Snaps make installing software very easy, which is good. What’s not so good is ending up with a bunch of software that I don’t actually use sitting around using up disk space (and perhaps other resources), so I decided to look through my installed snaps to work out if there was anything I could remove. This is a (semi-redacted) list:
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
core 16-2.36.2 6034 beta canonical✓ core
git-ubuntu 0.7.4 392 candidate canonical✓ classic
gnome-3-26-1604 3.26.0 74 stable canonical✓ -
gnome-calculator 3.30.1 260 stable/… canonical✓ -
gnome-characters 3.30.0 139 stable/… canonical✓ -
gnome-logs 3.30.0 45 stable/… canonical✓ -
gnome-system-monitor 3.30.0 57 stable/… canonical✓ -
gtk-common-themes 0.1-4-g88bc1b2 818 stable canonical✓ -
lxd 3.7 9664 stable/… canonical✓ -
snapcraft 2.43.1 1871 stable canonical✓ classic
spotify 1.0.94.262.g3d5c231c-9 28 beta spotify✓ -
telegram-desktop 1.4.3-alpha-2-g0c2de43 291 candidate telegram.desktop -
As an Ubuntu developer, I’m aware that the gnome-* snaps are a core part of the Ubuntu experience, so I don’t want to remove them. I also assume that gtk-common-themes is required as part of that also, though even as a Canonical employee and Ubuntu developer I’m not 100% sure of that.
If I didn’t know these things due to my day job, it’s not clear to me that I would know that removing these snaps might lead to a degraded Ubuntu experience.
Is there some way we could indicate to users that some snaps perhaps should never be uninstalled unless you really, really know what you’re doing?