Google has brought another app over to linux. Google Desktop which is brings the power of Google search to your personal files, is now available for linux. It is really nice to see that it doesn’t run on a emulated layer(wine) like picasa or maps instead requires glibc 2.3.2+, gtk+ 2.2.0+.
Google Desktop for linux has various features like:
- Quick Search box: Just press ctrl twice and you get the quick search box.
- Search your Gmail and web history: Allows you to search your email and history even if you are offline as the index is stored on your computer
- Many file types: Searches your Gmail, text, source code, PDF, postscript, html, Thunderbird mail, OO.o documents, images, music, man and info pages, files and folder names. Phew!
- Familiar results: The search result is same as your regular Google search result
- Smart indexing: Indexes the files automatically
- Google integration: If you search for something on the web, it will show related information present on your harddisk too
- File Versioning: Creates cached copies(snapshots) of your files - so you can get previous versions of files or even accidentally deleted data (now someone must complain about it)
- Multi-Language support: Supports multiple languages based on the language setting.
You can download Google Desktop for linux .deb / .rpm or there are information which gives clear steps to install on your favourite distro.
I’ve started using Google Desktop for Linux, and although I like it, it isn’t free software. Well, it’s free as in beer but not as in speech. Just thought this should be pointed out in case anyone gets the wrong idea about it.
Yeah. For the really ‘free’ desktop search you can try beagle or tracker.
http://desktop.google.com/
Hm… I can’t install it at my slackware linux… does it have source code distribution?
The cached copies of your files Is the best feature.
Thanx for your review. And for one and some reason, Google Desktop is SxxK! In my Linux. In condition i have so much love Google. And my distro is Ubuntu, any comment for this one ?
Hey awesome blog! Know anyone who would be interested in part time admin’ing a Linux box? Hit me up!