Snaps, Flatpak's, and Hard Drive Space

[deadflowr]

Over time new Snap updates will use up hard drive space so the user must remove the previous Snap updates.

The default setting is to retain just 2. (3 on Ubuntu Core)
So you should only ever have no more than 2 or 3 at any time.

You can periodically run a simple command/script to remove older unused versions.
The point of the revisioning system is to allow new updates to come, but still have an easy fallback if they're broken.

You can also put a hold on snaps to never update if you want.

[poorguy]

The default setting is to retain just 2. (3 on Ubuntu Core)
So you should only ever have no more than 2 or 3 at any time.

You can periodically run a simple command/script to remove older unused versions.

Okay poor explaining on my part as I was referring to the older unused versions.


Thanks deadflowr for the correction and explanation.

[AR_Kozz]

I am done with snaps, not because they take up too much root partition space, but because they make the boot process take forever from an HDD.

Snap for whatever reason creates about 40 virtual devices, then mounts every installed app, none of which are marked for startup under the system. After login, the HDD stays busy with more shenanigans for a few minutes more. It's at least 5 minutes before I can do anything.

systemd-analyze blame tells me each of these virtual devices takes about 6 seconds of boot time, then each specific app mount another couple seconds. Some of it may be concurrent, but when the whole thing takes 2 minutes, I think the blame is there. This is like a virtual machine.

Windows 10/11 starts cold on the same machine in seconds from an SSD, so it's not the machine's fault. Ubuntu is obsoleting itself from HDD install, is what's going on.

What's the best distro that sticks to Debian?

[Paddy Landau]

Windows 10/11 starts cold on the same machine in seconds from an SSD…

You're not comparing like-for-like. First, you say that Linux is booting from an HDD, while Windows boots from an SSD. Second, when you shut down Windows, it doesn't really shut down; it uses a sort of hibernation (called Fast Startup) in order to provide a fast startup. That's why Windows takes longer to shut down than does Linux.

To compare like-for-like, you need to use the same disk, and turn off Windows Fast Startup.

I personally don't have a problem with boot time on my desktop. Including the computer's POST time, and the time for me to type my LUKS passphrase and my login password, it takes under a minute. I'm using an SSD (four years old already, for what it's worth), on Ubuntu 22.04.

On my old laptop with an HDD, the same setup with fewer installed apps takes about four minutes! On that laptop, Windows 10 was unusably slow, which is one reason why I got rid of it. Like-for-like, even with Windows Fast Startup, Linux is significantly faster on that machine. The hardware makes a massive difference!