searching whole computer multi OS

**crip720** · January 28th, 2014

Is there a way to do a search on a computer with multi OSs and hard drives. I usually search each OS one by one, which can be time consuming. Is there a way to do a search from Dash or nautilus on one OS, and have it also search the other OSs[mounted]. I am using this search for files, documents, etc. Thank you. Colin.

**monkeybrain20122** · January 28th, 2014

Yeah if you mount the other partitions, you can search in Nautilus. If you want to search in dash, after mounting run
sudo updatedb

**crip720** · January 28th, 2014

Hi, did a quick search for "guide to kde" that is in 13.04 32b partition from 13.04 64b partition. Did not work, 13.04 is mounted and did the sudo updatedb first. Dash only show the partition for 13.04 32b, which I would have to search in . Dash did show quite a few other things[not right one] also. 13.04 32b was near the end of the list.

**monkeybrain20122** · January 28th, 2014

Ok, I just tested with my multiboot set up. When the other partition is mounted the first time you can search for files in Nautilus only if you navigate to that partition (in my case it would be fedora_home, from there Nautilus does recursive search so it can locate any file in that partition) but once you have open the file you can search for it in the dash next time when the partition is mounted.

**Bucky Ball** · January 28th, 2014

Off-topic but the bad news is that 13.04 is no longer supported, as of yesterday. Might be time upgrade ...

**Mark Phelps** · January 28th, 2014

You're not actually searching the "OSs"; instead, you're searching the filesystems. So basically, you're mounting each of the "drives" (which are really partitions) and searching the portion of the filesystem contained in each "drive".

**crip720** · January 28th, 2014

It was a long shot anyway, it is just that I keep forgetting which OS I have the stuff on. It would be nice to search for something and have the computer tell me where I have it.

**Bucky Ball** · January 28th, 2014

Coincidentally, I have just now posted something that might help you in that regard. Symlinks.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...913125/post=21

This way you can have ONE data drive and create symlinks in the /home directories of each install to use the SAME target. No redundant data, no duplication, doesn't matter what OS you're booted into.

Searching the whole computer a long shot? It is quite do-able, as explained. Create mount points for the various partitions, mount them all with 'sudo mount -a' and start searching.