Introduction
As I like to stay connected via Putty to my Android phone, from time to time I missed the functionality of updatedb / locate that I so got used to within Linux environment.
I've decided to cross compile the findutils package (I couldn't get the latest version 4.4.2, but an older before, 4.2.33).
Screenshot
You can see the updatedb command followed by some locate commands.
Installation
Busybox is required.
1. Copy the archive onto your /sdcard/ folder.
2. mount your /system folder as read-write
3. cd /system/
4. tar xf /sdcard/findutils-4.2.33.tar.gz
It is mandatory that you are inside /system/ folder when you extract the archive.
Then you have to create the database (using updatedb script). It will take a bit of time - but not too much.
Then you can use the locate command giving any part of a file name that you can remember, you can also use wildcards!
Observations
1. No integration with cron / etc. If you know your updatedb database is out of date, rebuild it using "updatedb"
2. Busybox comes with a /system/xbin/find command. The trouble with it is that it doesn't support the fstype argument, and thus, updatedb cannot prune some standard file system type paths. However, the bundled package here comes with its own find utility which unpacks into /system/bin/find.
3. Busybox is required for sort / sed, but updatedb script is patched to use the /system/bin/find (its own find executable) instead of the default busybox one.
4. My phone did not have an /etc/mtab file (list of mounts which mount is supposed to update whenever something happens). Thus, there is a line in the updatedb script which recreates that file on each updatedb invocation (mount > /etc/mtab). If you phone / tablet has it, please modify updatedb script and remove the mount command.
Download
Use it at your own risk!
findutils-4.2.33.tar.gz
As I like to stay connected via Putty to my Android phone, from time to time I missed the functionality of updatedb / locate that I so got used to within Linux environment.
I've decided to cross compile the findutils package (I couldn't get the latest version 4.4.2, but an older before, 4.2.33).
Screenshot
You can see the updatedb command followed by some locate commands.
Installation
Busybox is required.
1. Copy the archive onto your /sdcard/ folder.
2. mount your /system folder as read-write
3. cd /system/
4. tar xf /sdcard/findutils-4.2.33.tar.gz
It is mandatory that you are inside /system/ folder when you extract the archive.
Then you have to create the database (using updatedb script). It will take a bit of time - but not too much.
Then you can use the locate command giving any part of a file name that you can remember, you can also use wildcards!
Observations
1. No integration with cron / etc. If you know your updatedb database is out of date, rebuild it using "updatedb"
2. Busybox comes with a /system/xbin/find command. The trouble with it is that it doesn't support the fstype argument, and thus, updatedb cannot prune some standard file system type paths. However, the bundled package here comes with its own find utility which unpacks into /system/bin/find.
3. Busybox is required for sort / sed, but updatedb script is patched to use the /system/bin/find (its own find executable) instead of the default busybox one.
4. My phone did not have an /etc/mtab file (list of mounts which mount is supposed to update whenever something happens). Thus, there is a line in the updatedb script which recreates that file on each updatedb invocation (mount > /etc/mtab). If you phone / tablet has it, please modify updatedb script and remove the mount command.
Download
Use it at your own risk!
findutils-4.2.33.tar.gz
