Filesize confusion

Linux Support
1

Hi Guys

Yesterday I installed Timeshift ( an equivalent to Windows System Restore) I’ve set it to run once daily and auto remove any snapshots older than 5 days, so far it’s taken 2 snapshots and stored them at /timeshift, I intend to move the snapshot location off the main hard drive to an external location but for now I want to know how much space they will take up but my confusion is this… if I go into the root folder and right click the /timeshift folder the total size reported is 40.6gb however if I run Disk analyser (Baobab) it’s reporting the /timeshift folder size as 15.7gb, gparted is reporting a total partition usage of 53.34gb which seems more in line with what Baobab is saying considering it’s counting the original file system including my home folder data (which timeshift doesnt save) plus the /timeshift directory,

So my question is what do I believe ?

I’ve attached 2 screenshots to demonstrate what I mean

Many thanks

Graeme

2

Try to get folder size with du
First cd into the directory in question then

du -h | tail -n 1

This should give the result you are after

3

Hi SeZo

I did what you suggested but i get a huge output (so I wont post it) but every file it tries to read is “permission denied” so it doesn’t tell me anything

Many thanks

Graeme

4

Try it with sudo (as I can see it now tha it is in the root folder).

5 
graeme@Linux1 / $ cd /timeshift
graeme@Linux1 /timeshift $ sudo du -h | tail -n 1
[sudo] password for graeme: 
15G	.
graeme@Linux1 /timeshift $

Well according to that it is 15gb but why would pcmanfm get it so badly wrong ?

Many thanks

Graeme

6
Well according to that it is 15gb but why would pcmanfm get it so badly wrong ?

I cannot answer that, but for consistency I always fall back to du

If you want more output (like individual folder / file sizes) then just use

du -h
7

Which version of Peppermint and pcmanfm ?

PCManFM in Peppermint 3 used to get the “size on disk” badly wrong … but this doesn’t appear to be the issue here as it’s getting BOTH wrong.

Does it get individaul file sizes wrong in the timeshift directory ? … another thought - are they archives ? (ie. is pcmanfm for some reason reporting their uncompressed size ?)

8
Which version of Peppermint and pcmanfm ?

PCManFM 1.1.99.0
LibFM ver 1.2.2-Beta0

Does it get individaul file sizes wrong in the timeshift directory ?

If you believe what pcmanfm calculates the total size of /timeshift then no because the sum of it’s parts don’t add up

there is one folder containing the snapshots at the moment there are now 3 snapshots each reporting 13.5gb and 6 empty folders reporting 4kb, so that’s more or less 40.5gb but the total size of /timeshift is being reported as 54.2 gb a difference of 13.7gb (which coincidentally is the same size as a snapshot) I checked for hidden folders and there doesn’t seem to be any

are they archives ?

No they all seem to be uncompressed files

Many thanks

Graeme

9

Does it report the individual file sizes correctly ?

10
Does it report the individual file sizes correctly ?

I can’t think of a way to answer that because I don’t have a file of a known size to judge but it looks ok ie the shortcut script you sent me is reading 526 bytes which seems plausible

as it is now there is 4 folders in /timeshift/snapshot (.sync, 08-12, 09-12, 10-12) the .sync folder wasn’t showing up yesterday but that explains the 13.7gb discrepancy mentioned in my last post

So the confusion is the discrepancy in what pcmanfm is reporting and what Baobab is reporting which is now as follows

Baobab pcmanfm

/timeshift…16.3gb /timeshift… 54.2gb
.sync…15gb .sync…13.6gb2
08-12…695mb 08-12…13.5gb
09-12…443.7mb 09-12…13.5gb
10-12…107.7mb 10-12…13.6gb

Graeme

11

OK, as you appear to be using the version of pcmanfm/libfm from my PPA I could do with you changing back to the previous version to see if this is a new bug as I was planning on releasing this as a Peppermint update :o

Just to be sure, can you post the output from:

dpkg -l | grep pcmanfm

and

dpkg -l | grep libfm4
12

Looking at this thread - Vote: Future of PCManFM (Very important!!) - LXDE Forums - it appears there are moves afoot to change the FM for LXDE, including looking at Thunar. Personally, before using Cinnamon’s Nemo (a bit improvement on Nautilus from GNOME 2), Thunar was my favourite FM. It was light, stayed out of the way when necessary, and had all the features I needed. This was a couple of years ago though; I don’t know how development has gone since then. I also don’t know too much about dependencies, but as upstream LXDE seem to be considering it, it could well be an avenue for Peppermint - certainly worth casting a look over anyway.

13

PCManFM has undergone a LOT of development lately … there’s also the planned move to Qt … so I doubt if they’ll move to Thunar.

At least I hope not … PCManFM is a great little file manager, and they’re FINALLY getting round to fixing the little bugs that have irked me for some time :slight_smile:

pcmanfm 1.1.2 seems pretty bug free … except maybe this one.

14 
graeme@Linux1 ~ $ dpkg -l | grep pcmanfm
ii  pcmanfm                                       1.1.2+bzr973+201309081728~ubuntu13.04.1  i386         extremely fast and lightweight file manager
graeme@Linux1 ~ $ dpkg -l | grep libfm4
ii  libfm4                                        1.1.9+bzr2262+201309072338~ubuntu13.04.1 i386         file management support (core library)
graeme@Linux1 ~ $
15

Hmm… I think you missed that the poll closed in 2009 :wink:

16

@Emegra

Can you please go back to your previous versions with:

sudo ppa-purge ppa:mark-pcnetspec/pcmanfm-testing

when that’s done … log off/on again.

Then check your versions again with:

dpkg -l | grep pcmanfm

and

dpkg -l | grep libfm4

if you’re back to the earlier version, does it still misreport the filesize ?

17 
graeme@Linux1 ~ $ sudo ppa-purge ppa:mark-pcnetspec/pcmanfm-testing
[sudo] password for graeme: 
Updating packages lists
W: GPG error: http://www.openprinting.org lsb3.1 Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 7A4B44C2D2A2203E
W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/gwendal-lebihan-dev/gnome3-background-slideshow/ubuntu/dists/raring/main/binary-i386/Packages  404  Not Found

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/mefrio-g/plymouthmanager/ubuntu/dists/raring/main/binary-i386/Packages  404  Not Found

E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
Warning:  apt-get update failed for some reason
PPA to be removed: mark-pcnetspec pcmanfm-testing
Warning:  Could not find package list for PPA: mark-pcnetspec pcmanfm-testing
graeme@Linux1 ~ $
18

For what it’s worth I tried reading the filesize of /timeshift in another Linux OS i have installed on another partition running thunar and it’s reporting close to what PCManFM is reporting, here’s how it breaks down

Thunar
/timeshift…72.3gb

PCManFM
/timeshift…67.8gb

Boabab
/timeshift…17.0gb

gparted is reporting total partition usage of 54.68gb

the figures are higher than yesterday as there is now 4 snapshots in /timshift/snapshots

Graeme

19

Hmm … so PCManFM is the closest to what gparted is reporting ?

Dunno what happened with the ppa-purge … have you already disabled that PPA ?

But if other distro’s/file managers are all getting it wrong, at least it’s not a pcmanfm speccific issue … so don’t worry about purging the PPA :wink:

–

20
Dunno what happened with the ppa-purge .. have you already disabled that PPA ?

I don’t think so and it doesn’t look like it but sources is something I’m not really up to speed with so here’s a screenshot of my sources list with the source i think it is highlighted

Graeme