Low disk space - how to clean out garbage?

Hardware Librem 5
61

I think this is a generic “Linux” problem. I see the same problem with snaps under Ubuntu.

If software is installed with apt then everything works well.

If software is installed within some other framework (whether flatpak or snap) then things just never quite work as nicely. The level of integration just isn’t there. It is easy to see how both political issues and technical issues could get in the way.

Maybe it will improve marginally when we all get to crimson.

1 Like
62

thanks for posting these steps. I tried them on a desktop install of PureOS 11, but it didn’t resolve my own issue of 11GB of files in /var/lib/flatpak/repo/objects that I’m trying to slim down.

Going to go scorched earth and remove all flatpak apps and then remove and reinstall flatpak.

For those of you looking for an easy way to backup and reinstall your flatpak apps, try this

flatpak list --app --columns=origin --columns=application | \
awk '{print "flatpak install " $1,$2 " -y"}' > flatpaks.sh; \
chmod +x flatpaks.sh

Run flatpaks.sh created above to reinstall.

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63

I think that newer flatpak versions clean up stuff way better. With a future new PureOS release we will probably get a newer flatpak as well.

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64

Hope so. This experience has definitely given me pause with my previous “all in on flatpaks” strategy. Always trade-offs I suppose. Flatpaks solved the problem of outdated software that’s so common in versions available from distro packages, unless you run a rolling release distro like Arch or Void.

But that comes at cost of increased bloat and disk space as well as app configuration files buried several levels deep under ~/.var/app/.

2 Likes