taming Nautilus

It has long frustrated me that a search for system files - which I know exist, always returns zero results in Nautilus.

I think I've found the solution in the Ubuntu forums, at
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=532196&highlight=
can%27t+search+system+folders+nautilus&page=3 :
"...by default it searches in your home folder only.... the problem stems from the fact that the designed behavior of nautilus is to let us find files that we're supposed to find -- if you know what I mean. But, if you start nautilus with sudo, and the double-click on File System in the left pane of nautilus before clicking on the search option, then it will find all the non-user files. At least that's the way it works for me."

In a follow-up post: "I have to double-click File System in the left-hand pane of nautilus so that the full list of folders under the file system shows before I click the Search function on the toolbar to make it work properly. I presume one also has to set nautilus to view hidden files, if the target happens to be a hidden file."

A different poster: "The index is automatically updated only for the user's home. To search a file in the File System you first need to do: sudo updatedb".

And another: "The solution is in your first post: sudo gnome-search-tool .
Select Other... for the Look in folder, and type / . You can now open all files in root mode."

As it turns out, Nautilus still refuses to do anything useful with system files even when started in a terminal as outlined above. It just churns over incessantly, wiggling it's little Gnome toes, delivering not a skerrick. But the last of the suggestions above is a bottler. This opens a search app which is more compact than Nautilus, but performs splendidly. Note however that after selecting' other', you then have to click the pad and pen icon, in order to type '/'. The Gnome search tool found all instances of 'system-upgrade.png' in a flash.