Is it normal to get this many Nvidia-related updates?

[smoky wasp]

I hope I attached a screenshot showing the list of updates I received a minute ago. Is this common? Are these different versions of the same thing and only one or two of them will be installed?

[snow nexus]

That are flatpacks. It depends on what games you are playing I think.

[rugged wave]

Yep that can be normal with Nvidia updates.

[smoky wasp]

After reading the replies, I clicked on Make It So, expecting a lengthy update process. It took 5, maybe 10 seconds. This is just weird.

[rugged wave]

Updates to the kernel, nvidia drives, sizeable software. It will take longer.

[dry turtle]

no, it isn't normal. you only need the currently used (newest) version. not sure why the old ones haven't removed themselves. try flatpak remove --unused

report back if it has worked or not.

[smoky wasp]

Looks like I need to attend second semester Linux training!

[smoky wasp]

I can't believe it was that simple! Turns out we can right click on each obsolete update and select an option that says something like 'ignore this file in the future'. No need for multiple terminal commands. At least that's how I hope this works. If the next batch of updates only includes Nvidia 570.153, I'll mark this thread Solved.

[dry turtle]

well, it means it won't install updates for it anymore. it'll still be on your system. if you don't mind the 2-3 gb taken by the drivers, why not

[smoky wasp]

I hope you can remember what it was like when you began your Linux journey. I'd like to delete files I don't need, but I don't have the knowledge to know what can be safely deleted versus deletions that ruin my day.

[dry turtle]

im unsure why they are pinned. but if you tried to remove an old one like flatpak remove org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-550-107-82, it will either go thru or say it's used by an app and ask if you wish to delete both the driver and app. so you shouldn't break anything. I hope i explained this ok.

and make a timeshift incase anything goes wrong

[smoky wasp]

Thanks! Very clear.

[smoky wasp]

The flatpak remove command returned this error. The folder I wanted to remove is there.

[dry turtle]

pretty sure that says 0 and you typed 8

[smoky wasp]

Actually, and I'm not being snarky, I copied the command from your post above and didn't notice the error. I blame my old eyes (71!). I'll fix it. :-)

[dry turtle]

my bad.

[buoyant inlet]

Stick to that command Lot gave you for Flatpaks, and use sudo apt autoremove to throw out old stuff from .deb packages. Manual deletions should not be necessary most times. And always keep a reasonable amount and variety of Timeshift snapshots, then you should be golden.

[smoky wasp]

Well, this is not going to be straightforward. Most of these nvidia files are obsolete, but I don't want to break anything by deleting them.

[buoyant inlet]

You can just keep them. I have not yet seen that many on one system, but this is likely an artifact of a certain combination of packages you installed. It should not hurt performance, it is just a bit more clutter than usual.

[dry turtle]

hmm. it should only keep these for when you're using it. can you try a different version like 570-120?

[smoky wasp]

It is the same result. Those programs have registered (or whatever the correct word is) for every version of nvidia.

[dry turtle]

hmm. what does apt list --installed | grep nvidia report?

[smoky wasp]

More than I expected!

[dry turtle]

did you ever use the .run script from Nvidia website, that is meant to install drivers?

[smoky wasp]

No, I thought about getting the latest driver directly from Nvidia, but I read about how that can go very wrong. I remember having to do something that was scary to enable listing open source Nvidia drivers in Driver Manager, but all of my drivers were installed by Mint or by using Driver Manager.

I'm pretty sure I installed the nvidia 550 driver using Driver Manager with no extra steps, then I had to do the extra steps before Driver Manager would show the 570 driver. I don't know why there are multiple versions of the 550 and 570 drivers.

[buoyant inlet]

My vote is don't change anything unless you experience issues. It does look weird, especially since you only appear to have nvidia-570 actually installed, but if it ain't broken, stop fixing it.

[smoky wasp]

If only it was that easy! I agree with you, but knowing I've got that useless stuff is going to be really annoying. I think there will be no more updates for the useless stuff, so maybe I can forget about it. :-)

[dry turtle]

if you don't mind the extra GBs, leave it like curunir said. else I found this on the internet. on my system, these are removed using the remove --unused command. not sure why it isn't like that for you.

[buoyant inlet]

If it gives you peace, set Update Manager to automatic and never look at it again. It should be safe as long as you always keep Timeshift snapshots to roll back to in case of issues.

[smoky wasp]

Many thanks to both of you for sticking with me on this! Timeshift runs daily because I know I will screw something up by playing with things I do not completely understand.