pydf: Disk space, in color

I pulled pydf out of the dark corners of my memory, just to make an appearance here again today.

Simple enough. A good rundown on drives, mounted points, sizes, and space left. A visual indicator for those of us who think it important.

And color. Everybody likes color. 😉

And … I can’t think of anything else to say. I know I remember another disk usage tool that used solid blocks instead of ASCII characters, but I can’t recall it now.

I shall soon have to dredge that out of my memory too. 😕

dd, df and du: Pop quiz

Here are three tools you probably already know, if you’ve spent any time at the terminal since picking up Linux: dd, du and df.

All three come from coreutils, and I’m betting they’re installed on your system.

And in the interest of … being interesting, let’s turn this around and you give the answers.

1. Show the amount of disk space that’s free, in units that are easily readable by (normal) human beings. Bonus: Show only one type of filesystem.
2. Create an image of a floppy disc. 🙂 Bonus: Show the results on-screen … in hex. 😈
3. Show the size of folders in the /etc directory, in numbers that are easy to read, and include a total for the entire directory. Bonus: Show only the top ten, sorted highest to lowest, but no total.

You’re allowed to use external programs to finish the bonuses. 🙂

Like I said, you probably already know these tools and even if you can’t come up with answers on your own, you have the entire Intarnets at your disposal. Consider it an open-book test. 😉

diskmoose: An example to the contrary

I try to be blunt when I run into programs I don’t care for. In some cases I just don’t know how to use it, and when I can, I plead ignorance.

Others I just don’t … see the value in.

That’s diskmoose. And apparently that’s all it does. It has two dependencies: cowsay and go. One is miniscule, and the other is gargantuan.

It accepts no switches or flags. It has no man page. The home page gives no real guidance. All I can get it to do is what you see in the screenshot above.

I’m hoping something spectacular happens if any of those paths actually fill to less than 100Mb. Because as it is now, diskmoose has no real benefit I can garner.

For giving no details, for having no discernible controls, and for committing the cardinal sin of dragging in a massive dependency (43Mb!) that apparently adds nothing … I have to hand out an exceedingly rare un-smilie to diskmoose: 😦