How To Install fl-cow on Ubuntu 18.04
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install fl-cow on Ubuntu 18.04.
What is fl-cow
fl-cow is:
Fl-cow allows you to utilise hard links to save disk space by causing hard-linked files to be copied rather than overwritten as they are changed.
This is useful for making changes to large source trees while keeping a copy of the original tree to generate patches from. Also, if you are using the Arch revision control system with working copies hard-linked to a revision library, using fl-cow can prevent revision library corruption.
Fl-cow is an LD_PRELOAD hack, not a kernel patch.
There are three methods to install fl-cow on Ubuntu 18.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install fl-cow Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get update
After updating apt database, We can install fl-cow using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install fl-cow
Install fl-cow Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt update
After updating apt database, We can install fl-cow using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install fl-cow
Install fl-cow Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude update
After updating apt database, We can install fl-cow using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install fl-cow
How To Uninstall fl-cow on Ubuntu 18.04
To uninstall only the fl-cow package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove fl-cow
Uninstall fl-cow And Its Dependencies
To uninstall fl-cow and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 18.04, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove fl-cow
Remove fl-cow Configurations and Data
To remove fl-cow configuration and data from Ubuntu 18.04 we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge fl-cow
Remove fl-cow configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove fl-cow configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge fl-cow
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install fl-cow package on Ubuntu 18.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.
