I’ve had Google Desktop for Linux running for a while now; I can’t actually say I’ve used it all that much, but what I did very quickly observe was that the default cronjob (/etc/cron.hourly/gdl-update) that checks for updates had far too much output (I do not want hourly updates telling me “not going to update now”, kthx). And some spelling mistakes.

Here’s an improved version that only sends you email if something of note has happened (update occurred; update failed unexpectedly; can’t create or update timestamp file):

#!/bin/bash
# Copyright 2007 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved.

CACHE_DIR="/var/cache/google/desktop"
PREFIX="/opt/google/desktop"
GDL_UPDATE="/opt/google/desktop/bin/gdl_update"
PKG_FORMAT="deb"
PKG_UPGRADE_CMD="dpkg -i --refuse-downgrade"
TIMESTAMP_FILE="/var/cache/google/desktop/update_timestamp"
ID_FILE="/var/cache/google/desktop/id"
PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:$PATH

if [ ! -x "$GDL_UPDATE" ]; then
  echo "gdl_update is not available."
  exit 1
fi

# run gdl_update
export PATH

DO_UPDATE=no
if [ ! -e $TIMESTAMP_FILE ]; then
  if touch $TIMESTAMP_FILE; then
    DO_UPDATE=yes
  else
    echo "Failed to create timestamp file."
  fi
else
  LAST=`date -u -r $TIMESTAMP_FILE +%s`
  NOW=`date -u +%s`
  DELAY=`expr 86400 + $RANDOM % 21600`
  DIFF=`expr $NOW - $LAST`
  # Update should only be occurred every 24 to 30 (randomly) hours.
  if [ $DIFF -gt $DELAY ]; then
    if touch $TIMESTAMP_FILE; then
      DO_UPDATE=yes
    else
      echo "Failed to update timestamp file."
    fi
  fi
fi

if [ "$DO_UPDATE" != "yes" ]; then
  exit 0
fi

UUID=""
if [ ! -f "$ID_FILE" ]; then
  UUIDGEN=`which uuidgen`
  if [ -n "$UUIDGEN" -a -x "$UUIDGEN" ]; then
    $UUIDGEN > $ID_FILE
    chmod 644 $ID_FILE
  fi
fi
UUID=`cat $ID_FILE`

if [ "$UUID" = "" ]; then
  UUID="0"
fi

NEW_PKG=`LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/google/desktop/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" $GDL_UPDATE "$PKG_FORMAT" "$UUID" 2>&1`

# Note spelling error (appears to be in gdl-update binary so can't readily be removed)
if [ "$NEW_PKG" = "unavaliable" ]; then
    # echo "Package is not available
    exit 0
fi

# update package is successfully downloaded
if [ $? -eq 0 ] && [ -f "$NEW_PKG" ]; then
  dpkg -i --refuse-downgrade "$NEW_PKG"
  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "Updated successfully."
  else
    echo "Update failed."
  fi
  rm -f "$NEW_PKG"
fi