I've got NixOS running on a 32 GB netbook from 2016. It's really bare bones and I only keep one or two generations to roll back to if needed.
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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Simplest put, a fedora immutable usually keeps two images, the one you'll boot into next reboot, and the one you're running. If a rpm-ostree update hasn't been run it'll be the one you're running and the last one. My bazzite (heavier than silverblue I guess) images are ~ 14Gb, you need room for three (the two you're using and room for downloading the next) plus 3% of your hard drive because fedora says so, so 3*14 = 42 + .03 * 240 = 42 + 7.2 = 49.2 =~ 50Gb.
Wait a sec, when I actually do a
sudo du -sh /sysroot/ostree/deploy/fedora/deploy/*
I get 14Gb for my previous one and 2.1Gb for my current one, so there's some diff black magic fuckery (ostree chunking) going on, which makes sense because it's not taking that long to download. So 50Gb would be super safe, you might get away with 25 depending on how different the two images are (i.e. how much has been updated), but updating to the next major fedora version (e.g. 42->43) would be iffy.
Upshot is, it shouldn't have filled to 90-something in the first place (maybe before ostree chunking, but even then), but if you end up with a lot of entries in your GRUB they're all taking a notable chunk of space and you'll need to purge some.
I don't know how silverblue works, but i'm assuming they offer some way to clean up. You wouldn't want to clean up everything at all times everytime you update, since that kinda defeats the point of an immutable system, but 90gb sounds excessive and definitely warrants some sort of cleanup. On NixOS there is a garbage collect feature where you can remove old generations. If you never run that eventually the drive runs out of space as well.
I didn't phrase that right. It filled to over 90% of the 180 GB SSD. Had move distos right away
If 90% of the 180 gig drive was filled up, that's even more lol, definitely should be a way to clean that up but i've never used silverblue.
It depends on where that storage was used. Some details would be useful.
At its core, you shouldn't need to keep any previous layers than the one you're using for the OS.
You also technically don't need snapshots for anything but your personal file space.
It depends on where that storage was used. Some details would be useful.
the linux mint 240 SSD is free 152 GB. The SSD includes home directory(25 GB) and Swap file(17 GB)
I have an 500 GB HDD that has 20 GB important files. I plan on keeping a copy on the 240 SSD and want the immutable allow twice that sizes(40 GB).
I don't plan on playing any games but i do plan on trying out some video and photo editing, nothing too big.
The OS shouldn't take that much storage regardless of whether its immutable. If you're talking about containerized software, then it will depend on what programs you plan to run.
If you’re talking about containerized software
do you mean Flathub or something like docker/distrobox. I remember using toolbox for some CLI commands.