Google Desktop on Ubuntu: not there yet

I have tried two versions of Google Desktop on my main Ubuntu machines.  The first try hogged the CPU and crashed ThunderBird while the second (the current 1.0.2.0061, current at least as far as Synaptic is concerned) hogs all of the CPU and crashed TB.  It is not as though I am a fan of Google Desktop anyway, I think their interface is not well-suited to a desktop use, but I really want a good indexing tool.

Beagle is a good idea but just does not work for me as it makes the OS v e r y sluggish.  Tracker is making progress but Jamie still hasn’t implemented a ThunderBird indexing yet.  I will have to wait a bit longer.

That said, I wonder if desktop indexing is something we should really pursue: Windows Desktop Search made my Windows machines nearly unusable and now more of the same from Google.  Is it really that hard to make a usable crawler and indexer?  Should I give up?