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Old 11-13-2010, 07:08 PM   #1
taylorkh
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Question A better search tool than beagle?


I have tried beagle on Ubuntu 10.04 and it works - with limitations. I have just shy of 3 TB of disk on this system. SOME of it needs to be index for searching. Most of it does not. Beagle will allow me to exclude certain file types and include certain subdirectories. So far, so good.

On the down side - beagle frequently tells me "too many matches" - it apparently is limited to 100. One problem I see is that I have multiple backups of important data among my 3 hard drives. One OLD item in my Open Office documents stored on /dev/sda3 (mounted as /data) will be stored 7 times on /dev/sdb1 in my rolling daily archives and also once for each year it existed in my year end archives which I keep on-line as a convenience - originals are on DVD media off site - well at least not in the house

I would like to be able to tell the search tool where to look (e.g. just in /data or just in /oldmirror/EOY_2001). Beagle does not seem to allow this.

I see that beagle is no longer in active development so I do not hold much hope that more features are to be expected.

I would appreciate recommendations for a more robust product for indexing and searching various file types.

TIA,

Ken

p.s. I am not running web services - and don't plan to - so something like Isys or Verity would not meet my needs.
 
Old 11-14-2010, 04:06 AM   #2
j-ray
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I'm using findutils locate function and if I want to restrict it to a certain directory or program I filter with grep

locate error.log | grep mysql

the above will show me all mysql error log files on my box...
 
Old 11-14-2010, 05:46 AM   #3
stress_junkie
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I know that I recommended Beagle to someone about a week ago. I don't know if it was you. At the time I was thinking "What this guy wants is either Windows Search or Google Desktop Search". I didn't mention it because I thought that they were both only available on Windows. I was wrong. I just looked at Google Desktop Search. They have a version for Linux!

http://desktop.google.com/linux/

I haven't tried it.
 
Old 11-14-2010, 08:18 AM   #4
taylorkh
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Thanks j-ray. I use grep - this looks like an interesting enhancement.

Thanks stress_junkie. But I am not sure I would trust anything from google on my PC. They are just too damned nosy for my liking. Perhaps paranoid but...

A funny incident re. google desktop for your amusement...

A couple of years ago I was teaching an introduction to PCs and Windows class at the local community college - continuing education program. One evening one of my students, a lady in her 50s, called me in a panic. She had done a google search for something on the web and among the result set found her bank statements. It seems that her husband had installed google desktop without her knowledge - nor his.

As to my needs... I have for years saved my "newspaper clippings" from the web in the form of pdf documents. Those are what I typically want to search. But not bad enough to purchase a full copy of Acrobat to index them.

Ken
 
Old 11-14-2010, 08:23 AM   #5
catkin
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I don't know how they compare with beagle but here are a few local system file search utilities:
EDIT: @taylorkh: IIRC all the above have .pdf search capability.

Last edited by catkin; 11-14-2010 at 08:26 AM.
 
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Old 11-14-2010, 08:47 AM   #6
taylorkh
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Thanks catkin. I will test some of those on a virtual machine and see what they do for me. At the moment I am so happy that Fernando Alonzo did not win the Formula 1 driver's championship that I don't really care if I find a good search tool

Ken
 
Old 11-14-2010, 08:56 AM   #7
stress_junkie
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Quote:
Originally Posted by taylorkh View Post
Thanks stress_junkie. But I am not sure I would trust anything from google on my PC. They are just too damned nosy for my liking. Perhaps paranoid but...

A funny incident re. google desktop for your amusement...

A couple of years ago I was teaching an introduction to PCs and Windows class at the local community college - continuing education program. One evening one of my students, a lady in her 50s, called me in a panic. She had done a google search for something on the web and among the result set found her bank statements. It seems that her husband had installed google desktop without her knowledge - nor his.
I totally agree with you. Google is too nosy. When I see Google Desktop Search on my clients' computers I ask them if I can remove it.
 
Old 11-14-2010, 09:20 AM   #8
Kenny_Strawn
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I would also recommend Zeitgeist (and in Ubuntu Netbook Edition it comes by default): It makes an index of stuff you've visited already so you can search faster.
 
Old 11-15-2010, 10:52 AM   #9
taylorkh
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Thanks all. I have installed recoll and it seems to have the features and capabilities I need - and then some. I am still learning. The only issue I have had so far is with trying to build an index from the command line. Three files are causing it to barf. I will start a separate thread with the details.

