Yesterday I started using an application called Gnome-Do, which I have to say is awesome. If you’ve used Quicksilver on OSX or Katapult on KDE its really similar. It’s a quick-launch tool to get you what you need as fast as possible (but not faster, of course!). It allows you to quick launch desktop applications with a few quick keystrokes and just generally makes life easy.

I thought I would outline how to install Gnome-Do on Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy” and also on Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy” for those early adopters like myself.

Installing Gnome-Do on Ubuntu 7.10

To install Gnome-Do on Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy” you’ll need to add the Gnome-Do PPA from launchpad. Add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ubuntu gutsy main

After you’ve added the repository you’ll need to update your repository cache and then install the package. Two more commands to take care of that:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install gnome-do

Installing Gnome-Do on Ubuntu 8.04

For those early adopters out there that are already running Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy” you’re lucky to have Gnome-Do in the repositories. You’ll just need a simple:

sudo aptitude install gnome-do

To launch Gnome-Do you’ll need to start it manually. This can be done a few ways:

  1. ALT-F2: gnome-do
  2. Open a terminal: gnome-do
  3. Add it to your System > Preferences > Sessions: gnome-do –quiet (for autostart at login)

Once it’s launched you can access the Gnome-Do interface via “Super”-space (windows button+spacebar). This key binding can also be changed in the gconf-editor (/apps/gnome-do/preferences/key_binding) On my next post I’ll outline how to install Gnome-Do plugins, which add so much more functionality you’ll be amazed. I’ve also hacked together a Gnome-Do plugin myself that will let you quickly install packages via Gnome-Do. I’m looking for a few good C# devels that can help me improve it. Details soon!

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Comments

13 Responses to “How To Install Gnome-Do”

  1. John E. on March 5th, 2008 4:57 pm

    Great! Why don’t you create a branch at https://code.launchpad.net/gnome-do and push your plugin there?

  2. antistress on March 5th, 2008 5:44 pm

    i’m not sure this a bug so i didn’t fill a bugreport about it :

    When you call gnome-do by pressing super+space ans start to type something, you can make gnome-do window disappear by clicking on another window. But when you call it again and start typing, the text is adding to what was typed in first. I think that we should type on a blank field

  3. antistress on March 5th, 2008 5:48 pm

    When you start typing in gnome-do and then click on another window, gnome-do disappear.
    Call it again by pressing super+space and start typing : the text is added to the first one.
    I think that the 1st one should have been deleted to avoid to invalidate the second search
    (imagine type goog
    click to another place
    call gnome-do again and type forest
    your request is googforest)

  4. Jim Priest on March 5th, 2008 7:28 pm

    I love Gnome Do! I can’t seem to get the OpenSearch plugin working mainly because I don’t know how to activate it? I’ve got the dll installed…

  5. foo on March 6th, 2008 3:09 am

    When are you going to upload this to Debian and Ubuntu?

  6. Shane on March 6th, 2008 3:08 pm

    Good stuff! Anxious to see your post on plugins!

  7. astromme on March 6th, 2008 6:13 pm

    I’m having a problem using gnome-do and kde4. It seems like my gnome-do window always opens up underneath every other window I have. Any suggestions?

    (Ubuntu 8.04)

  8. BrokenCrystal on March 7th, 2008 2:03 am

    What exactly is gnome-do? Could you please do a post on what exactly gnome-do does and what it is?

  9. Luke Hoersten on March 7th, 2008 5:14 am

    Great post! This totally helped convert one of my Apple friends to Linux!

  10. Conor on March 8th, 2008 4:07 pm

    @Broken Why not just click on the link in the first line of the post? See, we got this thing called hypertext…

  11. audun on March 9th, 2008 10:17 am

    how do one change where it looks for files? Most of my files are on a separate partition, but like most search tools this one only searches /home for files.

  12. http://grub.myopenid.com/ on March 10th, 2008 9:08 pm

    any idea on how to launch Gnome-Do automatically on start up?

  13. Christer Edwards on March 10th, 2008 10:55 pm

    @grub.myopenid.com - step 3 above, add it to your gnome sessions:

    gnome-do –quiet

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