Tested with:
- Ubuntu Desktop 22.04.2
- Ubuntu Server 22.04.2
Both are VirtualBox VMs on my Void Linux host. Both have been installed using the following options:
- Normal installation (not minimal), to ensure it's fully bloated
- With third party drivers
After the install, sudo apt update and sudo apt full-upgrade have been applied. A reboot was done next.
First list which snaps are installed:
$ sudo snap list
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
bare 1.0 5 latest/stable canonical✓ base
core20 20230126 1822 latest/stable canonical✓ base
firefox 110.0-3 2356 latest/stable/… mozilla✓ -
gnome-3-38-2004 0+git.6f39565 119 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
gtk-common-themes 0.1-81-g442e511 1535 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
snap-store 41.3-66-gfe1e325 638 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
snapd 2.58.2 18357 latest/stable canonical✓ snapd
snapd-desktop-integration 0.1 49 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
If we try to remove snapd right away, we get an error:
$ sudo snap remove snapd
error: cannot remove "snapd": snap "snapd" is not removable: remove all other snaps first
Let's remove all snaps in the correct order:
$ sudo snap remove snap-store
snap-store removed
$ sudo snap remove snapd-desktop-integration
snapd-desktop-integration removed
$ sudo snap remove firefox
firefox removed
$ sudo snap remove gtk-common-themes
gtk-common-themes removed
$ sudo snap remove gnome-3-38-2004
gnome-3-38-2004 removed
$ sudo snap remove bare
bare removed
$ sudo snap remove core20
core20 removed
$ sudo snap remove snapd
snapd removed
After all snaps have been removed, we have to remove the snapd APT package as well:
$ sudo apt purge snapd
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
snapd*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 102 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
(Reading database ... 201361 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing snapd (2.58+22.04) ...
Warning: Stopping snapd.service, but it can still be activated by:
snapd.socket
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu3) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.12.20-2ubuntu4.1) ...
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.70+nmu1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.26-1ubuntu3) ...
(Reading database ... 201265 files and directories currently installed.)
Purging configuration files for snapd (2.58+22.04) ...
rmdir: failed to remove '/etc/systemd/system/snapd.mounts.target.wants': No such file or directory
Discarding preserved snap namespaces
Final directory cleanup
Removing extra snap-confine apparmor rules
Removing snapd cache
Removing snapd state
Optional: Remove dangling dependencies, too:
$ sudo apt autoremove --purge
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
In my case there were none installed.
Reboot the system:
sudo systemctl reboot
If there's still a folder named snap lurking in your home directory, remove it as well:
rm -rf ~/snap
Now you're done!
If you want to install Firefox via APT like a sane person, don't do it! It will install the snap version instead. Either download the DEB file from https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new or install the official PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
sudo apt install firefox-esr
First list which snaps are installed:
$ sudo snap list
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
core20 20230126 1822 latest/stable canonical✓ base
lxd 5.0.2-838e1b2 24322 5.0/stable/… canonical✓ -
snapd 2.58.2 18357 latest/stable canonical✓ snapd
If we try to remove snapd right away, we get an error:
$ sudo snap remove snapd
error: cannot remove "snapd": snap "snapd" is not removable: remove all other snaps first
If you have custom snaps installed, be sure to remove those first.
Let's remove all snaps in the correct order:
$ sudo snap remove lxd
lxd removed
$ sudo snap remove core20
core20 removed
$ sudo snap remove snapd
snapd removed
After all snaps have been removed, we have to remove the snapd APT package as well:
$ sudo apt purge snapd
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
squashfs-tools
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove it.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
snapd* ubuntu-server-minimal*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 102 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
(Reading database ... 73941 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing ubuntu-server-minimal (1.481) ...
Removing snapd (2.58+22.04) ...
Warning: Stopping snapd.service, but it can still be activated by:
snapd.socket
Processing triggers for dbus (1.12.20-2ubuntu4.1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...
(Reading database ... 73841 files and directories currently installed.)
Purging configuration files for snapd (2.58+22.04) ...
rmdir: failed to remove '/etc/systemd/system/snapd.mounts.target.wants': No such file or directory
Discarding preserved snap namespaces
Final directory cleanup
Removing extra snap-confine apparmor rules
Removing snapd cache
Removing snapd state
Optional: Remove dangling dependencies, too:
$ sudo apt autoremove --purge
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
squashfs-tools*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 424 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
(Reading database ... 73831 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing squashfs-tools (1:4.5-3build1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...
squashfs-tools can be used for other things, so it's not necessary to remove it. It just acts as the storage engine for snapd.
Reboot the system:
sudo systemctl reboot
If there's still a folder named snap lurking in your home directory, remove it as well:
rm -rf ~/snap
Now you're done!