google desktop does not work with flock >= 2.0

Wait, google desktop works in Linux? Are you sure there hasn't been any change with google desktop itself? What distro are you using? And finally, just out of curiosity, have you tried this with Firefox 3 (which we're built on top of)?

Hmm, I've just installed Google Desktop on my ubuntu box, and Flock starts up without issue. I'm using the x86 version (vs. 64-bit) and did not opt to set google as my home page and default search. Is there some additional plugin you're adding, or does setting that default add the plugin? I don't have the shared object file as far as I can tell.

Ok, I can repro now. The closest thing to an answer I can find is buried in http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2007/11/02/... (an old post, take note), and I think maybe the symbol in question is available in gecko 1.8 but not in Gecko 1.9. This would explain why the issue is present for Firefox and Flock and changed with version 2 of Flock and 3 of Firefox. I'm not sure exactly if/when a Gecko version bump happened, but between these versions strikes me as entirely probable. Sadly, I think the answer here is that until/unless Mozilla updates the Gecko engine, Google Desktop just won't work in linux for Flock or Firefox 2/3. And as it's likely a linux-only issue, we as a small minority of linux users will probably be the neglected stepchildren who never see this thing working.