Fresh Ubuntu ogg: The Disk Usage Analyzer

Download the podcast here - Episode 21

News

Item #1 - Linux Backer Lets Go Of Third Of Staff

Item #2 - Feisty Fawn (7.04) Herd1 Released!

Item #3 - The Open Source Car Project

Main - -The Disk Usage Analyzer for Ubuntu and Kubuntu

This was a neat little find!! This handy utility will tell you how big your directories are and how much space is allocated to it on the physical drive. The utility will give you both a text version of the space and a graphical representation of the data that is on your hard drive. Above are the pictures of both the Ubuntu version and the Kubuntu version. The Fresh Ubuntu choice for disk analyzers is....Kubuntu!!! Yes, it is actually far and away a better implementation of this utility. Kubuntu gives both the graphical and textual information in a split window, whereas in Ubuntu you have to call up the graphic by pressing a different button on the menu. I also give a thumbs up to the way that Kubuntu walks you through the whole process by selecting the directory from a popup window upon initial startup of the utility. On the other hand, Ubuntu leaves you standing there wondering what to do. Now, I realize that once you learn the application this become less clumsy, but, when opening up the program for the first time it can literally stop you in your tracks. This is a novel utility which might come in handy someday when you are getting close to filling up your hard drive with documents, music, and, (ahem) graphics.

CLCOTW - aliases

This is not really a specific command, but a way of accessing a set of commands through "aliases". An alias is a shortcut to a proper command that can be entered in the terminal. Aliases can be very handy with long and verbose commands. I am a poor typist, so anything that can alleviate that end of my work is appreciated. Before we can use any aliases we must declare them in our user's ~/.bashrc file, which resides hidden in our home directory.

You can use sudo gedit ~/.bashrc to open the file. (I am not a big fan of Vim or Nano).

I would save a copy of the file before making any changes. For example, File -> Save As -> .bashrc.orig It is also a good idea to actually read the file before adding the aliases. Bash, the default shell, already provides some example aliases that have been commented out. It is here that I suggest adding the apt-get aliases.

alias agu='sudo apt-get update'
alias agi='sudo apt-get install'
alias ags='apt-cache search'
alias agsh='apt-cache show'
alias agr='sudo apt-get remove'

These aliases could also be put in a file called .bash_aliases, and set aside from the .bashrc file. there is a provision in .bashrc to map all aliases to a file called .bash_aliases. That option is quite helpful for cross-pollenating your settings from machine to machine. This example was taken as an excerpt from the O'Reilly press book "Ubuntu Hacks", chapter six, page 209.

Enjoy!!!

Links to the music - Because of the graciousness of the artists, they have allowed podcasters to play their music on our podcasts in exhange for a little promo. So here it is, thanks for listening.