silly question
 

Im not entirely new to the world of linux i have tried two distros (RedHat 8 and 9 and now Suse 9) for a couple of years now.

however , i want to know why certain programs that i compile and install can be simply started by calling the name of the program in a terminal window. I want to know what in linux controls this feature.


for example i recently installed Avidemux, to start the program in a terminal i do not need to cd /opt/gnome/bin/avidemux2 and open the binary . I can just call avidemux2 from any directory inside the terminal.


Howevver I recently installed Mozilla 1.7.2 binary and the only way to start Mozilla is to double click on the binary file or in termincal cd /opt/mozilla/mozilla and then type mozilla.?

or in another program might open a link in the mozilla browser with mozilla %S, i want to know which configure file or what in linux controls these dyanmic loading of programs.

sounds like /opt/mozilla is not in your path.
type 'export PATH=$PATH:/opt/mozilla/mozilla' at the bash prompt

it turns out echo $PATH shows that it was not included thank you for you advice.

could /opt/mozilla not being in the path also effect programs like evolution and gaim from opening links with mozilla with the call mozilla %S????

yip, and create a file ' .bash_profile ' in you home-dir.
and put that line in there. ( ..or if the file exists, just add the line )

egag

i created bash_profile and added that line in there

I also added /opt/mozilla/mozilla in the /etc/profile.
however when i type open a new termincal and run echo $PATH
i no longer see /opt/mozilla/mozilla listed

An easier (and commonly practiced) way to do it than creating a new entry in your path is simply to create a symlink from the application to a location that's already in your path, like /usr/bin. It keeps you from needing to have a long, confusing path set up.

ln -s /opt/mozilla/mozilla /usr/bin