with this command:
flatpak remote-add --user flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo
It is not necessary, but it does not hurt to restart. To install any Flathub Beta program, it is best to do it from the terminal. Write "flatpak install PROGRAM", without the quotes and writing the name of the program to install. For example, flatpak install gimp. No need to be afraid to install it directly; flatpak will first ask us where to install GIMP from, and we can choose from the normal or beta repository.
If we write flatpak remote-ls flathub-beta we will see everything that is available, and it is not little. Also we can search for a specific program with «search», for example flatpak search kdenlive. The downside of this search is that if there are add-ons or related software, we probably won't find what we want. The good thing is that we will see what version is in each repository, and thus we will avoid installing a package from the beta repository that could be older than the normal one.
Logically using beta software for important tasks is not recommended. What's in Flathub Beta is for testing what's new ahead of time, unless the developer has abandoned the idea and doesn't update their package. For example, the Komikku 1.0 manga reader It is now available. It is one more option, and it can also come in handy to upload to a version that could solve a problem that we are experiencing. As always, the choice is ours.