Ubuntu Search Engine Beta Released!
I’m pleased to announce the release of the Ubuntu Search Engine Beta:
The Ubuntu Search Engine, as you may guess, is a Custom Search Engine optimized to find into all official Ubuntu resources and return the most relevant results. It uses the Google CSE to crawls into:
- Forums
- Official Documentation
- Community Documentation
- *buntu-users Mailing Lists Archives
- Website
- Development Wiki
- Launchpad
The good thing about it is the centralized search, as well the possibility to filter showing only the results for a specific resource. For example, you may be looking for “nvidia”, but you do not want to find about bugs in Nvidia driver, you may want to find how to install the driver, so probably the best label to go for would be “Official Documentantion” or “Community Documentation”, or you can search about specific topics on each one of the resources above.
The engine has also a great Open Search Extension that enables you to install it on Firefox (and it should work on IE7 as well) and to do searches directly from your browser! Just like you would do with the Google plugin that comes by default on Firefox.
Thanks to Fabrício for building the Open Search Plugin. This plugin really *rocks* try it now!
It is a community-oriented project, so everyone can help improving the engine and the website! If you have any suggestion, opinion, comment, question or just want to help, get in touch and I’ll be glad to answer.
Did you like it? Share, spread and bookmark it now:
Share the Ubuntu Search Engine!
UPDATE:
Thank you for the feedback I have been receiving. So answering a few of your questions/comments:
@sfair: Sure thing! packages.ubuntu.com included in the list. And an i18n’ed version is planned.
@Terence: Unfortunately some people are saying that the website is not working properly on Konqueror. If anyone could help with that I’d be grateful.
@Noone: I’m afraid the engine used in the Planet Ubuntu (planetplanet “Planet”) does not support archiving, so it has nothing to search but the front page content. BUT, Jeff Waugh (jdub) gave a great idea: put the engine to looks into the blogs aggregated in the Planet. That’s a reasonable solution and I’ll try to implement that.
@Sam: Thank you. I am providing a better place for the website/engine.
@Gasten: That would be really nice. Maybe 
@borgie: Thanks. For now I am focusing on the official resources. Third-party resources are planned for a near future.
@Azrael: I am afraid the Google CSE does not deal very well with AdBlock. Try whitelisting the us.cypherbios.org URL on you AdBlock config.
@Meneer: The URL template you need should be:
http://us.cypherbios.org/index.htm?cof=FORID:11&cx=002072379199720138921:9m-bgfzutzq&q=%s
With this spec anyone can make plugins for any browser that supports it.
The engine is in beta stage, if we get a good feedback maybe there are changes that it get more ’serious’ in a near future.
September 7th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
It’s amazing. This search engine offers a new (and easier) way to find informations, what may be very useful for new users.
Two suggestions:
- to include the ‘ubuntu package’
- a kind of ‘language selection’ would be nice.
Congrats man
September 7th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
It’s a great idea and I’m sure I’ll use it. One problem though, it kills Konqueror big time. But it’s beta, so I’ll let you off, this time
September 7th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
What about planet posts?
Can we PLEEEAAASE have that?
So often I try and find something on planet, only to find its moved off the bottom, and then I have to try and remember who wrote it to find it (read: spend 30 minutes clicking everyone on the member list).
please?
September 8th, 2007 at 5:19 am
This is just what ubuntu needed!
I suggest to put a link to the search engine in a prominent place on the ubuntu website.
Even better, integrate it into the ubuntu website.
September 8th, 2007 at 7:06 am
Wow! Niiice!
Is this gonna be integrated with the gutsy’s firefox?
September 8th, 2007 at 7:52 am
This is a great idea, and the website looks really good!
I would like to second Noone’s idea, I have to same problem myself sometimes, and would also like to ask you to include http://ubuntuguide.org/.
September 8th, 2007 at 9:26 am
cool!
September 8th, 2007 at 9:47 am
It doesn’t work when you have AdBlock Plus installed and turned on.
Clicking “search” doesn’t give me any results
I have to turn off ABP to see any results.
September 8th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
1. How to install this search engine in Epiphany? It uses a smart bookmark. So I need something like … http://url?q=%s and it will fill in the query at %s.
2. Make it work with adblock! What is going on?
3. Advocate it to be a search engine in firefox and epiphany by default. Perhaps the link should be hosted at some official ubuntu page?
September 8th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
I’ve replied you all in the post update.
Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate that.
September 8th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Planet (not “planetplanet”) does not support archiving for good reason, but you can use a Google Custom Search Engine to search the blogs of those included on Planet Ubuntu — see Planet GNOME for an example.
(I’ve been working on a way to generate a CSE hosted configuration with Planet, but there are a few ugly restrictions that make it difficult. Planet GNOME is where you’ll see the results as this improves.)
September 10th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Azrael Nightwalker, are you using EasyList? If so, I have forwarded this to the maintainer of that list to check it out. If you are not then you should find out who maintains your adblock subscription and ask them to take a peak.
September 10th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
I have confirmed that Adblock Plus and the Easy List subscription do not cause problems with the search. If you are having problems unsubscribe from whatever subscription you are using and use EasyList. EasyList blocks the most ads and has the least false-positives so you should be using it anyhow.