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Sabrina
Asked: 2019-04-04 22:37:02 +0800 CST

Ubuntu `system search` another drive

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One thing I like Ubuntu compared to other distro is it's capability to do quick search.

I've been looking for everything (Windows tool) alternative for quite sometimes and it seems like this is the best at the moment.

However, this Ubuntu system search only search a local drive installed with the OS.

It doesn't search another physical drive.

Would it be possible to do this?

windows search 18.04

2 Answers

  1. Ubuntu uses a local database for this. locatedb is one version of this and it has a configuration file located at /etc/updatedb.conf.

    Contents:

    $ more  /etc/updatedb.conf
PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS="yes"
# PRUNENAMES=".git .bzr .hg .svn"
PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /var/spool /media /home/.ecryptfs /var/lib/schroot"
PRUNEFS="NFS nfs nfs4 rpc_pipefs afs binfmt_misc proc smbfs autofs iso9660 
ncpfs coda devpts ftpfs devfs mfs shfs sysfs cifs lustre tmpfs usbfs 
udf fuse.glusterfs fuse.sshfs curlftpfs ecryptfs fusesmb devtmpfs"

    As you can tell for this lots of locations are not added to the indexing.

    This is an example of a method to add a path when you use locatedb:

    updatedb --localpaths '/ /media/usbdrive/dir/Music /media/usbdrive/dir/Photos'

    I am not sure if needed but

    sudo updatedb

    will recreate the database by scanning your discs in case an alteration does not trigger it.

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  2. Have your other drives and partitions auto-mounted in your /etc/fstab:

    # /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/nvme0n1p6 during installation
UUID=b40b3925-70ef-447f-923e-1b05467c00e7 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/nvme0n1p2 during installation
UUID=D656-F2A8  /boot/efi       vfat    umask=0077      0       1
# Windows drives C, D & E
UUID=F2C2ACE4C2ACADF3 /mnt/e    ntfs-3g permissions,locale=en_US.utf8,x-gvfs-show   0       0
UUID=F03ED48E3ED44F6A /mnt/d    ntfs-3g permissions,locale=en_US.utf8               0       0
UUID=5CCC5867CC583E08 /mnt/c    ntfs-3g permissions,locale=en_US.utf8,x-gvfs-show   0       0
# Broken Ubuntu 16.04
UUID=f3f8e7bc-b337-4194-88b8-3a513f6be55b /mnt/old        ext4    x-gvfs-show       0       0
# Clone Ubuntu 18.04
UUID=8337e8c8-6461-44f2-b5fe-dfd5b6b05883 /mnt/clone      ext4    x-gvfs-show       0       0
# swap was on /dev/nvme0n1p9 during installation
UUID=b4512bc6-0ec8-4b17-9edd-88db0f031332 none            swap    sw                0       0

    All of them will automatically be indexed for quick search. For example:

    $ time locate .bashrc
/etc/bash.bashrc
/etc/skel/.bashrc
/home/rick/.bashrc
/home/rick/.bashrc~
/home/rick/restore/.bashrc
/home/rick/restore/.bashrc~
/mnt/clone/etc/bash.bashrc
/mnt/clone/etc/skel/.bashrc
/mnt/clone/home/rick/.bashrc
/mnt/clone/home/rick/.bashrc~
/mnt/clone/home/rick/eyesome/.bashrc
/mnt/clone/home/rick/restore/.bashrc
/mnt/clone/home/rick/restore/.bashrc~
/mnt/clone/usr/share/base-files/dot.bashrc
/mnt/clone/usr/share/doc/adduser/examples/adduser.local.conf.examples/bash.bashrc
/mnt/clone/usr/share/doc/adduser/examples/adduser.local.conf.examples/skel/dot.bashrc
/mnt/e/.bashrc
/mnt/e/Temporary Work/.bashrc
/mnt/old/etc/bash.bashrc
/mnt/old/etc/skel/.bashrc
/mnt/old/home/rick/.bashrc
/mnt/old/home/rick/.bashrc~
/mnt/old/usr/share/base-files/dot.bashrc
/mnt/old/usr/share/doc/adduser/examples/adduser.local.conf.examples/bash.bashrc
/mnt/old/usr/share/doc/adduser/examples/adduser.local.conf.examples/skel/dot.bashrc
/usr/share/base-files/dot.bashrc
/usr/share/doc/adduser/examples/adduser.local.conf.examples/bash.bashrc
/usr/share/doc/adduser/examples/adduser.local.conf.examples/skel/dot.bashrc

real    0m0.868s
user    0m0.852s
sys     0m0.017s

    Even Windows files are indexed:

    $ time locate /cmd.exe
/mnt/c/Windows/SysWOW64/cmd.exe
/mnt/c/Windows/SysWOW64/en-US/cmd.exe.mui
/mnt/c/Windows/System32/cmd.exe
/mnt/c/Windows/System32/en-US/cmd.exe.mui
/mnt/c/Windows/WinSxS/amd64_microsoft-windows-c..andprompt.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.17134.1_en-us_65026a8ffb1498f6/cmd.exe.mui
/mnt/c/Windows/WinSxS/amd64_microsoft-windows-commandprompt_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.17134.1_none_708d53148386ef59/cmd.exe
/mnt/c/Windows/WinSxS/wow64_microsoft-windows-c..andprompt.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.17134.1_en-us_6f5714e22f755af1/cmd.exe.mui
/mnt/c/Windows/WinSxS/wow64_microsoft-windows-commandprompt_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.17134.1_none_7ae1fd66b7e7b154/cmd.exe
/mnt/d/Windows/SysWOW64/cmd.exe
/mnt/d/Windows/SysWOW64/en-US/cmd.exe.mui
/mnt/d/Windows/System32/cmd.exe
/mnt/d/Windows/System32/en-US/cmd.exe.mui
/mnt/d/Windows/WinSxS/amd64_microsoft-windows-c..andprompt.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.10586.0_en-us_0c0776913c41663d/cmd.exe.mui
/mnt/d/Windows/WinSxS/amd64_microsoft-windows-commandprompt_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.10586.0_none_17925f15c4b3bca0/cmd.exe
/mnt/d/Windows/WinSxS/wow64_microsoft-windows-c..andprompt.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.10586.0_en-us_165c20e370a22838/cmd.exe.mui
/mnt/d/Windows/WinSxS/wow64_microsoft-windows-commandprompt_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.10586.0_none_21e70967f9147e9b/cmd.exe

real    0m0.989s
user    0m0.980s
sys     0m0.008s

    I added the time command so you can see how it takes less than a second. For a count of all the files indexed use:

    $ time locate * | wc -l
625125

real    0m39.088s
user    0m38.644s
sys     0m0.423s

    It takes 39 seconds to list 625,125 file names and count them.

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