Good day! I'm sorry if I'm repeating a post, I've searched over the forums and didn't find the answer i want.

Here's the question: I've installed Ubuntu linux 6.06.1-desktop-amd64 last fall and I'm quite happy about it. How do I execute/access the software that i've newly installed? Not the ones I install from the synaptic package manager, but ones that i've downloaded, compiled and installed from internet. How do I tell the difference between executables and other files? Where do I search for those executables?

Usually, if you've configured, make, and make install'd you can try typing part of the name of the program you've installed and pressing tab. That will autocomplete it (hopefully) and you can just press enter.

So, if you've downloaded, configured, make, make install'd xpilot (for example), then at a command line type xpi and then tab, it'll most likely be there. If this does work and you don't like using a command line, you can make a shortcut to the program on your desktop to it. But you'll have to get someone who uses gnome to give you specifics on that one, since I use Kubuntu.

As far as the difference b/t an executable binary and any other file, it'll most likely have a different icon. Although, I never look at the bin file of anything I compile myself, I just do a make install to put where it needs to be.

-prog

It's possible that the program compiled an executable AND installed a script that's been marked executable (Firefox comes to mind). Or perhaps the program compiled an executable AND installed a link to it in a common place (RealPlayer comes to mind, and these are easy...just run "ls -lha /usr/bin/realplay" and note the output).

If it put the executable or a script on your PATH, then you should be able to do "which <program name>"...for instance, in the xpilot example given, you could do "which xpilot". If there is an executable on your PATH named xpilot, you'll get a response from which that contains the full path to that executable.

Note that *most* Linux systems install executables (or at least links to executables) in /usr/bin, and sometimes a program that you've downloaded and compiled is installed to /usr/local/bin (check your PATH variable to see if /usr/local/bin is there). echo $PATH will give you the answer...just look for /usr/local/bin in the output.

Also, sometimes games are installed to /usr/games/bin, which may or may not be on your PATH.

As for telling if the file is executable, run "ls -lha /path/to/program" and see if the "x" attribute is set (something like -rwxr-xr-x for something that is read-write-execute for it's owner and read-execute for the owner's group and everyone else). Note that if it begins with drwx, it's a directory and has to be marked executable so that it can be entered/listed/etc...

If you'd rather "bruteforce" it, you can run "find / -executable -type f -nowarn > executables.txt", then either grep or manually search the "executables.txt" file for the program you're looking for.

Hope this helps...

Thanks, mates! Will try now. Indeed a lot of info i hoped for