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I wonder why aren't there any tool that enable one to find files on his harddisk very rapidly like "search everything" does .Just type a part of the file name and all files containing the keyword will show up instantly . Isn't it possible to design a program to record the names of all files in some directory in a database so that you can search the database quickly for file names ?

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If you are looking for file names only, it allready does this, it is called locate

For more advanced searching you can look at tracker: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Tracker (see also this question: Alternatives to OS X's Spotlight? )

More options you can find here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FindingFiles

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How can I make locate search in a specific directory ? – hvjkjdtmkgh Nov 7 '12 at 8:56
That's another question, but you can find the answer here serverfault.com/questions/313733/… :) – Nanne Nov 7 '12 at 8:59
but that finding files link on help.ubuntu is quite a good description of your choices it seems? – Nanne Nov 7 '12 at 9:00
@hvjkjdtmkgh: See my comment on Gufran's answer for how to search a specific directory. – Scott Severance Nov 7 '12 at 9:15
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Run sudo updatedb and locate [ filename or part ]
updatedb updates the index database.
If you want to locate a program, run whereis [ program name ]

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Nice, but how to make locate search in some specific directory in linux mint ? – hvjkjdtmkgh Nov 7 '12 at 8:58
well for that purpose you can use find command, use it like this find [path to directory] | grep "file name or part" This will search recursively so you can just search inside the base directory and it will automatically look for the file inside any sub directory. – Gufran Nov 7 '12 at 9:02
For some specific directory: locate foo | grep /home/bar/baz – Scott Severance Nov 7 '12 at 9:13
Thanks , but can you give me an example ?I'm completely new to linux .In windows ,you write D:\\foldername\ etc What's the equivalent in linux? Also ,does this tool has a GUI so that I can open the file directly ? – hvjkjdtmkgh Nov 7 '12 at 9:29
utilities like locate or find do not have GUI built in, you can use a third party tool like catfish. To install the tool you can search for catfish in software center or run this command sudo apt-get install catfish. After installing this you can open the program from Unity Dash. regarding the File structure in linux, there is no C, D Drives, all the partitions are mounted as directory inside root, that is / (back-slash). so everything goes directly inside /, like your Home directory (same as your user directory in windows) is located inside /home/ – Gufran Nov 7 '12 at 9:46
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