Thursday, March 24, 2011

My Selection of Linux utilities that Should make a Standard Distribution-GParted-02

Even though I started with K-Torrent for its global utility factor and demand by many a mile my best utility is gParted, apart from Damn Small Linux (D.S.L-only 50 MiB).

I used DSL for two main reasons.

1. When one of my (not that it happens) computers gives problems or I am cleaning them up and reformatting. I use it for formatting the hard disks.

2. Browsing the web to see whether internet line (wiring) is broken or is it a problem with the (external as opposed to internal) service provider before giving a call to the Telecoms.

Both these utilities (browser and partitioning tool) and many other little ones are there in DSL.

With my general inquiry into the best Linux distributions for my use (family) long before writing on the 100 Linux distributions.

When I discovered many distributions I thought I should share that knowledge with a wider audience mainly locally and now of course globally.

It is evident more foreign visitors hit my page than locals and thank for keeping my interest alive and well.

There are of course days with very few visitors and then I reflect on the reason of drop in page hits and try to change my strategies.

Mind you I have been talking about Live Linux over a year now, even I need a diversion to keep my inner senses sharpened.

That is why I decided to write on the different utility packages in Linux.


1. Gparted is a Debian derivative and for that reason it is stable and reliable.
2. It updates frequently and improve almost every 3 months.
3. It is light weight and one can carry in ones front shirt pocket like DSL and Puppy Linux.
4. With its popularity every good Linux distribution includes it by default but there are some who do not.
5. So much so that if it is not included I have a tendency for dropping that in my personal list. Suse is one of them which does not have it (KDE version) and restricts the partitions to 15 even though Linux is capable of having over 60 partitions.
6. It is graphical front make partitioning a simple job. Good old days I used to install win 98, then a virus guard and thirdly partition magic for partitioning. After that only I Install Redhat Linux.
7. New versions can handle hard disks over 160 GiBs.
8. It is amazingly fast compared to DOS. In 5 to 10 minutes it can prepare a disk.
9. No defragmentation necessary (cleaning) like what you have to do religiously in Microsoft systems.
10 It looks after the health of the hard disk and its long life. I have used many hard diks discarded by others and have the best use of them for years. Of course once a year I erase everything and reformat to get the best use and that is why I use gParted.

Mind you other factor is Linux does not harm the hard disks and keep a watchful eye every second and boot time.


There are many other partition utilities in Linux but if one has used it once you do not need another for your life. I have said good bye to partition magic, the windows utility.
I must tell you it is better than the Knoppix partitioning (GParted in it) tool.
One simple advice before I wind up is, make sure you have at least one 20 MiB FAT (32) partition in your system free and in the next writing probably I tell you why.