Cannot completely remove Snaps

[dddman]

/dev/loop0        101376   101376         0 100% /snap/core/11081
/dev/loop1         32896    32896         0 100% /snap/snapd/11841
/dev/loop2         32896    32896         0 100% /snap/snapd/12057
/dev/loop3        101632   101632         0 100% /snap/core/11167
/dev/sda1         523248        4    523244   1% /boot/efi
tmpfs             402964      336    402628   1% /run/user/1000
ubu@ubu:~$ snap remove snapd
error: cannot remove "snapd": snap "snapd" is not removable: remove all other snaps first
ubu@ubu:~$ snap remove core
error: cannot remove "core": snap "core" is not removable: snap is used by the model
ubu@ubu:~$ sudo rm snapd
[sudo] password for ubu: 
rm: cannot remove 'snapd': No such file or directory
ubu@ubu:~$ sudo rm snap
rm: cannot remove 'snap': No such file or director

I cannot remove the final 4 /dev/loop

[TheFu]

Some DEs have snap dependencies. But in general, you can

snap list
sudo snap remove {list of snap names}
sudo apt remove --purge snapd

And that will remove the snaps and all ability for them to be loaded, unless you take a manual step to re-install snapd.

[ajgreeny]

If you want remove all the snaps in your system, and that is entirely up to you, you first need to find what snaps are actually installed with command

snap list

Then, one by one to avoid possible removal problems, use command

sudo snap remove snapname

copying the name from that list
Once they have all been removed you can then run

sudo apt purge snapd

to remove snapd.

I did this back in July 2020 on my installation of Xubuntu 20.04, not because of any major problems with the snaps installed, but more because I wanted to test the feasibility of doing so.
All went well without any problems and I replaced the chromium snap that I had installed using apt, not realising at the time that it would really pull in the snap version, with a version from a development ppa at https://launchpad.net/~saiarcot895/+...s_filter=focal.

[dddman]

Hello people

@ajgreeny
That worked, all loops are now gone. Thanks

And no I'm not giving up on snaps: I wanted to see if removing all snaps would speed up my system. I had 6 snap packages installed and have read this can slow down your system. I am not having a performance issue, just wanted to be sure. For my system I see no change in performance. Running 4 core/4G ram.

Earlier I reduced my snaps to just one package (firefox). Firefox took 150M of space and snaps took 350M. So to install the first snaps package takes quite a bit of space.

Solved

Thanks for the replys

[Dennis N]

When you remove a snap package, you also automatically create a snapshot of all data created for that snap package so that you can restore the snap later with snap restore. I don't know if all those snapshots are removed when you purge snapd, but I would check and see. Let us know.

[dddman]

Thanks Dennis, I'll do a file system search if ever I do this again. Right now I'm already rebuilding and installed snapd (140M), this did not create any /dev/loops. Next I'll install snap package firefox. Thats really the only snap package I need to run. I run snaps FF and FFesrPPA. Others will get added if necessary.

edit
I changed my mind, just going to run FFesr, no snaps installed at this time. See how long that last

[TheFu]

~/snap/ in your HOME is where personal snap data seems to go. It would not be cleaned up when a snap is removed or purged.

[dddman]

Yep, deleted the Snaps home folder. I did a file system search and received a massive amount of non snap hits (like snapshot). I skimmed through them and looks like purge did a good job. Also hit it with Bleachbit which has autoremove and autoclean. Think that does it