Disk space: post your 'df -k'

post your 'df -k' lets see what you're using.

I'll go first.

Entire operating system and applications are only 8 GB. KDE, Beryl, OpenOffice, VMware, Blender, Google Earth, Firefox, Thunderbird, VariCAD, Mathmatica, GIMP, Doom3, RTCW, etc. etc. I love how disk space efficient Linux is!

My 271GB used in /home is mostly VMware machines, and audio data.

Code:

[FONT="Courier New"][FONT="Courier New"]$ df -k
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/md/3             76904288   8126232  67215416  11% /
udev                   1036876      2864   1034012   1% /dev
/dev/md/1                38792      9567     28424  26% /boot
/dev/md/4             18231932    176288  17685188   1% /users
/dev/sdc1            488252928 271364304 216888624  56% /home
shm                    1036876         0   1036876   0% /dev/shm
[/FONT][/FONT]

 

Code:

/dev/sda5              8255264   6177592   1742240  79% /
varrun                  379356       152    379204   1% /var/run
varlock                 379356         0    379356   0% /var/lock
procbususb              379356       124    379232   1% /proc/bus/usb
udev                    379356       124    379232   1% /dev
devshm                  379356         0    379356   0% /dev/shm
lrm                     379356     33788    345568   9% /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/volatile
/dev/sda2                75272     37500     34559  53% /boot
/dev/sda6             55985536  36264944  17445468  68% /home

To be fair, my /home has filled up something like 25 times (and I'd clear about 1.5GB each time), so I loaded a bunch of data onto a USB disk in preparation for moving to a new computer in the next week or so.

- Trip

 

Code:

Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2             15907356   6935988   8163300  46% /
varrun                  517800       140    517660   1% /var/run
varlock                 517800         0    517800   0% /var/lock
procbususb              517800       100    517700   1% /proc/bus/usb
udev                    517800       100    517700   1% /dev
devshm                  517800        20    517780   1% /dev/shm
lrm                     517800     33788    484012   7% /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/volatile
/dev/sda1             80461516  31378392  49083124  39% /media/winxp

Ubuntu Feisty with like... everything installed.

 

I used the "df -h" command. I just find it easier to read. How do you display the code so neatly? I'm using about 40GB out of my 107GB available.

My personal folders are about 26.3GB, with a further 10GB allocated as a VMware disk. That means that Linux is using about 3.7GB... pretty amazing considering I have a fully functional system!

 

I used the "df -h" command. I just find it easier to read. How do you display the code so neatly? I'm using about 40GB out of my 107GB available.

My personal folders are about 26.3GB, with a further 10GB allocated as a VMware disk. That means that Linux is using about 3.7GB... pretty amazing considering I have a fully functional system!

 

for comparison, my XP SP2 + "Program Files" use 5.5G which includes the usual browser, java, .NET, GIMP, Firefox and a number of other applications.

So I failed to see significant space advantage of linux. In fact, if memory serve, I remebered I once compared a naked XP installation and a ubuntu GNOME system and XP actually used less disk space.

 

Linux is about choice. If you choose either of the main bloatware windows managers then yes you'll use a lot of disk space. You can get a whole GUI linux distros with tons of applications in roughly 50-90MB (see Puppy Linux etc).

Personally, I use Fluxbox as my windows manager, and the OS and applications take up 1.8GB (it should be 1.4GB but I've got two levels of kernel source 350MB each).

Code:

~# du -sch /bin /etc /lib /opt /sbin /usr /boot /var /tmp
3.2M    /bin
13M     /etc
27M     /lib
4.0K    /opt
5.1M    /sbin
1.6G    /usr
7.0M    /boot
133M    /var
20K     /tmp
1.8G    total

 

Copied and pasted into code brackets. In the full reply screen, it's the button that is a # sign.

- Trip

 

I am well aware of that. I used to squeeze a X based linux with standard browser in about 300M or so, uncompressed. I believe puppy linux etc. use compression to achieve their size.

But that was not the point, as I assume when we compare size, we need to compare things with comparable feature set, which is why I mentioned GNOME. KDE actually takes up less space.

And BTW, Windows 98 use only 200-300M if memory serve which for most people provide a richer feature set than a stripped down linux.

