di – Disk Information Utility, Better Than df ================================================================================ If you are a Linux command line user, you would have definitely used the df command to check disk usage for file systems. Though df is a popular command but still it does not provide some advanced features like actual disk space that is available to a user, various useful display formats etc. There is another command line utility available that not only provides these advanced features but also all the features that df provides. In this article, we will discuss the disk information utility — **di**. **NOTE** – If you want to more about df, check out [the df command tutorial][1]. ### di – The Disk Information Utility ### ![](http://mylinuxbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/di-main.png) It is evident from this snapshot of di’s manual page that this utility provides some valuable features and hence makes it worth using. Lets try out some practical examples of this utility. ### Testing Environment ### - OS – Ubuntu 13.04 - Shell – Bash 4.2.45 - Application – di 4.30 ### A Brief Tutorial ### Here are some of the examples of di utility : **1. The Default Output** By default di command produces output in human readable format. Here is an example : $ di Filesystem Mount Size Used Avail %Used fs Type /dev/sda6 / 28.1G 20.2G 6.5G 77% ext4 udev /dev 1.5G 0.0G 1.5G 0% devtmpfs tmpfs /run 300.2M 0.9M 299.3M 0% tmpfs So you can see that the disk usage figures are displayed in gigabytes (G) and Megabytes(M). This is definitely better than the default output that df produces. **2. Print All Fields Like Mount Points, Special Device Names etc Using – A Option** The option -A can be used to print mount points, special device names etc at full length. Here is an example : $ di -A Mount fs Type Filesystem Options Size Used Free %Used %Free Size Used Avail %Used %Free Size Used Avail %Used Inodes Iused Ifree %Iused / ext4 /dev/sda6 rw,errors=remount-ro 28.1G 20.2G 8.0G 72% 28% 28.1G 21.6G 6.5G 77% 23% 26.7G 20.2G 6.5G 75% 1884160 389881 1494279 21% /dev devtmpfs udev rw,mode=0755 1.5G 0.0G 1.5G 0% 100% 1.5G 0.0G 1.5G 0% 100% 1.5G 0.0G 1.5G 0% 381805 571 381234 0% /run tmpfs tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755 300.2M 0.9M 299.3M 0% 100% 300.2M 0.9M 299.3M 0% 100% 300.2M 0.9M 299.3M 0% 384191 549 383642 0% So you can see that all the fields — that can also be used for debugging purposes — are printed in the output. **3. Print All Mounted Devices Using -a Option** Here is an example : $ di -a Filesystem Mount Size Used Avail %Used fs Type /dev/sda6 / 28.1G 20.2G 6.5G 77% ext4 udev /dev 1.5G 0.0G 1.5G 0% devtmpfs devpts /dev/pts 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% devpts proc /proc 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% proc binfmt_misc /proc/sys/fs/bi 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% binfmt_misc tmpfs /run 300.2M 0.9M 299.3M 0% tmpfs none /run/lock 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% tmpfs none /run/shm 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% tmpfs none /run/user 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% tmpfs gvfsd-fuse /run/user/himan 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% fuse.gvfsd-fuse sysfs /sys 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% sysfs none /sys/fs/cgroup 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% tmpfs none /sys/fs/fuse/co 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% fusectl none /sys/kernel/deb 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% debugfs none /sys/kernel/sec 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% securityfs So you can see that all the information related to all the mounted devices was printed. **4. Print Comma Separated Values Through -c Option** The option -c can be used to print command separated values enclosed with double quotes. Here is an example : $ di -c s,m,b,u,v,p,T /dev/sda6,/,"28.1G","20.2G","6.5G",77%,ext4 udev,/dev,"1.5G","0.0G","1.5G",0%,devtmpfs tmpfs,/run,"300.2M","0.9M","299.3M",0%,tmpfs So you can see that the comma separated values were printed in the output. **5. Print Size In Gigabytes Through -g Option** Here is an example : $ di -g Filesystem Mount Gibis Used Avail %Used fs Type /dev/sda6 / 28.1 20.2 6.5 77% ext4 udev /dev 1.5 0.0 1.5 0% devtmpfs tmpfs /run 0.3 0.0 0.3 0% tmpfs So you can see that all the size related values were printed in gigabytes. Similarly you can use -k and -m options to