I need Fedora to make local file indexing optional

The Water Cooler
1

I updated my system last night and before I knew it my hard drives were thrashing and network activity was going like crazy. Why??

localsearch3.service
localsearch-control-3.service
localsearch-writeback-3.service
tracker-miner-3.service

I don’t need this. I don’t want this. I know how to manage my files and know where I saved something.

Everything associated is now uninstalled or masked.

This is what I consider a slippery slope situation, because the very next thing to happen from this is client side scanning.

I don’t want that either.
I also do not want akonadi-indexer or anything associated.

I get that this is default GNOME utilities.
It needs to be easily disabled and-or optionally enabled, disabled-by-default.

There is absolutely no situation where I will want my computer indexing my files. It should not be doing that on its own.

2

What about all the Gnome users who actively want this kind of thing?

You turned your installation off, problem solved for your specific situation.

4

If they actively want it they should have it, after actively agreeing to their files being searched.

A few years ago, KDE’s getting heavier in this regard - activating all kinds of background services and indexing without asking - drove me away from it. Akonadi is KDE, me thinks. I don’t know whether Gnome is going down the same route.

You see: What’s the point in setting up, e.g., updatedb timers by default if the user is never going to use plocate? It’s a waste. It’s not that hard to ask a user to agree to indexing the first time they use a feature which needs it. But before that it’s un unasked-for waste of resources.

5

I think most users would prefer having functional search OOTB rather than sitting around waiting for indexing to complete. Either way this is going to be an upstream problem.

6

What about both gnome users that want this

I mean, I can’t force you to value your privacy.

As for me, I don’t want indexing. Like I said, it’s adjacent to client side scanning. If this were a perfect world and daffodils grew along the sidewalks and everybody got along with everyone, then indexing would be fine.

I think it is understandable to at least ask for an easy way to disable all of this. Even if you in particular want it enabled by default, people like me shouldn’t have to dig into their configs and mask components to get away from it.

Any other political climate and I would be less concerned.

You turned your installation off, problem solved for your specific situation.

For now. I think. Maybe. Unless it starts up again like it has been. You can guess how tired I get of randomly masking components only to update again and have akonadi thrashing my network trying to index things. I thought I had it masked. Maybe, until tomorrow.

EDIT: Case in point: Today. Right now. Thirty seconds ago. “localsearch3” spiking a CPU core.
I have masked this process a hundred times it keeps coming back.

I don’t want this system running on my computer and I have made it very plain to the OS that it should be stopped.

It is insidious.