How do find and run programs in linux

putusernamehere · 08-02-2015, 07:48 AM

I am once again forced into using linux due to the fact that my Windows OS crashed and burned. There is nothing intuitive about linux but anyways... I installed a program(smplayer) and it's installed. I had to google to find out how to find that program. I found it in software center. That didn't hel;p at all. What (censored) reated that? It showed the program but there is no way to run the program from that list. Would it be so hard to also include a way to run programs from that list? Please help.

jpollard · 08-02-2015, 07:53 AM

Did you look in the menus?

Most (if not all) of the GUI based programs from the software center will be added to your menus.

I would expect it to show up in something identified as "Sound & Video", but the actual wording depends on the desktop environment you chose.

273 · 08-02-2015, 08:04 AM

If you're using Ubuntu then you likely won't have a menu you can easily access so, to open smplayer you would need to hit the button on the top right of the screen and type smplayer to search for it.
If you would rather have a "start menu" type setup then you might want to install LXDE or XFCE (or even KDE) and use that instead of Ubuntu's default of Unity.

DavidMcCann · 08-02-2015, 11:01 AM

Actually, there's nothing intuitive about Windows: you've just forgotten the days when you were learning it!

Seriously, I don't think Ubuntu's unity interface is likely to please someone used to Windows, or anything else other than a smart-phone. Mint with the Mate GUI would be more intuitive: at least you'd have a menu/start button.

273 · 08-02-2015, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMcCann

Actually, there's nothing intuitive about Windows: you've just forgotten the days when you were learning it!

You are right, of course, however one thing that Windows used to be (until 8) and Linux DEs other than Gnome Shell and Unity tend to be is discoverable. By that I mean one can find almost anything program-wise by simply clicking and exploring. What Windows 8 and Unity do is hide everything meaning that nothing is discoverable making them far harder to come to terms with.
To my mind this is why the familiar "desktop paradigm" has lived so long -- anything can be found by somebody by exploring.

ondoho · 08-03-2015, 07:26 AM

putusernamehere, what linux distro are you actually using?
there isn't much help to offer if we don't know that.

...kudos for daring to start a thread like this:

Quote:

I am once again forced into using linux...

frankbell · 08-03-2015, 07:40 PM

You can do this from the terminal, regardless of your desktop environment/window manager, as long as X is running and you have a GUI environment:

Code:

$ whereis konqueror
konqueror: /usr/local/bin/konqueror
$ /usr/local/bin/konqueror

I happen to be using FreeBSD tonight. In Linux, the path would have been /usr/bin/konqueror. If the target directory is in your PATH statement, "konqueror" would have been enough to launch the program; you would not have had to specify the path-to-konqueror.

For this usage, I prefer "whereis" to "locate," as whereis returns only executable files.