We all know that I usually leave all the Web2.0 stuff to Handy, but this time…I’m not actually sure Google Desktop actually qualifies as W2.0, so I decided to take a look at the new linux version :)

I installed Google Desktop for Linux on my box 12 days ago. I was actually pretty excited about trying it, but I’ve found out two things that make it so GD4L isn’t as important on my desktop as I thought it’d be.

The first one…it took ELEVEN days for it to finish indexing my computer. Yup…11 days…I know I have tons and tons of stuff (a bit over 400 gigs of data), but…come on! Eleven days?!? Not even beagle took that long indexing the same data, and I wasn’t happy with it taking almost 5 days.

The second one, and this isn’t really GD4L’s fault…but…I don’t use it.

I’m one of those old *NIX users, faced with Slowaris many years ago for the first time…moved completely to linux over 10 years ago…used to doing a lot of stuff the Old Way…and…I find myself using locate and grep and other standard CLI tools way more than I use GD4L or that I ever used beagle.

I used to think that it was beagle’s fault….but…now that I’ve tried GD4L…I’m not quite so sure about that.

So…I know you probably were expecting a review of its features or something, but…no such luck…Google Desktop for Linux just hasn’t made any impression on my computing life, and that’s all I can say about it, unfortunately.

vox
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Geekness, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
3 Comments so far

  1. Rich G. on July 10, 2007 1:19 pm

    Same here. Not *nix though, winders user, but my thoughts every time I’ve installed it were a) Why’s it take so long to index and 2) Why did I need this again?

    I wind up removing it every time I install it. I’m finding myself using the google toolbar quite a bit, the portable bookmark thing is quite nice.

  2. Vox on July 10, 2007 2:48 pm

    The thing is, *NIX has good file-finding tools in the CLI, yes, you can’t do a search for text inside a file without a bit of CLI voodoo, but even so….maybe it’s because of what Nicholas used to call my CLI fetish lol!

    Anyway…I’m gonna leave it installed for a few weeks, see if I end up using it….which I doubt.

    As for the google toolbar…my brother installed it on my mom’s computer…and…I find no use for it. On my box, I have a FF plugin installed for bookmark sync’ing, and nothing else I’ve seen on google’s toolbar makes me want to install it.

  3. University Update - Linux - Google desktop for linux, first impression on July 10, 2007 2:51 pm

    [...] Link to Article linux Google desktop for linux, first impression » Posted at Vox’s [...]

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