Hey Everyone

I have been working with Linux for about 2 days now. So I have a rudimentary knowledge of how to edit files and where to find some of them - but not much else. I don't know if it matters, but I have a dual boot with RH9 and XP.


1. Where is the best place to install new programs? I'm thinking of some place where my newbie mistakes can do the least damage.

2. Once I have those programs installed, how do I run them without having to go back to the command line? In Windows I could say that I wanted to place an icon on the desktop; is there an equivalent in Linux?

3. Also, I was playing GAIM and I did something that made it disappear. When I start it, from the KDE start applications area, the window appears briefly and then disappears. How do I find out if it running in the background and it so get it to reappear? Otherwise, if I really messed some setting up, how do I go about fixing things so I can use GAIM again? Should I uninstall the one I have now and reinstall it?

Thanks

1) If you're talking about installing pre-built programs from RPMs, you don't pick the location - you let the package manager do that. In some cases, it's not even possible to change the location without breaking the program.

2) For most programs, an icon will automatically be added to the launcher menu (equivalent of "Start"). For the ones that don't have an icon, you can create one with the KDE menu editor.

3) Might it have been minimized to the system tray?

I was trying to install the most recent version of Firefox; I don't think it has an rpm. The instructions I saw were for unzipping a tarball. Some other programs I want to install are also like that. For instance I want to install the drivers for my USB wireless card. They don't come with rpms and since I do not know what I'm doing yet, I don't want to put them some place where my mistakes could cause serious problems.

It is not in the system tray, at least not what I think is the system tray. I am assuming that the system tray in KDE is in the same place that is in Windows - the lower right hand corner next to the system clock - am I incorrect?

Thanks for responding

In that case, /usr/local and /opt are normally safe.

You're right - the system tray is the same place it is in Windows. You can always use: to see if gaim is running. Beyond that, I have no idea, as I've never used Gaim.

Thanks for the advice