I have been using Linux distributions since Ubuntu 6.06 with amazing ease. I have installed and surfed with BSD, Solaris, Gnome, Slackware, and any Linux disk I have come in contact with over the years. Linux is very easy to use, and I have been amazed and awed to abandon Windows XP for Linux because Windows does not have the drivers for my laptop.
I still admire and use Window's XP and Vista for school and personal computing. I am not a developer, but it has been a thrill to watch the growth of the software industry because of the creative genius that has fueled the open source movement. Dave
| LM |
Thanks for your note. We are also inspired by the creativity and ingenuity of the free and open source communities. Open source software just keeps getting better - that's why this job is so much fun.
Could you please let me know if there is any powerful filesize explorer similar to the Windows tools TreeSize or SizeExplorerPro available on Linux platforms.
The filesystem scan could be performed with a command line tool writing the results into an XML file (or database) for sub-sequent graphical report generation. G. Bachler
| LM |
Linux has several tools for visualizing and analyzing disk usage. As you mentioned, it is certainly possible to obtain this information using command-line utilities and outputting the results to a graphing or reporting tool, but other, ready-made apps are also available. If you have a KDE-based system, check out KDirStat (http://kdirstat.sourceforge.net/). Gnome users might prefer Baobab (http://www.marzocca.net/linux/baobab/ - Figure 1), part of the gnome-utils package.
If you look around the Internet, you'll find several other interesting tools devoted to visualizing disk usage. Back in the April 2007 issue, we had an article on 3D file browsers that included the tools FSV, XCruiser, TDFSB, and 3Dfm. You'll find a PDF of this article in our online archive (http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2007/77/A-BETTER-VIEW).
Thanks for a well-balanced magazine on GNU/Linux, with technical and less technical articles that are well written and always informative. To make a small contribution to the regular complaints about the present inclusion of the DVD in each issue of Linux Magazine - something like an envelope instead of the previously available box, I suggest that you include a page with the DVD inlay printed, so we have it without printing - in good quality. I know you publish the DVD inlays as PDFs, but it's a pain to get them and another pain to print them. As a somewhat "old" subscriber, I have quite a collection of past Linux Magazine DVDs with their boxes, and these boxes are quite sufficient to keep the more recent DVDs. Marc Cueni
| LM |
We discontinued our DVD box a couple years ago because it seemed like a lot of plastic to be putting out there in the world for the relatively small number readers who cataloged and saved a complete collection. Since then, as you mentioned, we have been posting the inlays online, so a reader who is collecting the series can print the inlay and place it on the cover of a CD box.
The idea of printing the inlay in the magazine is very interesting. Readers who want it could just cut it out and include it with the box. Of course, the question would be whether a majority of readers would prefer we use that space for something else, like additional description of the DVD. We'll take a close look at your idea as we revise our design in the coming months.