Re: [gentoo-user] What is the point of baloo?

[Jack <ostroffjh@users.sourceforge.net>]

On 9/17/23 15:06, Wols Lists wrote:
> On 17/09/2023 19:37, Michael wrote:
>> However, unlike locate, baloo is meant to index not just file names, 
>> but also
>> metadata tags and relationships relevant to files, emails and 
>> contacts. Its
>> devs would argue it has a small footprint.  So it is meant to 
>> be*more*  than a
>> simple file name indexer.
>
> But what is the POINT of said index? If there's no point it's just a 
> total and complete waste of time and space!
>
> So, far the only point I'm aware of is it is supposed to make kmail 
> run faster - an application I've never used.

While I've also always had KDE indexing turned off, baloo and associated 
"stuff" allows searching through all your files (or a configurable 
subset) not just mail.  It lets you find something you know you have but 
forgot where you stashed it.  Also, I'm pretty sure that that high load 
is only until baloo finishes one complete pass through all the files 
it's been told to (or allowed to) index.  After that, it only needs to 
index new or changed stuff.  I also believe there is a way to limit how 
much cpu it uses, but I have no idea how, since I (like you and many 
others) prefer to limit it to 0.

You would probably get a better discussion, including at least some 
reasonable defense of baloo, posting on discuss.kde.org (their current 
forum system.)  One recent example I did see there is that baloo (with 
appropriate configuration) can let you see height and width of image 
files in dolphin (the file manager.) No, I don't have any need for that 
either, but I can see some users liking it.

One thing to keep in mind, I don't think folks like us (Gentoo users in 
general) are really the primary target of KDE.  I suspect they are 
(among other things) trying to produce a system that will attract users 
from "that other OS" who may take things like poor performance but full 
indexing for granted.

Jack