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N0rbert
Asked: 2021-11-17 13:35:42 +0800 CST

Is it possible to remove Snapd with Glib libraries completely without ruining the system?

  • 772

I have just installed Ubuntu MATE 21.10 and discovered two interesting packages which contain snapd in the name - gir1.2-snapd-1 and libsnapd-glib1:

$ dpkg -l | grep snapd
ii  gir1.2-snapd-1:amd64                     1.58-0ubuntu2                       amd64        Typelib file for libsnapd-glib1
ii  libsnapd-glib1:amd64                     1.58-0ubuntu2                       amd64        GLib snapd library

Both came from snapd-glib package.

Removal of them will ruin the system as follows:

$ sudo apt autopurge gir1.2-snapd-1:amd64 libsnapd-glib1:amd64
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  apturl* apturl-common* ayatana-indicator-sound* bluez-cups* cups* cups-browsed* cups-core-drivers* cups-daemon* cups-server-common*
  gir1.2-goa-1.0* gir1.2-snapd-1* hplip* hplip-data* libcanberra-pulse* libcupsimage2* libgutenprint-common* libgutenprint9* libhpmud0*
  libimagequant0* libpulsedsp* libsane-hpaio* libsbc1* libsnapd-glib1* libspeexdsp1* printer-driver-gutenprint* printer-driver-hpcups*
  printer-driver-postscript-hp* printer-driver-splix* pulseaudio* pulseaudio-module-bluetooth* pulseaudio-utils* python3-dateutil* python3-debconf*
  python3-olefile* python3-pil* python3-renderpm* python3-reportlab* python3-reportlab-accel* python3-software-properties* rtkit*
  software-properties-common* software-properties-gtk* ssl-cert* ubuntu-mate-core* ubuntu-mate-desktop* ubuntu-release-upgrader-gtk* update-manager*
  update-notifier* update-notifier-common*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 49 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 49,3 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
Abort.

Is it possible to remove gir1.2-snapd-1 and libsnapd-glib1 packages without ruining the system?

apt

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    These packages are designed to allow applications to communicate with snapd. One accordingly would believe that these packages are not of any use of snapd is not anymore installed. However, in order for an app to be able to communicate with snapd, the app must be compiled with support for these libraries. These libraries thus become a hard dependency of these apps, and must stay on the system even if snapd is removed.

    That is the technical reason. However, what functionality (non-snap) applications gain by being able to access snapd is unclear. All descriptions of what the libraries do boil down to

    snapd-glib is a library to allow GLib based applications access to snapd, the daemon that controls Snaps.

    Possibly, these are what would allow these apps to access to the Snapd REST API in order to interact with snapd.

    • 4

  2. remove snap

    Find installed snaps: snap list

    Remove installed snaps: sudo snap remove <package>

    Remove snapd: sudo apt purge snapd

    Remove snap directory from home: rm -rf ~/snap

    If you receive an error removing snapd then do the following : sudo rm -rf /var/cache/snapd then run sudo apt purge snapd

    • -3