`locate` is a command-line tool for local file search using a database.
locate is a command-line tool for local file search using a database. The database is a front compressed list of files, it is generated by locate's companion, updatedb.
It is a faster but less versatile alternative of find.
There are numerous locate implementations, with mostly compatible base features:
- locate - from the GNU findutils
- mlocate - The 'm' stands for "merging": updatedb reuses the existing database to avoid rereading most of the file system, which makes updatedb faster and does not trash the system caches as much.
- rlocate - The behavior of rlocate is the same as slocate, but it also maintains a diff database that gets updated whenever a new file is created. This is accomplished with rlocate kernel module and daemon.
- slocate - Security Enhanced version of the GNU Locate (unmaintained, site down)
Some graphical frontends also exists:
- Catfish is a frontend for different search engines (daemons).
- KarambaLocate is a SuperKaramba widget, a sort of GUI for shell command locate.
- kio-locate - A KDE I/O Slave, enables to search from Konqueror.
- KwickFind - KDE Kommander script
- Zeloc - Zenity-Frontend for locate
- XLocate is an X Qt4 front-end to the standard Linux locate utilities.