 

Bwwaahhhahahahahahaha!! You're one funny guy chimpanzee! Straight from the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98
"Although Windows 98 is small by today's standards, it was considered to be extremely bloated in its own time"

Heck, Windows 98 is not even fully 32 bit, it was a 16 bit / 32 bit bastard 'hybrid'. Further, you don't even get support for USB ports or DVD drives until Windows 98 Second Edition. [[ Even linux-on-a-floppy distros are fully 32 bit and support USB and DVD ]]

Also, Windows 98 has no concept of user privileges. If I created a user account 'chimpanzee' for you on my Windows 98 box, there's nothing preventing you from formatting the C drive or deleting the C:\Windows folder. [[ Even linux-on-a-floppy provides user account privileges with access security, encryption, and traditional unix user/group filesystem permissions ]]

For your assertion that a plain Windows install provides more functionality than even stripped-down Linux, and that the Windows OS is space efficient, I think Windows 98 is the probably the worst example you could have chosen. Keep trying.

 

does linux on a floppy has window manager ? or web browser ?

in terms usability, 32 bit or 16 bit or protected mode or user account management is much less important. And USB support back then in linux sucks even more than 98.

And if you really want to compare in that deparment, try to compare the size of a NT 4 installation.

Don't just think that you are the only one who knows about linux or *nix because of your certifications.

 

a'ight:

Code:

david@dualie:~$ df -k
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1              4032092   3435484    391784  90% /
varrun                  517880       248    517632   1% /var/run
varlock                 517880         0    517880   0% /var/lock
procbususb              517880       128    517752   1% /proc/bus/usb
udev                    517880       128    517752   1% /dev
devshm                  517880         0    517880   0% /dev/shm
lrm                     517880     33788    484092   7% /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/volatile
/dev/sda3             29964924  12825824  15616944  46% /home
/dev/md0             143370212  79758848  63611364  56% /media/raid

What isn't stated is that all the drives in there are 10KRPM SCSI320 drives And /media/raid is a RAID-0 array. The machine hasn't had Windows on it for years. Actually, my laptop is the only computer of mine in the house (out of 4) that even has Windows installed. And it only boots into that very rarely, for LAN gaming sessions

 

Yes, it has a window manager and a web browser! All on a 3.5" floppy disk. It's not the prettiest looking gui in the world, very VERY basic, but it's a gui none the less. And not the most functional browser, no plugins or java or flash or anything, just basic html. Let me know if you're interested and I'll send you the link to a few choices.

On a linux-on-a-floppy distribution, sure, but that's not the point of our discussion. We were talking about OS functionality vs. disk space required. And IMO, proper user account management still has yet to be implemented in Windows (desktop versions) and is THE primary reason it's so susceptible to viruses, worms, etc. Why do you think OSX, Linux, and commercial UNIX flavors don't have to worry much about viruses? It has nothing to do with market share, as Microsoft would have you believe. (The entire internet is based around various flavors of UNIX, it always has been). It has everything to do with proper user permissions.

I don't. I've been using Linux on desktops and servers since 1996, so I won't hesitate to say I'm more than a little familiar with it. However, there are thousands of folks out there (yourself included) who also know Linux quite well. In fact chimpanzee, I'd go so far as to say that you are far more Linux knowledgeable than most people who want to debate OS's so kudos to you.

 

I have actually gone through this question myself before. Does Windows use more disk space than linux, for comparable feature set ? My conclusion is the opposite. A baseline NT 4 use less than 500M yet it has a lot of features that a baseline KDE or GNOME desktop hasn't. A baseline XP is more or less the same size(difference insignficant).

NT has a proper user management model far advance than linux which is taken from Dec VMS(the recent addition of selinux kind of catch up there which unfortunately is still use in less than 5% of the installation).

The problem of Windows is that Microsoft was a desktop company and that culture extend to even now. They didn't properly break up the UI component and the various sub-system resulting in the only usable account on a desktop be the Administrator. The situation can be equally bad if every user on linux has root prviledge. Fortunately, linux comes from a multi-user background(*nix) so its applications usually designed in that way(be non-root if possible). That is why many daemon process is run as non-root or in a chroot.

As for virus or worm, that simply is the result of "which is a low hanging fruit" ? The number to attack for *nix based system is far smaller than Windows based. And most virus or worm attacks through human user sitting in front of the computer, attacking *nix based system has the added difficulty that the user may not be root so it is kind of useless(you cannot change /lib etc. like you can to /windows/system32). There do appears to have root kits though.

