## GDiskFree Manual

2000
John Fleck

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license can be found here.

Many of the names used by companies to distinguish their products and services are claimed as trademarks. Where those names appear in any GNOME documentation, and those trademarks are made aware to the members of the GNOME Documentation Project, the names have been printed in caps or initial caps.

This is version 1.2 of the GDiskFree manual.

## Introduction

GDiskFree is a program for monitoring disk usage on your computer. It is included in the `GNOME-Utils` package, which is a part of the GNOME desktop environment. This document describes version &version; of GDiskFree.

You can start GDiskFree by selecting GNOME DiskFree from the Utilities submenu of the System Menu, or by running the command `gdiskfree` on the command line.

## Using GDiskFree

### Basic usage

When you start GDiskFree, you see the program's Main window, as shown in .

#### GDiskFree Main Window

GDiskFree Main Window

You'll see a dial for each of the mounted disk drives and/or disk partitions on your computer. The position of the pointer, and the number beneath it, indicate the amount of space used on the disk.

Optionally, GDiskFree also displays the size of the disk drive.

The label at the top of each dial identifies the drive or partition it's measuring. `/dev/hda1`, for example, measures the first partition on the first hard drive (hda). `/dev/fd0` indicates it's the first floppy disk. Other identifiers can include `/dev/sda`, for the first SCSI hard drive, and `/dev/sga` for the first generic SCSI device.

By default, the drive's mount point (the directory where the drive shows up in your filesystem) will be shown beneath the dial.

### Menus

The menu bar, located at the top of the Main Window, provides the following commands:

File

  This menu contains command Ctrl-q Exit which is self-explanatory.

Settings

  This menu contains command Properties which launches the General Settings dialog.

Help

  This menu contains commands

  - Manual — shows this manual

  - About — shows basic information about GDiskFree, such as author's name and version number.

## Customization

To change default settings, select Properties command in Settings menu. This launches the General Settings dialog, shown in .

### General Settings dialog

Properties dialog

### Invoking Sync

The Invoke sync before getting usage info check box ensures GDiskFree has the most up-to-date data when its display is updated. Under normal operating conditions, the kernel doesn't always immediately write file data to the disks, storing it in a memory buffer and then periodically writing to the disks to speed up operations. Checking this box forces the kernel to update the disk files before GDiskFree's display is updated, ensuring up-to-date information. This comes at the cost of slightly slower performance.

### Mount Points

Checking the Show drive mount points check box displays the mount point beneath each drive. This is the equivalent of the directory in your file system in which the disk's contents appear.

### Show Drive Size

Checking Show drive size causes GDiskFree to display the total size of the disk drive.

### Orientation

Dial Orientation can be used to change the appearance of GDiskFree's display, either lining the dials up horizontally or stacking them vertically.

### Update Interval

Update interval determines the time, in seconds, between GDiskFree updates. Change the number by left-clicking with your mouse on the slider bar and sliding it to the left or right. The update interval, in seconds, displays above the slider bar.

#### Warning

Setting this to 1 second is probably a bad idea, as your computer will spend a substantial portion of its time and energy updating GDiskFree instead of doing real work.

### Geometry

You can also control the size and positioning of GDiskFree when launching it from the command line with the `geometry` command line option. `gdiskfree --geometry 200x300+30+50`, for example, will create a GDiskFree window 200 pixels wide and 300 pixels high, with its top left corner located 30 pixels horizontally and 50 pixels vertically from the top left corner of your screen.

## Authors

GDiskFree was written by Gregory McLean (gregm@comstar.net). Please send all comments, suggestions, and bug reports to the GNOME bug tracking database. Instructions for submitting bug reports can be found on-line at http://bugs.gnome.org/Reporting.html. If you are using GNOME 1.1 or later, you can also use command `bug-buddy` for submitting bug reports.

This manual was written by John Fleck (jfleck@inkstain.net). Please send all comments and suggestions regarding the manual to the GNOME Documentation Project at docs@gnome.org. You can also add your comments online by using GNOME Documentation Status Table.

This program was written by Gregory McLean and can be freely redistributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.