Ken
 
Old 11-15-2010, 02:04 PM   #10
salasi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by j-ray View Post
I'm using findutils locate function and if I want to restrict it to a certain directory or program I filter with grep

locate error.log | grep mysql

the above will show me all mysql error log files on my box...
Yes, me too, but it only searches 'filenames' not file contents, and it is not clear whether that would meet the OP's requirements. On the upside, it is fast. And you can also elaborate the filtering scheme...

Code:
locate home | grep -i auto | grep -i interesting_file
..to search for a file named interesting_file (any case) which is known to be in the directory 'auto' somewhere within 'home'

Quote:
At the moment I am so happy that Fernando Alonzo did not win the Formula 1 driver's championship that I don't really care if I find a good search tool
Bah! Second 'me too' of the thread; I'm not a Ferrari fan, but I'd have even been happy with Massa getting the title. A Red Bull driver was better still.
 
Old 11-15-2010, 02:45 PM   #11
taylorkh
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Quote:
I'm not a Ferrari fan, but I'd have even been happy with Massa getting the title.
I hold no ill feelings for Massa - even if he is driving for Ferrari. Anyone who can come back after batting a suspension coil spring off the track with his head at 150 MPH deserves some victories.

I had not followed F1 since Sir Jackie Stewart was racing - until I happened to come across a biography clip of Lewis Hamilton. A remarkable individual and a true gentleman. I think that FA's pressure on McLaren to do some team orders shenanigans in 2007 cost Lewis the championship in his rookie year. FA just does not come across as a sportsman to me - more of a cross between a 3 year old and a rock star primadonna.

That said... I think F1 needs to do something to make passing more common in the sport. The "overtaking working group" of 2008 did a lot of work but with few results other than to foul up McLaren and Ferrari in 2009 and allow Brawn et. al. who interpreted the rules more loosely to capitalize.

I would say remove all aerodynamics (wings, spoilers, F ducts, exhaust powered diffusers etc.), go back to a clutch pedal and a 5 speed gear box and loose the computer in the steering wheel. Give them 8 engines per season to control costs but let the teams do what the want with them.

I love to watch the old films of Fangio, Jim Clark etc. Much more exciting - and now it could be done in safe cars. That would be a show.

Let me get off my soap box and take the dog for a walk before the rain comes in.

Ken
 
Old 11-15-2010, 03:03 PM   #12
stress_junkie
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I just tried recoll. It's the bee's knees! I can find email messages, stored in maildir format, that stupid Evolution won't import. (Evolution. I hate it.)
 
Old 11-15-2010, 03:04 PM   #13
salasi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by taylorkh View Post
FA just does not come across as a sportsman to me - more of a cross between a 3 year old and a rock star primadonna.
Agreed. As I said to a friend 'Just what F1 needs...a cry-baby world champion'.

Quote:
That said... I think F1 needs to do something to make passing more common in the sport. The "overtaking working group" of 2008 did a lot of work but with few results...
Its easy...just get people who don't know how to drive into the cars, and there will be loads of overtaking. Roughly, every time aero control has been tried, it has had limited effect. I've lost count of the number of times people have said 'we'll just do this with aero and the problem will go away' and it hasn't.

It may have worked if the teams had taken the old cars and just made the specified change to them, but they don't. They employ clever people to get to the very edge of what is allowed by the rules, and they do exactly that.

Quote:
other than to foul up McLaren and Ferrari in 2009 and allow Brawn et. al. who interpreted the rules more loosely to capitalize.
You do realise that Ross Brawn wrote to the FIA saying 'the way you have written the regs allows this interpretation, did you mean to write something like .... which would block off the interpretation that you may not have meant' and the FIA wrote back to say, 'No, we are are happy with what we have written'?
 
Old 11-15-2010, 03:53 PM   #14
taylorkh
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Here is another idea to bring some life back to F1 - Change the 3 phase qualifying a little - The top 5 qualifiers get to play on the simulators while the rest of the field race. There has been more action and interest in the back of the field over the past couple of years - excepting of course for Mark Webber demonstrating that an F1 car really can fly

And of course Lotus will be returning to the old John Player Special colors next year. Somehow I just can't get used to Lotus being a 3rd world team.

Ken
 
  


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