BTW, proper user management is there, even in XP. It is just that it is not frequently used(in home machine) except may be in some very large corps where the machine has been locked down and users login as normal user, not administrators. The latest UAC crap of Vista is an ugly patch, "everyone is administrator by default but you would be asked again(UAC) to ensure you are really administrator".

 

This I do not agree with. VMS was a more powerful operating system 15 years ago than Windows is today. It's clustering capabilities are unrivaled in the industry. It had features 20 years ago that Windows still does not have. I don't want to take this off-topic, but nothing, I mean nothing can touch OpenVMS when it comes to user access and clustering abilities. Which is exactly why they use it in places like nuclear power plants and at the Pentagon. VMS makes for a piss-poor desktop OS though.

Yes, the Windows Server branch (NT) does have user management far ahead of desktop Windows.

Agree 100%. That's exactly what the big problem is IMO with desktop Windows.

For static-IP always-on systems on the internet, I don't think that's true, but for "total number of internet accessible computers" that's probably true. I think Linux & UNIX are a huge target since that's what most internet servers are running. According to netcraft, only 2 of the top 10 most reliable internet hosting companies are using Windows. I think that says a lot.

This is my point precisely. I'm logged into my Linux laptop here as I type this, and there's no virus, no program, /nothing/ that can write to my /lib or /etc or /usr. It's simply not possible since I don't have permission to do so. The only things it can possibly harm or infect is my home directory, and some of the things in /tmp. Nothing more.

Most desktop Windows users are logged in such that if they click on some virus infected EXE or browse some shady javascript hacker web sites, critical system files that the computer needs to work can get infected or damaged, rendering the machine unusable. If I spent all my time logged into my Linux box as the root user, it would the same thing, but I don't do that, and any HOWTO or installation guide will strongly warn you about that - Windows installer does not.

This user account change for desktop Windows could be implemented by Microsoft with almost no effort at all, but they don't do it. Why? Security is a process, not a product. Well, except maybe for the OS that's ' Secure by default'

 

All of today's Windows version are still based on the same underlying framework which is NT. The user management is also the same. So I fail to see how far ahead say Server 2003 is comparing with Vista. It is how they are used that differs. If you want to treat Vista as Server 2003 and management it that way, you can(that is how I manage my desktops which are used by family members too).

Take for example the new Vista. It has a role(forget about the name but sort of Installer which have access to installed files under /windows/system32) for program installation. The result is that even administrator cannot touch /windows/system32 files. All these still use the basic NT security framework that was there from the very first version of NT.

 

I dunno what the point of this exercise is, but if it helps the OP in some way, here you go (abridged to save space

Code:

gautam@gautam:~$ df -k
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1            149352384  70647264  71118428  50% /
/dev/sdc1            488264736 246068192 242196544  51% /media/EXTERNAL

 

Code:

Filesystem           1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3              7566432   2730908   4451172  39% /
varrun                  647340       108    647232   1% /var/run
varlock                 647340         0    647340   0% /var/lock
procbususb              647340       100    647240   1% /proc/bus/usb
udev                    647340       100    647240   1% /dev
devshm                  647340        20    647320   1% /dev/shm
lrm                     647340     33788    613552   6% /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/volatile
/dev/sda1                38888     24454     12426  67% /boot
/dev/sda4             68001652   1671980  62875296   3% /home

 

I'm just curious how folks are partitioning their systems, that's all. There's so many schools of thought when it comes to partition layouts and mount points, just want to see how others are doing it!

 

And a KDE/Gnome desktop has a lot more installed by default than an NT4 system does. NT4 is the OS, notepad, IE, and that's about it. If I just install Linux, X and KDE + base applications, it's much less than 500MB. You can install the full system from a 700MB install CD, and that includes OpenOffice.org. Strip out the software that doesn't have equivalents by default under Windows, and you're well under 500MB. And then you get a fully featured TCP/IP stack that will accept more than 10 connections no matter what version you install, a kernel-integrated firewall, 4+ CPU support, etc. None of which came with NT4.

I don't mind comparing Windows and Linux, but please, call a spade a spade.

 

As I said, I have made the test before a few years ago. GNOME takes more space than KDE. But in both case, the basic desktop(I deliberately chose only what would be in XP/NT, so not including those games etc. or office equivalent suit or media players) still takes up more space than NT.

