Google Desktop came out for Windows first. Not a huge surprise. Then it came out for Mac. Now Linux. That is something to be happy about.
You can read about the release of Google Desktop for Linux, or you can just go ahead and read about how to install it.
There are a couple of decent walk-throughs on how to install it for Ubuntu. If you prefer using the graphical interface for Ubuntu, you might check out this page tutorial. If you are comfortable with using a terminal in Ubuntu, this would be more to your liking.
There are plenty of other step-by-step tutorials for other Linux flavors, as well as terminal tutorials for install using APT, YUM, urpmi, YaST2, and RPM. Overall, if you are an Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora, Debian, Mandriva, or Red Hat user, you should have no problem at all finding instructions on using it. For other flavors, you will have to know what you typically use to install things via terminal, or try a google search on it to see if someone has written up a tutorial!
~Nicole
Goggle has been a great linux supporter. One of their major projects, Google Earth, was readily available for linux right off the bat. Not to many of the big guys can claim that. Popular programs such as Quicktime and Shockwave need to be emulated. Luckily Crossover does it for both and the plugins were seamless.
Hats off to Goggle for their continued support of open source!