directory structure and installation location
 

I have recently installed Ubuntu and want to install new applications of the '.bin' nature. I have got the hang of extracting the .bin and chmod-ding it to be executable and understand that the .bin has to be executed from the app's new directory. But which is the'right' directory for them to be started from? /usr/?, /opt/? /home/pofadda? A read of the FHS site helped a bit but still am not sure.

Is there a good rule of thumb for doing this?


Also: ...this is probaly more for the ubuntu forum but I'll ask it anyway: what Gnome-based filemanager is well regarded and will display two panes, W. Explorer style?

Please tell.

your first question kinda went over my head.. but it might be a ubantu thing


2nd question: nautilus will (default file viewer in gnome), open up a folder (like home directory) and in the view menu, there should be a folders tab

Re: directory structure and installation location
 

Thanks for responding, Adam.

My first question could be rephrased as: where is the 'right' place to install my apps? In Windoze only a plonker would put them in the \windows\ or \documents and settings\ folder, for instance or would happily put serious data on drive C: (well *I* wouldn't).

I dug through the nautilus menu and found no such option :-(. Then I was pointed to a command line option ' --browser' and it did the trick :-)

Ok, if this is your first distro, good choice on Ubuntu :). If not, good choice anyways hehe.

For your first question, you are not using the right approach to installing software, like, at all hehe. Ubuntu uses dpkg (which manages a database of what files are installed, and what their dependancies, etc are.. not a trivial thing and not really good to try an end run around it), which in turn has a couple of popular front ends, apt and synaptic. There is no doubt that apt is installed (usage to install a package is "apt-get install packagename"), check through your menus for synaptic package manager, if you find it, fire it up and you should be golden. If not, go into a terminal, type in "sudo apt-get install synaptic" (without quotes), it'll ask for your password, then proceed to fetch and install synaptic. Hope this helps :).

For nautilus, there is an option in the prefs somewhere about open new in browser window, or something similar.