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http://beaglewiki.org/Installing_prerequisites
Thanks, but no, thanks.

For Linux there is Beagle.

I've been waiting a long time for this. And this, and this, and this.

I'd sure like to see 3d GTK+ widgets and window decoration, all following the same global illumination, complete with specular maps and all the advanced pixel shader techniques available the desktop could become truly beautiful.

• iFolder - http://www.ifolder.com/
• openSUSE - http://www.opensuse.org/
• Mono - http://www.mono-project.com/
• Hula - http://www.hula-project.org/
• Diva - http://www.diva-project.org/
• Tango - http://www.tango-project.org/
• Beagle - http://www.beaglewiki.org/
• Better Desktop - http://www.betterdesktop.org/

Well. If it was about running this or that app despite it being written in .NET, that would be all fine and dandy, but new and useful Unix/Linux apps are being written in C# as well. Take the desktop search Beagle for example, or the music player Muine. Some people just seem to like the language and the libraries.

I think it uses Mono technology. This martians are really good hackers, last time I checked it was still at version 0.1.3 on Earth, and they already have version 2! Next time should think about offshoring to Mars!

There's always http://beaglewiki.org/Main_Page

AFAIK GDS allows you to search through different types of files like web history or im logs (although last time I used it program support was very limited, no GAIM for instance, may be better now), something that Grep, locate, find, etc... do not explicitly do. GDS is more akin to something like Beagle, which is already available for linux and does a very good job (it was included as a standard install in openSUSE).

to choose to deliver a project in C# is to bind that project forever and irrevocably to the .NET platform.

Indeed. How then do you explain the existence of C# projects that are not, in fact, developed for or used with the .NET platform, pray?

Don't forget beagle either. We finally have a good desktop search without checking out the code from CVS.

In my understanding (and Miguel might correct me), one of the major goals of Mono is not just to be cross-platform w/respect to Windows, but also to simply provide a very easy way to write new GUI apps for Linux. So Gtk# makes it possible to create all kinds of cool Linux apps that might never have been developed otherwise.

Beagle:

Office: OpenOffice.org 1.0 (SXW, SXC, SXI, and more), OpenOffice.org 2.0 (ODT, ODP and more), Microsoft Office (DOC, XLS, PPT), AbiWord (ABW), Rich Text Format (RTF)

Standard: PDF, HTML, Plain text

Documentation: Texinfo, Man pages, Docbook, Monodoc, Windows help files (CHM), Application launchers

Multimedia: Images (JPEG, PNG, SVG), Audio (MP3, OGG, FLAC)

Network: Evolution mail, calendar, and addressbook, Gaim IM and IRC logs, Firefox/Epiphany web pages (as you view them, through browser extensions), Blam and Liferea RSS feeds, Tomboy notes

Kat:

Office: OpenOffice.org 1.0 (SXW, SXI, SXC, SXM), OpenOffice.org 2.0 (ODT, ODP, ODS, ODF, ODS, ODC), Microsoft Office (DOC, XLS, PPT), Rich Text Format (RTF), Gnumeric, KOffice (KWD, KPR, KSP, KFO), Lyx, Tex, Device Independent Document (DVI)

Standard: PDF, PostScript, HTML, Plain text

Documentation: Man pages, Debian Package (DEB)

Other: BibTex Bibliographic database (BBL, BIB), Molecular Database Limited Molecule (MDL), DocBook Document (DBK)

While I certainly agree that the BSD license is better than the GPL (especially in the business world), I am not quite sure on what facts you're basing your assessment of Linux on the desktop.

There hasn't been a desktop release of Windows since 2001. In the over four years since XP's release, not only has Linux caught up to Windows as far as desktop usability, it has surpassed it in my opinion. You need look no farther than Ubuntu for evidence. The install requires very little computer knowledge and user input. The default package selection gives you more than most people need from a desktop OS. How many non-geeks do you know who do anything more than chat on AIM, browse the web, check email, play Solitaire, listen to music, write documents, make spreadsheets, and manage photos with their computers? Ubuntu and most desktop-oriented Linux distros come with the ability to do all these by default. With Windows, you have to pay extra and/or go to third parties to get the software needed. Want something you don't need? Synaptic to the rescue. The user searches for a keyword and finds what you're looking for. It couldn't be simpler. It's certainly much simpler than what newbies usually do on Windows: Google for photo album software or whatnot, and use the first spyware-laden clusterfuck they find.

