Say no to flatpak and snapd

Well I was looking at solutions to an issue in another thread and found a YouTube video about Steam's proton. Interestingly the poster pointed out that the best package to go for was the traditional one and not flatpak (that appears in store) or snapd. Speaking from personal experience, flatpak has a cache issue which can eat up root folder disabling enough space for the next linux headers to come through. Snapd requires that you have a freedesktop.org account to make any changes. From experience, I recently installed clementine - hadn't noticed it was the flatpak install and was trying to change some properties when it crashed. Ran a short SMART test in Disks and no issues with old hard drive (This was in FerenOS). Went to Software channel and spotted it was flatpak version installed - removed it and installed the traditional package - no issues when trying the changes I wanted to make in that one. I do hope that Zorin will not preclude the use of traditional methods in the future. It would definitely end my road trip with Zorin.

Hello Swarf, "eat up root folder disabling enough space for the next linux headers to come through." In layman's terms, are you saying it's eating/taking up extra space on the hard drive? I've used snap'd and flatpak due to them typically having the latest and greatest versions, as opposed to the software channel. Or am I not understanding.... Which could easily be the case...

JeffK969 wrote:Hello Swarf, "eat up root folder disabling enough space for the next linux headers to come through." In layman's terms, are you saying it's eating/taking up extra space on the hard drive? I've used snap'd and flatpak due to them typically having the latest and greatest versions, as opposed to the software channel. Or am I not understanding.... Which could easily be the case...

Yep. When you clean apt

Code:

sudo apt clean

it will clear out unnecessary packages- stuff that you downloaded for an install. The system is also set to do this automatically.
Since flatpak stores in a different folder in Root and since the autoclean is a bit buggy, all that packaging that gets downloaded stays indefinitely and you need to hunt it down manually to get rid of it. Cleaners like Ubuntu Cleaner or BleachBit won't necessarily be of any help because they look in the APT cache.
So occasional use could be no big deal. It's not like a Worm Virus. It accumulates and builds up over time, is all. If you need to use Snap or Flatpak once in a while, that is not enough use for the data to build up to Big Numbers.
But with sustained use, in the same manner that you use APT and DPKG now, it can pile up pretty quickly.

Everyone has extra clutter in Root that sticks around over time. I think it is a good idea to go in every few months and do some spring cleaning, as long as you are careful and attentive. It's not necessary and it can be risky, though.

I was wondering why all the disk space was disappearing on my XFCE Mint machine. Use a 128 GB SSD. Used to have 78/84 GB free, now down to 29. Any vid's I do download, I move over to my storage disk. Couldn't figure out why. But I need my history docs to help me fall asleep at night...lol Only have 4/5 maybe packages via Snap'd. How to do clean that way?

My issue was with the 2018 version of FerenOS Classic (Cinnamon DE). The dev said he had created a flatpak cache cleaner but I haven't seen a link to one. It was watching the video I gave a link to one of the other forum members (I think) and the guy streaming said that he preferred to use the standard package. What I've found on this FerenOS install that VLC flatpak kept crashing so replaced it with the traditional package from the store: