Modern Linux CLI Tools #5: DUST, the new DU -sh

Описание: Welcome back to Modern Linux CLI Tools — a series where we explore small, powerful command‑line tools that make everyday work faster, clearer, and more enjoyable.

In this episode, we look at DUST, a modern alternative to du, written in Rust, that shows disk usage in a clean, visual, size‑sorted tree. No more running du -sh * | sort -hr and squinting at output.

dust gives you:
An instant visual overview of what's taking up space
Automatic sorting by largest items first
A tree layout that makes structure obvious
Useful flags to limit depth, show full paths, and ignore noisy directories

dust is best used right after duf (to see which filesystem is full) and before ncdu (to delete safely). Together, they form a complete workflow for diagnosing disk usage intelligently.

Topics Covered:
Why du output is hard to interpret
Installing dust on Debian Trixie (du-dust package)
Using dust for instant disk usage breakdowns
Limiting depth for readability
Showing full paths
Finding small files by increasing output rows
Ideal workflow: duf → dust → ncdu

Commands Used in the Video:

Install (Debian Trixie / Ubuntu)
sudo apt update
sudo apt install du-dust

Basic usage
dust
dust /home/nico/ncdu-test

Depth limit for cleaner output
dust -d 2 /home/nico/ncdu-test

Show full paths
dust -p /home/nico/ncdu-test

Show top N largest items
dust -n 20 /home/nico/ncdu-test

Show only items above a certain size
dust -z 100M /home/nico

If a tiny file doesn't show up:
dust -r -d 5 -n 200 /home/nico/ncdu-test
(reverse sort, go deeper, show more rows)

Useful Workflow:
Use *duf* to find which filesystem is full
Use *dust* to identify the largest directories quickly
Use *ncdu* to safely delete only what you intend to delete

Next in the series: I don't know yet :D maybe TLDR or FZF, or something else, I will think about it next week :)

Anyway, check out my video series on Modern Linux CLI Tools:

   • Modern Linux CLI Tools