du Know How Big Your Linux Files Are?

Last week we took a look at the df command, which is for getting information on filesystems. A related command is the du command, which tells you how much disk space your files and directories use. I like the du — disk usage — command because it is faster and more powerful than clanking around with clumsy graphical file managers. It’s familiar to Linux oldtimers, but perhaps not so familiar to newer Linux users. It tells you the size of a single file: