The GNU diff and patch utilities let you compare files to generate a patch that describes the changes between files. You can then apply the patch file on that machine or another. You might think to use diff and patch on XML files, since they are just text files -- and depending on your application, diff and patch might serve your needs well.

How should one allocate disk space for a file for later writing? ftruncate() (or lseek() followed by write()) create sparse files, not what is needed. A traditional way is to write zeroes to the file till it reaches the desired file size. Doing things this way has a few drawbacks...

The previous attempt at comparing file systems based on the ability to allocate large files and zero them met with some interesting feedback. I was asked why I didn't add reiserfs to the tests and also if I could test with larger files.

Many Linux users make use of the KDE or GNOME desktop environments and when it comes to file management, they don’t venture beyond using the environment-provided file management tools like Konqueror or Nautilus. Considering this is Linux, there are many other file management tools to choose from, some of which you may find preferable to the “defaults.”

In Ubuntu, the Archive Manager (or file-roller) has make it easy for anyone to compress and zip up a file or folder, but if you have a large file, say 20Gb, and you want to back it up to the CD/DVD, you will find that no amount of compression can you reduce the file size to fit into 1 CD/DVD.

A file archiver is computer software which brings together a group of files into a single archive file. An archive file is therefore a collection of files and directories that are stored in one file. There are many advantages of storing multiple files this way. For example, an archive is a great way to store backup data, transfer files to another directory, or to a different computer.

When you use the "rm" utility, you may think that you're deleting a file, but you're not. All you're doing is removing the file's index--or, inode number--from the hard drive. The file is still there, and can still be recovered, as long as you don't overwrite the space that it occupies with another file. (Even then, recovery experts still might be able to retrieve it.)

When you delete a file, you are not really deleting it from your had drive. All the system does if free up the space occupied by that file to make room for other files and until that space is filled with new data, the files you tried to delete are actually still stored on your hard disk and can be recovered.

Occasionally, usually due to an earlier typo, you end up with files with peculiar names. Usually these are easily removable, but if you have a file with a name starting -...rm -file will not work.