So, I’ve just been really fed up with Deskbar’s lack of stability under Gutsy…it just seems like it’s taken a step backwards since Feisty. This is is of course doubly frustrating since Ubuntu finally started to include it by default in Gutsy! Well anyway, the point is I’ve been looking for alternatives, and for a few days now I’ve been using G NOME Do. Basically, it’s another Quicksilver (a keyboard app launcher for Mac) replacement for the GNOME desktop…and so far, I like it okay. It seems to work fairly well, but I don’t think it “learns” quite as well as Deskbar. For instance, even though I’ve been typing “fire” to launch Firefox, it doesn’t suggest Firefox until I type all four of those letters. Deskbar was suggesting Firefox by time I typed “fi.” Another interesting quirk I’ve found is launching my Home folder. If I type “home” the first item suggested opens my home folder in Konqueror, even though I’m using the GNOME desktop. The second suggestion opens it in Nautilus. No matter how many times I select the second option, it never seems to suggest it first, which is the desired behavior. In any event though, it doesn’t crash, and is overall fairly well integrated. I’ll probably keep using it for a while.

What Quicksilver replacement app do you use, and why?

Filed under: GNOME