Comment # 26 on bug 1144782 from Stefan Hundhammer

(In reply to Ladislav Slez�k from comment #24)
> Keep in mind that "zypper install foo" and then "zypper remove foo" does not
> free any space. The installed package will still be part of a snapshot. 

That is certainly correct; but with a reasonable cleanup strategy for snapper
(see "man snapper") those operations should cancel each other out pretty
quickly. Yes, you'll consume the disk space for that package temporarily in one
in-between snapshot, but it shouldn't take long until it gets cleaned up, and
then that disk space is freed again.