FSlint – Utility to clean up your File System in openSUSE

FSlint is a simple yet very easy to use utility to find and clean various forms of lint on a filesystem. i.e., unwanted or problematic cruft in your files or file names. For example, one form of lint it finds is duplicate files. FSlint operates in both GUI and Command Line mode and the GUI is very straight forward to use especially there isn’t much of hidden menu options.

FSlint basically checks if sizes are same, files are not hardlinked to each other, md5sums are the same, sha1sums are the same (in case of md5 collisions).

Install FSlint

“FSlint” can be installed using one of the following 1-click installs based on your openSUSE version.

openSUSE 11.0

openSUSE 10.3

openSUSE 10.2

NOTE: Click here to enable 1-click install in openSUSE 10.2

This should download the YaST MetaPackage file (YMP) and launch the YaST Package manager for installation. Click next on the window showing the selected repositories and next again on the package selection window and finally click Next on the installation proposal window. This should add the required repositories (click import when prompted to import the GPG Keys) and install “FSlint” and required dependencies. Click Finish when the installation is completed succesfully.

FSlint should now be installed under “Applications – System – File System” menu.

Click FSlint to launch the FSlint File System cleanser. You should see the simple interface of FSlint. All the possible actions that you can take including finding duplicate names, name clashes, installed package, temp files, bad symlinks, empty directories and redundant whitespace can all be found on the left navigation. Simply select the required action and click Find button. This should report the status. You can then decide on acting upon them like deleting duplicate files or merge them. You can customize the search option with the directories to include or exclude.

One particular action that interested me was the installed application and the space occupied on your system. Just a coincidence, i was updating my Kernel today to the latest stable from openSUSE repositories and found myself short of space with FSlint obvious showing the application clogging the space. I spent few more minutes removing software I no longer use and all sorted!!!

Simple utilities like FSlint always impress me. Click here to visit the project homepage.