hi ..
hey this might sound silly...but i was wondering where do rpms get installed by default in red hat linux..i recently installed real player and damn hell i cant find it anywhere. even in any reall player enabled(plugin i mean) website i cannot seem to start the real player automatically.

one more qtn ..i have a executable .bin file how do i exactly execute it

first off, it depends on what you install. alot of apps have certain files in several locations, such as /usr/bin /usr/local /etc ...
just do:
whereis real player
at command line. it will list all the files for real. usually the executables file will be in /usr/bin (for me anyway).
for other question,
sh filename.bin
at command line. simple enough. (this actually varies a little depending on your shell)

That one I can help you with - since .bin files are similar to windows' exe files, they can potentially be a security hazard as they're easily run. So what you need to do is make it executable. To do this, pop open a terminal window and type:

chmod +x NAMEOFYOURBINFILE

chmod changes the file properties, such as read, write and, of course, execute. The +x makes it executable. After that, you can run the .bin file by double-clicking on it or typing:

./NAMEOFYOURBINFILE

at a terminal window. The ./ is important because it says run a file from my current directory. Normally executables are found via your PATH and since the directory you put your file (possibly your home directory or your desktop) isn't in your PATH, typing just NAMEOFYOURBINFILE won't do anything because it doesn't know what/where it is.

Does that help?

As far as where rpms and other installers put files, the best thing to do is read the README files that come with the program and/or the installation instructions on the website from where you downloaded it. I'm not very good with that part either but, usually, it goes into /usr/bin, /usr/local, /usr/local/bin or /opt. Most of the time it's at least put in a place that is already in your PATH so it should run from a terminal window. The frustrating part, of course, is sometimes you don't know the exact name of the executable.

It's not terribly efficient, and I'm sure someone will correct me, but you can always type:

find / -iname NAMEOFPROGRAM

and see if it finds it. The / says start from absolute root (so it'll take awhile) and the -iname means look for something with the following name and ignore case. That way, if looking for MozillaFirebird, it'll find it even if you put 'mozillafirebird' as the NAMEOFPROGRAM.

If you're *really* lucky, the rpm might have even installed a shortcut in your menubar.

Good luck, hope this helps!

hey thanx a lot dark ..for ur nice long patient reply...Phew...i thought this rpm thing might be just a piece of cake and i am just a fool not to know it...its nice to hear that rpms r somrtimes really a pain in the a**** .....well anyway is there a chance to change the default installation directory...i mean can i change any setting somewhere so that whenever i install it installs only in a specific directory. can it be done!!!!!!!!!

Hey no problem

I haven't done that too often myself but, looking into man rpm (which you type at a terminal and find out all there is about a command or program) it says you can add:

-prefix=PATHTODIRECTORY

ie:

rpm -i -prefix=/usr/local/putIt/here theRPMiwantToinstall.rpm

Now, you may be doing the double-click installation of the rpms. That's the easy way but you might want to try it from the terminal (shell) and use that prefix switch. -i means install.

One thing about Linux is that you really do have to be a bit of a reader to find out a lot of things. And I found that, even though people were nice enough to answer my questions about these sorts of things early on, too, you really don't "get it" until you read documentation and understand what all these strange switches really do, etc.

I'm not saying you have to become a power user to enjoy Linux, but that's probably part of its attraction in the first place, right?

Executable binaries are usually placed in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin.
There may be documents and man pages installed in other locations.
You could execute: find /usr -cmin -5 after installing a program.
This will return with the names of files created in the last 5 minutes.

To see what an installed package provides, xmms in this example, you can type
rpm -q --provides xmms

You can also use the kpackage program to see exactly where files will get installed.