Google Desktop reaches Linux

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 28 June 2007 13:19

Business IT - Technology

Not content with versions for Windows and Mac OS X, Google has released Google Desktop for Linux.

Developed largely at the company's Beijing office, the desktop search tool provides speedy access to information held in a variety of files.

"or most Linux users, looking for files, documents, or emails usually involves some combination of 'find' and 'locate,' but sometimes these tools don't quite do what you're looking for, like finding that single PDF containing the specific topic you're looking for," said product manager Kan Liu.

The Linux software "includes almost all the features from the first Windows version of Google Desktop Search plus the Quick Search Box, so you can quickly search through all your files, emails, web history, and more."

Tapping the Control key twice opens the Quick Search box, allowing the entry of search terms.

Google Desktop indexes emails stored in Gmail as well as local files. Importers handle OPenOffice.org files, along with PDFs, man pages and other common Linux file types.

"Keeping with a global focus, you can use it in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean," said product marketing manager Mendel Chuang.

The free software requires glibc 2.3.2 or later and gtk+ 2.2.0 or later. It is said to work with "many versions of Linux".