Google released a Linux version of its search tool for desktops. Google Desktop for Linux is for the moment just a search utility, but the company said it will eventually add support for sidebar and gadgets.

The utility can index OpenOffice documents, PDF and PostScript files, text and HTML, man pages, music, video and image files, web history (provided if you use Firefox) and emails from Gmail and/or Thunderbird.

The distros officially supported are Ubuntu 6.10+, Debian 4.0+, Fedora Core 6+, SUSE 10.1+.

The software features a Quick Search Box, which can be summoned by pressing the control key two times. In this box, users need to only type-in their query for the results to appear almost instantaneously.

Google Desktop for is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, simplified and traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese.

Since the tool is based on Google proprietary algorithms, Google Desktop for Linux is not open-source. The program can be downloaded from here http://desktop.google.com/.

“For most Linux users, looking for files, documents, or emails usually involves some combination of 'find' and 'locate,' but sometimes these tools don't quite do what you're looking for, like finding that single PDF containing the specific topic you're looking for. Or you just wish there was a much easier way to find something than 'find /home/username -name '*.pdf' and 'pdftotext pdf_file_name.pdf output.txt...'So that's why today we're releasing Google Desktop for Linux.” said Kan Liu, Product Manager.