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:
- ALT-F2:
gnome-do - Open a terminal:
gnome-do - 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!
Great! Why don’t you create a branch at https://code.launchpad.net/gnome-do and push your plugin there?
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
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)
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…
When are you going to upload this to Debian and Ubuntu?
Good stuff! Anxious to see your post on plugins!
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)
What exactly is gnome-do? Could you please do a post on what exactly gnome-do does and what it is?
Great post! This totally helped convert one of my Apple friends to Linux!
@Broken Why not just click on the link in the first line of the post? See, we got this thing called hypertext…
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.
any idea on how to launch Gnome-Do automatically on start up?
@grub.myopenid.com – step 3 above, add it to your gnome sessions:
gnome-do –quiet
@ Christer Edwards
FYI its probably HTML formatting or whatever thats changing the look of your post, but its two dashes (“- -” without the middle space or quotes) prefixing “quiet” to get that option properly invoked. Its very hard to see that in this blog.
Anyway, I figured it out and fixed a long nag of mine about Gnome-Do…thanks!
@Joe – I’ve updated for syntax and it should be much clearer now. Thank you for the heads up.