display the size in kilobytes and megabytes respectively. **6. Display Information Related To Specific File-system Type Through -I Option** Suppose you want to display disk information related to only tmpfs filesystems. Here is how you can do it through -I option : $ di -I tmpfs Filesystem Mount Size Used Avail %Used fs Type tmpfs /run 300.2M 0.9M 299.3M 0% tmpfs none /run/lock 5.0M 0.0M 5.0M 0% tmpfs none /run/shm 1.5G 0.0G 1.5G 0% tmpfs none /run/user 100.0M 0.0M 100.0M 0% tmpfs none /sys/fs/cgroup 0.0M 0.0M 0.0M 0% tmpfs So you can see that information related to only tmpfs type file systems was displayed in the output. **7. Skip The Header Line In Output Through -n Option** If you are trying to parse the output of this command through a script (or a program) and want the di command to skip the display of header line then it can be made possible through -n option. Here is an example : $ di -n /dev/sda6 / 28.1G 20.2G 6.5G 77% ext4 udev /dev 1.5G 0.0G 1.5G 0% devtmpfs tmpfs /run 300.2M 0.9M 299.3M 0% tmpfs So you can see that the header line was not displayed in the output. **8. Print A Totals Line Below The List Of Filesystems Through -t Option** If it is desired to display the totals of all the relevant columns, use -t option. Here is an example : $ di -t Filesystem Mount Size Used Avail %Used fs Type /dev/sda6 / 28.1G 20.2G 6.5G 77% ext4 udev /dev 1.5G 0.0G 1.5G 0% devtmpfs tmpfs /run 300.2M 0.9M 299.3M 0% tmpfs Total 29.9G 20.2G 8.3G 72% Observe that the last row consists of the totals of values for all file systems. **9. Sort The Output Through -s Option** The option -s can be used to sort the output of this command. Here is how you can reverse sort the output : $ di -sr Filesystem Mount Size Used Avail %Used fs Type tmpfs /run 300.2M 0.9M 299.3M 0% tmpfs udev /dev 1.5G 0.0G 1.5G 0% devtmpfs /dev/sda6 / 28.1G 20.2G 6.5G 77% ext4 So you can use the sub-option ‘r’ along with -s to reverse sort the output. Similarly, you can do several other types of sorts using -s option. Here is an excerpt from the man page for your reference: -s sort-type Use sort-type to sort the output. The out‐ put of di is normally sorted by mount point. The following sort flags may be used to change the sort order: m – by mount point (default); n – leave unsorted (as it appears in the mount table); s – by special device name; t – by filesystem type; r - reverse the sort order. These sort options may be combined in any order. e.g.: di -stsrm – by type, special, reversed mount; di -strsrm – by type, reversed special, mount. **10. Specify Output Format Strings Through -f Option** You can specify the output format string through a combination of -f option and a sub-option. For instance, to print the name of the mount point, use -fm. Here is an example : $ di -fm Mount / /dev /run So you can see that only mount names were printed in the output. Similarly, to print file system type, use -ft. Here is an example : $ di -ft fsType ext4 devtmpf tmpfs If you want to have a quick look then here is a snapshot of other formatting options available : ![](http://mylinuxbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/di-1.png) For complete set of options, refer to the [man page of di command][2]. ### Download/Install ### Here are some of the important links related to di command : - [Home Page][3] - [Download Link][4] The command line utility di can also be downloaded and installed through command line by using apt, yum etc. Ubuntu users can download this command from Ubuntu Software Centre too. ### Pros ### - Provides many advanced features - OS independent ### Cons ### - Does not come pre-installed on most of the Linux distributions - Lots of option to learn ### Conclusion ### To conclude, di command provides some very useful features over and above what df command provides. If you are looking for a df-like but advanced disk information related command line utility then di is the ideal choice. Try it out, it does what it promises. **Have you ever tried di or any other df-like utility? Share your experience with us.** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- via: http://mylinuxbook.com/di-a-disk-information-utility/ 译者：[译者ID](https://github.com/译者ID) 校对：[校对者ID](https://github.com/校对者ID) 本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创翻译，[Linux中国](http://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出 [1]:http://www.expertslogin.com/linux-command/linux-df-command/ [2]:http://www.manpagez.com/man/1/di/ [3]:http://www.gentoo.com/di/ [4]:http://freecode.com/projects/diskinfo