If the locate database hasn't been created yet on a Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) computer, the message:
WARNING: The locate database (/var/db/locate.database) does not exist.
To create the database, run the following command:
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist
Please be aware that the database can take some time to generate; once
the database has been created, this message will no longer appear.
appears. If instead of running it repeatedly, you just want to update the database a single time only, updatedb is located in /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb, so you can run sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb instead
