Managing storage

[RagahRagah]

Can't seem to get answers on my own, so trying here. These apps like Filelight and disk analyzer are nice, but as a newb it doesnt help much when you dont know what is safe to delete. I've moved the shaderchache and compdata folders to my micriSD and still virtually all of my HD space is taken up by "other" despite there being 0 games installed on my Deck, so the vast majority of space obviously has nothing to do with shader cache or compdata, yet every answer to this question seemingly points just to those. My download cache in Steam is clear and I have used multiple softwares to clear whatever cache stuff is on there from the main deck files. I figure there are probably other things I may not need (stuff in local and hidden folders, etc.) but I'm not super knowledgeable about this and don't want to go off on my own and delete stuff that may have consequences, especially in hidden folders. I need a guide to what other files are safe to delete or move to microSD and how to identify them, as there has to be some excess I can delete. As I said, the shadercache and compdata folders are now on my microSD and yet the HD is still almost entirely full despite 0 games being present and all proton data being on my microSD as well. Any help or recommendations for figuring this out? Thanks.

[RSebire]

Sounds like you need to factory reset.
Don’t mess with Linux’s filesystem, it’s not that resolute.

[RagahRagah]

Originally posted by element109:

You probably need to empty your shader cache:
https://github.com/scawp/Steam-Deck.Shader-Cache-Killer

I already covered this in the OP. And I already have and have used that, as well as other disc cleaning softwares that pretty much do the same thing. That's not the problem.

[RagahRagah]

Originally posted by RSebire:

Sounds like you need to factory reset.
Don’t mess with Linux’s filesystem, it’s not that resolute.

What do you mean by "mess with?" Only thing I did was move shadercache and compdata, which a lot of people suggested. I'm seeing now that there's a lot of stuff in Steamapps but I have no idea what kind of files these are. Any possibility I can move THAT folder to my microSD?

Other than that, I'm seeing constant large size updates to thing I don't even know the purpose of; that isn't helping either, lol.

[RagahRagah]

Originally posted by Ozwald:

Been a Linux user for over 20 years & I have no idea what he means by 'resolute'.

If you're used to Windows, the file system is a completely different type of system, not just ... nested folders, for lack of a better term. It isn't designed to just move stuff around all willy nilly.

I really haven't looked at the SteamOS distro as a distro, so I don't have answers to your specific question. I use my Deck as it was intended & will likely never have the distro on any other machine, so I just leave it alone.

Based on what I'm dealing with right now, that would be entirely impossible, even on the max space Deck. I have zero games on my Deck and both my shadercache and compdata folders linked to my microSD and I have virtually no space and am desperately trying to figure out what is taking up all this space and how to reduce it.

[Zef]

Originally posted by RagahRagah:

Originally posted by Ozwald:

Been a Linux user for over 20 years & I have no idea what he means by 'resolute'.

If you're used to Windows, the file system is a completely different type of system, not just ... nested folders, for lack of a better term. It isn't designed to just move stuff around all willy nilly.

I really haven't looked at the SteamOS distro as a distro, so I don't have answers to your specific question. I use my Deck as it was intended & will likely never have the distro on any other machine, so I just leave it alone.

Based on what I'm dealing with right now, that would be entirely impossible, even on the max space Deck. I have zero games on my Deck and both my shadercache and compdata folders linked to my microSD and I have virtually no space and am desperately trying to figure out what is taking up all this space and how to reduce it.

What kinda deck you got?

If there is nothing on the deck (games), just pull out your SD card and reinstall or re-image the deck?

[RagahRagah]

Originally posted by Zef:

Originally posted by RagahRagah:

Based on what I'm dealing with right now, that would be entirely impossible, even on the max space Deck. I have zero games on my Deck and both my shadercache and compdata folders linked to my microSD and I have virtually no space and am desperately trying to figure out what is taking up all this space and how to reduce it.

What kinda deck you got?

If there is nothing on the deck (games), just pull out your SD card and reinstall or re-image the deck?

The latter sounds like a pain in the ass but might have to. Someone suggested to me to simply move and link the Steam folder and that just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my Deck 6 ways to Sunday and I can't get this thing running by any method now. ♥♥♥♥ me.

[Zef]

Originally posted by RagahRagah:

Originally posted by Zef:

What kinda deck you got?

If there is nothing on the deck (games), just pull out your SD card and reinstall or re-image the deck?

Someone suggested to me to simply move and link the Steam folder and that just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my Deck 6 ways to Sunday and I can't get this thing running by any method now. ♥♥♥♥ me.

Well at least you know what you f$cked up.

I'd just reinstall the OS if i were you, is gonna be quicker and (more stable/ less error prone) in the future even if you could figure out how to roll back all your changes that you made.

[RagahRagah]

Originally posted by Zef:

Originally posted by RagahRagah:

Someone suggested to me to simply move and link the Steam folder and that just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my Deck 6 ways to Sunday and I can't get this thing running by any method now. ♥♥♥♥ me.

Well at least you know what you f$cked up.

I'd just reinstall the OS if i were you, is gonna be quicker and (more stable/ less error prone) in the future even if you could figure out how to roll back all your changes that you made.

I did this after my last post and was alarmed because somewhere in the installation process I saw "ERROR" but everything finished, all my stuff is still intact and it seems to be working fine now. Fingers crossed.

I also went back and realized the guy said to move the steamapps folder, not the entire Steam folder sooooo it looks like I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up, lol.

[Mahjik]

Just FYI, there are tools that can do those thing for you. Take a look at CryoUtilities which can do those types of moves for you without allowing human error:

https://github.com/CryoByte33/steam-deck-utilities

[RagahRagah]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Just FYI, there are tools that can do those thing for you. Take a look at CryoUtilities which can do those types of moves for you without allowing human error:

https://github.com/CryoByte33/steam-deck-utilities

I do have cryo and I never noticed an option for moving certain folders. I used some option it gave me to optimize space and it actually ended up taking up a bunch MORE space so I reverted back, lol.

[Mahjik]

If you also increased memory/swap space, that is disk space.

[RagahRagah]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

If you also increased memory/swap space, that is disk space.

I believe that is the option that somehow actually BLOATED my disc for some bizarre reason but I will recheck this stuff tonight.

[RagahRagah]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

If you also increased memory/swap space, that is disk space.

Ok, so looking at everything again, going with the recommended settings from Cryo actually added about 25% more data to my hard drive so I quickly undid that. But as a newb I have no idea what this "swappiness" stuff is and don't want to mess with stuff I'm not familiar with; most explanations I searched for on it... I don't grasp most of it and don't understand the jargon. Any idea what I could or should do with any of that?

[somoto the wolf]

If you frequently play non Steam games, make sure you uninstall them through the steam UI and not through the Desktop mode.

It seems the App compatibility folder looses track of files when simply deleting the executable.

The home directory also seems to automatically mirror its files on the SD card at times.

Beam NG is particularly bad about not removing old content when updating, but you find the correct app compat ID for it and manually delete the old files, it should free up some space.

Don’t go deleting things that you didn’t place yourself, though.

[Zef]

Originally posted by somoto the wolf:

If you frequently play non Steam games, make sure you uninstall them through the steam UI and not through the Desktop mode.

What? You don't install non-steam games using steam, only add the .exe or other executable in steam to launch with Proton.

If you actually need to install something you'll be using Lutris most of the time which has their own containerized prefixes.