Ubuntu – Dash search gives no result

E: Unable to locate package unity-place-applications

E: Unable to locate package unity-place-files

unity-place-applications and unity-place-files are no more available in Ubuntu 14.04 instead use unity-lens-applications and unity-lens-files which is founded in universe repository, so first enable it(if it's disabled for some reason else skip it to the last command)

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) universe"

Now update software sources

sudo apt-get update

Now you can install it :

sudo apt-get install unity-lens-applications

sudo apt-get install unity-lens-files 

Here is a script that might be helpful:

#!/bin/bash
for desktopFile in $(grep -irl "$1" /usr/share/applications/) ; do 
  grep --color=never 'Name=' "$desktopFile" 
  grep --color=never 'Exec=' "$desktopFile" 
  echo ''
done

Assuming you saved it as "searchapps", this is what it does:

$ searchapps disks
Name=Disk Image Writer
Exec=gnome-disks --restore-disk-image %U

Name=Disks
Exec=gnome-disks

Note that there might be other folders you'd like to search in addition to /usr/share/applications. You'd have to modify the script accordingly.