As for whether it is full feature TCP/IP stack, that was not my concern so long it has tcp/ip funcationalities. Same goes for firewall or 4+ CPU support. As my aimed at that time was only trying to compare a desktop OS(actually to create a portable linux image as small as possible yet allows me to do what a basic windows can do). It is always possible to pick something one has and the other don't and say "you don't have this feature". I can also say linux is feature lacking because it doesn't have an ACL based security system(until recently with selinux).

I use both system on a daily basis side by side and have no reason to bash one or the other(many Windows users have the same sentiment when I say something good about linux) but I just don't find linux has space efficiency advantage over Windows. In fact, for the programs that I compiled on both, windows version usually takes less space than linux ones(and the difference is quite noticeable). Vista is the exception as it takes up lots of space which I have no idea for what.

 

Using Arch Linux, a base install (with X, OpenBox) is 120MB. Xp takes up a lot more than that.

 

I am well aware of that you can customize linux to achieve the criteria of "linux use less disk space than Windows"(through lots of means) but I am more interested in comparing the more mainstream thing like a typical ubuntu vs XP.

I remember reading some where that there were people who can trim Windows 95(or 98 I forgot) into a 1.44MB floppy.

Basically, my experience is that executable and shared libs are larger in size in linux(about 2x) so even if there is a size difference of linux installation and Windows, it is more likely because of what is installed or not and there is no point in comparing for this kind of scenario. Like using dillo as the web browser which is GUI(so I can check the item of 'graphical web browser'), but that cannot be compare in feature with say firefox or opera.

 

Exactly.

This is why you can get distros to run straight from a 256MB usb stick with a lot of free space. You don't need the goodies that today's popular Linux distros have, it's just there to save you install/download time.

Contrast this to Vista these days, where unlike XP which was on a CD in its entirety, people are getting excited that you can shrink it from a DVD to a CD.

 

Alright, compare Ubuntu to XP. Once both are installed, you either a) have Ubuntu with a similar feature set a default XP with a smaller disk footprint or b) have many more features under Ubuntu for a slightly larger disk space usage. As for the executable and shared lib sizes, I have mysql.exe on my laptop which is 1,110,131 bytes. On my linux system, the same version is 72,960 bytes. That throws your 2x out the window, actually turns it on it's head, with the Windows executable 15x the size of the Linux one. Also realize that shared libraries on Linux are actually shared, whereas under Windows there's no provision for versioning shared libraries, so they often have many, many copies of different versions of the same library on a system, each one in each program's directory, loaded into separate memory space when you load each program. I just did a search of my C:. I have 11 copies of msvcrt.dll. ELEVEN. Heck, it's just since XP that the system has been able to load the same library twice... before then, things would just crash if you tried to load two different versions because of application compatibility issues. .NET is where Microsoft finally started to address shared libraries, and Unix has done so PROPERLY for... how long now? Around 20 years?

 

I didn't have mysql.exe on my windows, do you know if it is a stand alone executable or with its own mysqlclient DLL(my WAG would be it is standalone may be using a shared VC DLL) ? On my debian, mysql is small but there is a mysqlclient.so(1280124) which bigger than your quoted size of mysql.exe. The total is not 2x as big but still bigger.

As for DLL under windows, they are shared just as they are in linux. The reason why some programs shipped with their own private copy of DLL is they are afraid of this DLL hell issue and for that matter, they may be doing the wrong thing. Because once there is a copy of say msvcrt.dll loaded, private copy don't get loaded again. If they are the same thing, there is no problem or else it is a source of potential bugs.

Though we are getting off topic here about how to handle DLL versioning(what you see of how Microsoft solve that problem is more complicated and well thought out than what you see in linux which is actually no different than in Windows), were talking about disk space. From a disk space perspective, it has no effect. If you are using the same version of msvcrt.dll, use the version in /windows/system32, not a private copy as that is simply wrong. if your msvcrt.dll must be freezed(private modified copy or to prevent future upgrade by other packages), make it a different named DLL. It is the same thing under linux, you still need your own .so so other package don't overwrite yours. I saw 4 copy of libmysqlclient.so in my debian system obviously because different packages need different version.

 

BTW, just from this msql download page, it seems that at least the package itself is larger in linux than windows, not sure how it plays out on installed system.

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#win32