Hi,
as I'm running a bit low on disk space I was scouting through my installed apps in the software store to see which ones I could delete. In the add-on section I discoverd several installations of the same add-ons:
I also do have different versions of GNOME Application Platform installed (version 45, 46 and 47).
Do I really need all of these versions or could I safely delete the duplicate add-ons? Thanks for clarification.
It's needed if you have apps installed as flatpaks. You may consider you list of apps and see if you can replace them with .deb instead.
Also install flatsweep to clean up after flatpaks.
Please post output of:
flatpak list
My list look like this, not as comprehensive, but I avoid flat and snap packages where I can.
They are unfortunately not duplicates, and a side effect of certain applications installed as Flatpak — a specific type of package format, one of many used by Linux.
I also recommend trying to replace them with the native Debian format. In the Software Store, look for the drop-down menu under the install button when installing something, and look for Zorin OS in that list. If it is available, prefer using that version over Flatpak.
Keep in mind that everything has prons and cons, so ultimately you'll have to try to see which version works best for you.
These are some Kind of Runtime Environments for Flatpaks. So, these are coming with the Installation - which is a Reason why an Installation can take a while.
You can test this. Open the Terminal and type flatpak list like @Storm shows on his Pictue. This will show You a List with installed Flatpaks. So, You have an Overview.
To check, if maybe are some of these Packages unneccessary, type flatpak uninstall --unused and this command will look for Packages that are no longer used and can be deleted.
To save Disc Space, you could - like @Storm and @zenzen already suggested - use instead of Flatpaks the .deb Version of a Program if it should be available.
P.S.: You have with these Packages an Issue, too. Like the red Text shows, there aren't getting Updates anymore. But unfortunately You can't do much on this one. This is something what the Developer have to do.
I do not use any flatpaks at all, so I prevent the bloat from ever happening:
sudo apt remove --purge flatpak
Thanks for all the suggestions. I use lots of flatpaks and often I prefer flatpaks over the Zorin APT as lots of APT packages are outdated compared to the flatpaks.
flatpak uninstall --unused
outputs "Nothing unused to uninstall". Is there any way I can check which flatpaks use which packages (Freedesktop Platform, Mesa etc.)? exactly. So, perhaps I could at least get rid of some flatpaks and some of the "duplicate" add-ons.
Supposedly, when you remove a flatpak, it removes its dependencies rather than leaving it behind.
I have not verified if all flatpaks do this or not. But as a general rule, it then means that something is relying on each of the bloa... I mean dependencies you have installed.
You can see which runtimes the flatpaks use with this:
flatpak list --columns=runtime,name,ref
You can delete applications that use a particular runtime, then delete that runtime. If this releases other packages, these then become removable with flatpak uninstall --unused.
Also if you try to remove a package that some application depends on, flatpak will first inform you what application or applications need it and allow you to abort the removal. In this way can test and see what depends on what.
Thanks @Topaz. That was helpful. I think the only app running on FreeDesktop SDK 22.08 is OpenJdk 21 (which I need for Java development). However, it's a bit strange. When I check OpenJDK 21 on Flathub it states that the latest version is jdk-21.0.4+7. Also when I check the respective Flathub repo on GitHub it shows that it's on FreeDesktop 23.08 (runtime-version: 23.08).
However, on my system the app store shows this (last version jdk-21.0.3+9):
And the runtime is 22.08 (instead of 23.08). How can I run OpenJDK 21 on runtime version 23.08?
Thank you!
That is another issue that doesn't get talked about enough about Flatpaks. When a package X eventually is updated to a newer runtime, your current version is not automatically updated. This means that, unless you're checking for it, you might assume you have the latest version possible while in reality you are lagging behind.
This is actually a big deal since one of the main selling points for this type of package format is precisely the fact that you can always enjoy the latest version of the software as soon as the developer releases, etc.
It's an easy fix, though it involves uninstalling and installing it again so that the newer runtime is also installed alongside of it.
Whoa, what the heck?! That's a big issue. Thanks a lot for shedding some light on this @zenzen 
It was confusing. Do you know if there's any plans from the Flatpak guys to improve the app update process when there has been a switch to a newer runtime?
However, uninstalling Open JDK 21 and then re-installing it worked and my runtime is now 24.08. Had to adopt the paths for some variables in .bash_profile too
export JAVA_HOME=/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk21/x86_64/24.08/active/files/jvm/openjdk-21
export M2_HOME=/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk21/x86_64/24.08/active/files/maven
export GRADLE_HOME=/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk21/x86_64/24.08/active/files/gradle
Afterwards I still had flatpak runtime 22.08 installed and I figured that there is one more app that's still using this runtime which is Minder. Also in the software store it states that Minder "stopped receiving updates" although it's still under active development.
I suppose, this is because it uses the EOL runtime 22.08. However, I just saw that there's already an issue opened in Minder's Flathub repository.
Once that's done and released I should be able to safely remove runtime 22.08 which would free up >2.5GB space. 
Another thing I noticed is that Gear Lever is the only app still using Gnome Platform 45. There is an issue in the GitHub repo about removing Gnome dependency entirely. However, it doesn't seem to get attention from the dev. Interestingly according to this gearlever/it.mijorus.gearlever.json at master · mijorus/gearlever · GitHub the gnome runtime is supposed to be 46. Can I somehow make Gear Lever run on a newer Gnome runtime in a similar fashion how I switched Flatpak runtime for Open JDK 21?
I can only guess; I assume that I some point this will be addressed, but at this time I have no idea if this is something that has even been discussed or not.
I always suspected that was the case but never bothered to check. There are already a few issues filed to make the warning a little more prominent and friendly, but ultimately the issue still resides in flathub giving a better reason as to why it's EOL.
I'm sure there must be a way but for now I would try to use the direct download option as described in the project's GitHub page. It just seems like the easiest, more straight forward approach, although it would be good to know about why there's a discrepancy in the first place. On my end, still shows that 45 still is in use.
I just wanted to report back as the issues from my original post have been resolved.
There was no way to do that. The reason that it ran on Gnome runtime 45 was because version 45 was still set in Gear Lever's flathub repo. Fortunately, the version has been updated to 46 some days ago.
Also Freedesktop runtime for Minder has been updated to 23.08 which made the "Stopped receiving updates" message disappear.
Interestingly, when Freedesktop version for Minder was updated Freedesktop version 22.08 was indeed automatically removed.
However, when Gnome runtime version for Gear Lever was updated Gnome 45 still stayed installed on my system (although no app was using it anymore). I could uninstall it running
flatpak uninstall --unused
ID Branch Op
1. [-] org.gnome.Platform 45 r
2. [-] org.gnome.Platform.Locale 45 r
3. [-] org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264 2.2.0 r
Uninstall complete.
Thanks for all the help. My Zorin installation feels way cleaner now 
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