this may help a bit more but it doesn`t make sense!
The original TarGZ thing that went into the Download drawer Has all the Bitcoin-qt and many other files, but I didn`t see an Install thing anywhere so I ignored it.
Then I tried the Snap thingd and that Did install and gave me a bitcoin logo that I clicked on and got Bitcoind working.
the directory path for that is: Home/snap/bitcoin-core/common/.bitcoin
But... there`s no bitcoind file in there? and yet it`s clearly running? I had to click show hidden files to see most of these things too, but bitcoind doesn`t seem to be in there, but it must be?
so I`m even more confused now! LOL
That directory path used to store blockchain and other files. If you want to find location of bitcoind installed by Snap, AFAIK you can do that by using command
which bitcoin-core.daemon.
of course now I`m a bit concerned because the near 160Gb progress I`d made running bitcoinD seems to have gone to zero now I`m running QT, which is only at 19Gb currently? I really hope I don`t end up downloading 2 copies of the blockchain!
Maybe the Snap version has a different location to save it's files. I'm not sure, never used it. It sounds like you started from scratch again.
You're most likely right. Looking at
https://github.com/bitcoin-core/packaging/blob/main/snap/snapcraft.yaml#L16-L23, it seems it override $HOME which makes it's impossible for Bitcoin Core (snap version) to access actual $HOME.
plugs: [home, removable-media, network, network-bind]
environment:
# Override HOME so the datadir is located at
# ~/snap/bitcoin-core/common/.bitcoin/ instead of
# ~/snap/bitcoin-core/current/.bitcoin/, and each new version of the
# snap won't have a different data directory:
# https://docs.snapcraft.io/environment-variables/7983
HOME: $SNAP_USER_COMMON