[tlug] Seeking recommendations for file consolidation

[Dave M G <martin@example.com>]

TLUG,

I have a whole bunch of back up CD-ROMs from the last few years. Mostly 
from my days as a Windows user.

There are so many of them now, though, that I don't need them all, and I 
know most of the files will be duplicates anyway. Not to mention a lot 
of junk that simply isn't needed at all anymore.

But I can't quite toss them out for fear that on some of them might be 
some data that might be unique.

Now that my current computer has many gigabytes of free space, I'm 
copying the contents of all the CD-ROMS to a directory on my hard drive. 
Each CD-ROM's contents goes into it's own sub-directory to prevent 
accidental over-writing.

Once all the data is in one place, I hoped to find a way I can weed out 
duplicates and be left with one set of just the most recent versions of 
unique files.

I know that there's the command line "diff" command. But my 
understanding of that is that it compares two individual files and you 
can learn how different they are. That seems a little different than the 
more global comparison between multiple directories that I'm looking for.

I also downloaded and ran Kompare. It says on their web site that it can 
recursively compare subdirectories. But I can't find any such feature in 
the interface.

Beyond that, I haven't had much luck in discerning an appropriate 
application for this task.

Can anyone recommend something suitable?

Thank you for your support and advice.

--
Dave M G