Replace duplicates with symlinks [SOLVED]

[Dave Woyciesjes]

Alan Milnes wrote:
> Alan Milnes wrote:
>> I've just invested in a 1Tb external HDD and am consolidating various 
>> backups onto it.  What I'd like to do is identify and remove all 
>> duplicate files on it but replace them with symlinks to the original.
>>
>> I've googled and found fslint and fdupes, the latter looks promising as 
>> you can export the findings to a text file - it produces a line like this:-
> 
> OK the answer is FSlint which wins the prize for the biggest discrepancy 
> between usefulness and documentation!!  Here's how I did it.
> 
> 1) sudo apt-get fslint
> 
> 2) Apps -> System Tools -> FSlint
> 
> 3) Removed my home directory from the search path and added my USB drive.
> 
> 4) Selected 'duplicates' then 'find'
> 
> 5) Once it had finished searching clicked on 'merge', *without* 
> selecting any of the results.  It's really counter-intuitive, it runs 
> the merge process against those files not selected.
> 
> That's it.
> 
> Am now running it on my 84% full 1Tb drive - not sure how long it will 
> take!!

	Very interesting.... I wonder how it compares the files and decides 
which to delete? By name alone? File size? Time stamp? And does it move 
the files to the Trash, or somewhere else? More research is needed....

-- 
--- Dave Woyciesjes
--- ICQ# 905818
--- AIM - woyciesjes

"From there to here,
 From here to there,
Funny things
are everywhere."
--- Dr. Seuss