Top 5 Disk Usage Analyzers
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KDirStat
Homepage: http://kdirstat.sourceforge.net/
KDirStat is by far my favorite way to find out where all my disk space went. Just open it up, select the directory to scan, and hit OK. KDirStat will then analyze your system and spit out a colorful, graphical representation (known as a treemap) of your file system. The bigger the chunk, the bigger the file size. It will also let you delete the file if you don't need it (you need to be very careful about deleting system files, however). You can even browse remote directories using the Open URL command (under the File menu).
To install KDirStat, grab the kdirstat package in the universe repositories.
Filelight
Homepage: http://www.methylblue.com/filelight/
If the treemaps just give you a headache, you may want to try the Filelight approach. Instead of treemaps, this KDE app visualizes your hard drive as segmented rings, in a pie-chart like fashion. Clicking on a segment of the pie chart will zoom to that folder. You can also open the current file or directory with a simple click of the middle mouse button. It's a very handy tool that any treemap-hater should use. And best of all, since it's a KDE app, you can browse any protocol (e.g. SSH or FTP) using KIO (the KDE Input/Output protocol framework).
To install Filelight, get the filelight package in the universe repositories.
Baobab (Disk Usage Analyzer)
Homepage: http://www.marzocca.net/linux/baobab.html
To all you Gnome users out there, meet Baobab (also known as Disk Usage Analyzer). Based on Filelight's technology, Baobab uses the segmented-ring approach to visually display your hard-drive's usage. It also outputs a file tree that can be sorted alphabetically, by size, or by percentage of hard-drive space. And like Filelight and KDirStat, it can scan remote directories -- a big plus. For more on Baobab, read Jonny McCullagh's Disk Usage article in the How-to section: Ubuntu Disk Usage
If you're a Gnome user, Baobab is pre-installed (look for Disk Usage Analyzer). If it isn't installed or you aren't a Gnome user, you need to install gnome-utils (which unfortunately contains a lot of other tools).
GdMap
Homepage: http://gdmap.sourceforge.net/
If you're a Gnome user but don't like the segmented rings, give GdMap a try. It's a very simple treemap analyzer built with Gnome. It only analyzes the file system and creates the output in a "square block" visualization (colored by filetype). Some may find it too basic, missing many features like the ability to delete or open the current file in a file manager. For the basic user or those who do not want to get confused, GdMap is the best option. In informal testing, it was by far the fastest as well.
To install GdMap, grab the gdmap package in the universe repositories.
JDiskReport
Homepage: http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/
JDiskReport is a basic treemap analyzer that is meant for explaining what your disk is being used for. Written in Java, this cross-platform tool displays both Filelight-like pie charts and their corresponding directories. It also has a very useful "largest file" list, as well as several other handy graphs.
JDiskReport unfortunately doesn't have an Ubuntu package. However, you can easily run it as a Java Web Start applet or as a full-fledged Java program. Get both from the JGoodies download page at http://www.jgoodies.com/downloads/index.html. Note: you'll need to have Java installed. I didn't test it with any Java except Sun's.
Andrew Min has been a Linux addict since he first installed openSuSE in VMWare. Learn more about him at http://www.andrewmin.com/
