Program to Queue Files for Copy/Move/Delete in linux?

Question

I've search the net for Linux's answer to something like Teracopy (Windows)... but could not find anything suitable.

The closest things i got are:

• Krusader. Mentioned in their features but indicated as 'not implemented yet'.
• MiniCopier. A java based app http://a.courreges.free.fr/projets/minicopier/minicopier-en.php
• rsync is not an option.

Can someone recommend me a simple file copy tool that can queue files for copy/move/delete? Preferably if I can drag and drop from Nautilus.

If something like this does not exist, can someone please tell me why? ...am I the only person that needs something like this?

Answer 1

In my experience, doing a few copies simultaneously in Linux doesn't really reduce overall throughput. My measurement of throughput is based on rsync's -P argument. My particular case is separately copying a number of folders full of large files off of a USB hard drive at the same time.

So unless you're copying a lot of things at once, you should be fine.

Answer 2

I just wrote this simple script, which I called 'cpw', to solve this problem.

You use it just like you would use cp... the only difference is that it builds an array of any cpw processes that are already running when it is started, and waits for them to finish before passing the commands on to cp. In this way, it behaves like a self-organizing queue.

You can keep adding background cpw jobs, but they won't step on each other. They'll execute one at a time.

I'm sure others can suggest improvements.

#!/bin/bash

cpwpids=(`ps -ef | grep $USER | grep 'cpw' | grep -v grep | grep -v $$ | awk '{ print $2 }'`) #build an array of all cpw procs for this user that aren't this one.

cpwcnt=${#cpwpids[@]} # number of elemenets in the above array
cnt=$cpwcnt # counter to be decremented each pass
while [ $cnt -gt 0 ]
do
    cnt=$cpwcnt
    for i in "${cpwpids[@]}" # check if each pid has died yet
    do
        ps --pid $i >/dev/null
        if [ $? -gt 0 ]
        then
            let "cnt -= 1"
        fi
    done
    sleep 2
done
cp -v "$@" >> /tmp/cpw.log #log

Usage example:

$ cpw -R /src/tree /dest/tree &

Answer 3

I don't know of anything like this for Linux (though that's not to say that there isn't one somewhere). Linux software tends to get written by Linux users. Experienced Linux users may not think to create a tool like this, because if they notice any slowdown of copies during a GUI session they're likely to switch to a terminal and copy via commandline.

Here are some basic commandline copying utilities that are very fast and shouldn't affect your desktop environment:

• cp ("cp foo /path/to/bar" will copy foo to bar)
• mv ("mv foo /path/to/bar" will move (rename) foo to bar)
• tar ("tar cf - foo | ( cd /path/to/archive/ ; tar xf - )" will recursively copy a directory)
• rsync ("rsync -r foo /path/to/archive/" will recursively copy a directory)

Answer 4

Create a list of files and use SCP to perform the copy. The nice thing in linux is you can add to your text file using echo.

Answer 5

I also need this feature; I just wrote a patch for Midnight Commander to do that.

If you want, I can send it to you.

Dany :) danilo (dot) schembri (at) google e-mail system