The only thing lacking in many Linux distros, Ubuntu chief among them, are proprietary media codecs such as MP3. Well, they are non-free. Windows users pay for them when they buy their $300 XP license. (And, by the way, getting MP3 support is quite easy in Ubuntu via Synaptic.)

Windows is actually playing catchup to Linux (and Mac OSX, of course) with their upcoming release. Features such as desktop searching (provided in Linux via Beagle) are something Microsoft has been working on but Linux and OSX already have.

I think you'll find that the desktop search tool Beagle, was in development long before Spotlight was even announced. So, if at all, it would appear both Spotlight and Tenor took their cues from Beagle.. not that it matters at all, of course.

Why would you want to use WinFS when you have Beagle or Kat.

It seems like you're talking about how Beagle does things. Beagle sits around and when a file is created or changed (it watches it via inotify) it indexes it. An extended attribute is added to the file so when the file is moved or renamed it can keep track of it. The only thing it doesn't do is handle metadata very well. For example, it should know that an email has To, From, Date, and Subject attributes. It seems to me that we don't really need gnome-storage to get that functionality, which, I think, is your point.

Beagle http://www.beaglewiki.org/. Needs mono and as of yet can be some work to set up, depending on distro

Beagle http://www.beaglewiki.org/

That GDS 2.0 is almost exactly like Beagle. I wonder if Google is planning to release Linux version of GDS...

For you Gnome users, there's Gnome Beagle -- it does pretty much the same thing. Be sure the watch the Flash Demo.

For every iapp there is a pretty good linux equivalent. And as far as spotlight goes, allow me to introduce you to my pet beagle. The one thing you've got me on is system-wide integration, but we do have GNOME-wide integration and KDE-wide integration, so if you stick to one of those two, its pretty much a done deal.

yes, yes, yes! finally some sense in this debate! and btw, what's the status of this sort of thing for linux? is dbfs still under development? how about beagle?

Obviously apple is the first to give a solid attempt at implementing this [...]

Vague qualifier of lacking 'solidity' notwithstanding, Beagle, a free software desktop search program, was up and running before Apple shipped Spotlight. I'm not saying that Beagle was the first to do this job, but since it was distributed before Spotlight, I don't think that it is fair for Apple to get credit for being first here.

I believe that it can search through open office files, email, gaim chat logs, pictures, and all sorts of things. Similar idea to this mac osX thingie. It has a daemon which monitors for changes (i think). I'm on ubuntu hoary, and its not available there yet, but maybe you can get it in debian unstable. If so, maybe you should review it?

I hope its up to par with spotlight and google desktop search and the likes

I've not used it myself, but look into Beagle. With Linux, the area corrsponding to "user space programs that are outside of the kernel developer's control" is the province of the distros maintainers. I have absolutely no idea how this ties in with cp, though - why does cp need to change? The Linux inotify Kernel patches (which Beagle uses to monitor for changes) work at a deeper layer than cp et al.

Beagle is the Linux equivalent, written using Mono. It's early in development, but appears to be making good progress. It uses inotify in the kernel to monitor files for changes.

What about our linux indexing options?
I've looked at Beagle, but it seems to require the whole mono install (haven't gotten around to that yet), and some kernel patching, meta info enabled file systems, and doesn't quite help when dealing with NFS mounted home directories.
Are there any other choices?

It seems that particular idea has just been refactored into what is now Beagle. It's not the same project, but the underlying idea is the same (index and organize ideas and make them easilly accessible). It's faring pretty well. Perhaps it might even have evolved into something better because of the use of inference as opposed to natural language processing. Couple that with iFolder (another project that's going along quite swimmingly).

From the looks of things, this one looks to fare just as well. Some people are already using Beagle (including non-devs like myself) and this one should follow shortly. Fortunately, Seth (like Miguel de Icaza, Nat Friedman, Owen Wilson, etc.) seem level-headed and committed to doing a project and have enough practical sense to carry projects to fruition.

Beagle is a search tool that ransacks your personal information space to find whatever you're looking for. Beagle can search in many different domains.

The latest edition of the Beagle newsletter has just been released.

beagle is the offshoot indexing and searching engine part of dahsboard.

I use this tool as I use IRC, firefox, gaim, evolution and OpenOffice and more on Linux and OS X.