Here's a quick tip for you on the Steam Deck: how to find out where all that drive space is going with a sweet program called Filelight. This will work great on Linux desktops too, since it's just a KDE application.
Available as a Flatpak package, you can easily install it from Flathub. On the Steam Deck (or a Linux desktop running Plasma), you can load up the Discover store and look for Filelight. You can also use Flatseal to allow access to other parts of your system, like an SD Card.
Filelight gives you quite a rather gorgeous and simple way to look through your storage, and find something perhaps you've left laying around that was forgotten. You can click inside each folder, and keep going deep until you see exactly where that space has gone.
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Note: if you don't see it listed, you may need to add the Flathub Beta Remote using this command in terminal (Steam Deck has it by default):
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo
For normal Linux desktops (not the Steam Deck), it's also usually available in your standard software repositories. Use whatever packing system you prefer.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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11 comments
Imho Flatpak is not very suitable for things like Filelight, e.g. afaik flatpaked apps can't access a folder where flatpaks themselves are installed. I don't use flatpaked file managers for similar reasons.
(Writing this from flatpaked Firefox)
Last edited by axredneck on 24 April 2022 at 6:33 pm UTC
(Writing this from flatpaked Firefox)
Last edited by axredneck on 24 April 2022 at 6:33 pm UTC
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Quoting: axredneckImho Flatpak is not very suitable for things like Filelight, e.g. afaik flatpaked apps can't access a folder where flatpaks themselves are installed. I don't use flatpaked file managers for similar reasons.There might be some cases where this is true, but in this case it works well as shown in the video, especially on Deck where you don't exactly have many writable places by default anyway.
(Writing this from flatpaked Firefox)
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Doesn't Deck come with KDE? So you can probably pull it from the repo if your set up in not in immutable mode. Unless SteamOS repos don't have such packages?
Last edited by Shmerl on 24 April 2022 at 7:39 pm UTC
Last edited by Shmerl on 24 April 2022 at 7:39 pm UTC
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Quoting: ShmerlDoesn't Deck come with KDE? So you can probably pull it from the repo if your set up in not in immutable mode. Unless SteamOS repos don't have such packages?Disabling read-only is not recommended, and changes would get wiped with OS updates. There's certain ways around it, but I'm not going to be doing any kind of guide or app suggestion that would need people to do it.
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Quoting: Liam DaweThen at some point you will end up your Steam Deck full of orphaned Flatpak runtimes not even knowing they are there.Quoting: axredneckImho Flatpak is not very suitable for things like Filelight, e.g. afaik flatpaked apps can't access a folder where flatpaks themselves are installed. I don't use flatpaked file managers for similar reasons.There might be some cases where this is true, but in this case it works well as shown in the video, especially on Deck where you don't exactly have many writable places by default anyway.
(Writing this from flatpaked Firefox)
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Schattenspiegel Apr 25, 2022
Well it is a bit funny to install a Fatpak to see where you might have ended up wasting space on your drives.
On a more general not I still wonder why given the push to use Flatpaks did not result in mayor DEs developing gui tools that automatically check if runtimes are still required by other applications or can be savely removed and therefor offer the option to do so. It is pretty dumb to advocate ease of use and then leave the machines of users littered with orphaned runtimes unless they drop to the command line.
On a more general not I still wonder why given the push to use Flatpaks did not result in mayor DEs developing gui tools that automatically check if runtimes are still required by other applications or can be savely removed and therefor offer the option to do so. It is pretty dumb to advocate ease of use and then leave the machines of users littered with orphaned runtimes unless they drop to the command line.
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slaapliedje Apr 25, 2022
This is the one type of tool that EVERY OS should have build in. I don't know if macOS has one, but Gnome does, KDE does, Windows does not and I have to download the port of kdir (I think that is what it's called). I haven't used Filelight yet, but it seems very much like the Gnome version.
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Yeah, may be propose for SteamOS to simply include it by default.
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Quoting: slaapliedjeThis is the one type of tool that EVERY OS should have build in. I don't know if macOS has one, but Gnome does, KDE does, Windows does not and I have to download the port of kdir (I think that is what it's called). I haven't used Filelight yet, but it seems very much like the Gnome version.
WinDirStat, the Windows port of KDirStat.
I'm still using the respective view of Konqueror, though:
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Quoting: EikeQuoting: slaapliedjeThis is the one type of tool that EVERY OS should have build in. I don't know if macOS has one, but Gnome does, KDE does, Windows does not and I have to download the port of kdir (I think that is what it's called). I haven't used Filelight yet, but it seems very much like the Gnome version.
WinDirStat, the Windows port of KDirStat.
I'm still using the respective view of Konqueror, though:
Wow, I knew about windirstat and Kdirstat, but had no idea Konquerror could do this!
I wish that view was available to filelight, along with a few others.
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slaapliedje Apr 25, 2022
Quoting: EikeQuoting: slaapliedjeThis is the one type of tool that EVERY OS should have build in. I don't know if macOS has one, but Gnome does, KDE does, Windows does not and I have to download the port of kdir (I think that is what it's called). I haven't used Filelight yet, but it seems very much like the Gnome version.
WinDirStat, the Windows port of KDirStat.
I'm still using the respective view of Konqueror, though:
Those are the ones! Thanks!
2 Likes, Who?
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