Samefile utility

[Bjørn Ingmar Berg]

On 15/03/06, Scott J. Henson <scotth at csee.wvu.edu> wrote:

> I'm not sure what your trying to do, but from the description of the
> program, you are trying to clean up duplicate files?  diff can do that,
> but it would be a little convoluted, so I would advise against that.

You're right.  I have a 250 GB disk more or less full of junk and personal
files.  It's from several years back and up until now, and moved there from
the various computers I've had or used during this time.  I _know_ there
has to be lots of duplicates, and of course it's too much work to sort it all
out manually.

I have been thinking about diff, as you mention, but after reading the man
pages for it I felt a little discouraged.

> As for packaging samefile, it doesn't look like it would be hard at
> all.  The problem is that dapper is in upstream version freeze and there
> fore I doubt that this utility would even slip into Universe.

That is true.  I didn't think of that at the time of writing.

> Alternatively you can install it into your home directory or /usr/local.

True.  I think I will.  But I immodestly assumed the samefile utility would be
useful for more people than me.  (And honestly there's a small voice of
laziness inside me insisting that downloading and installing GCC et al is a
bit overkill for one small utility.  On the other hand I might need it later as
well.)

Anyway, now it's mentioned.  So perphaps some day for some future
release it might be let in from the cold.

Thanks for your reply!

Cheers,
Bjørn Ingmar Berg