slocate in the default desktop install

[Kai Schroeder]

Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> Since very early on, we've shipped slocate as a part of the default desktop
> install in Ubuntu.  This provides an indexed list of filenames on the system
> to assist in searching for a file by name.  I'm not sure whether any of the
> standard desktop applications made use of it, or whether it was only useful
> on the command line.
>
> Today, at least, it doesn't seem to be used, and more featureful indexed
> searching is provided by tracker, and the overhead of re-indexing daily can
> be inconvenient for laptop users.
>
> Should we still ship slocate on desktops?
>
>   
This has been discussed before on ubuntu-devel-dicuss:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2007-September/001646.html 


Some points made:

Tracker cannot index system wide files and cannot be easily changed to 
do that (at least the index cannot be shared between users).
Some graphical user interfaces like gnome-search-tool do use slocate
Admins and advanced users will miss locate (but they will easily find 
out how to install it)
dpkg -S can be used as a replacement for searching most system wide 
installed files

 - Kai Schroeder