hello guys,
Yes I am a new bie.
I have tried to find a clear and comprehensive overwiew on file formats.
Specially i am interested the meaning of
xxxxxxx* as compared to same name without the star.
Anybody have a link to anice site?

Arne

No idea about site, but you can use the file command to get more info on file. For example

The star is called a wildcard. A wildcard is a place holder for one or more letters in a filename. If you go to linuxcommand.org or search on this site and google, you will get good documentation regarding your questions.

Well if you see the asterisk on the midnight commander after a file it means it's an executable file.
you see, in windows the exectuable atribute is given bye the extension (exe, bat, pif, com, etc) in linux it could be any file, the executable atribute is ... well an atribute you can add to any file.
It's common to see all windows files (in a fat32 partition) as exectuables, even if it's not (like a jpg).
So, go to a console and check for example the directory /usr/bin (user->binaries) it's full of executables, therefore you'll see a lot of asterisks, but if you check your own /home/user, you'll see there's a lot of invisible files (wich started with a period i.e: ".xsession") which are not executables.
You can change this attribute (in mc on a console) by pressing <Ctrl>+<x> following the key <c> or in kde/gnome by doing right cilck and check the file permissions.

I guess that's what you've asking.

Good luck!

Hello Guys,
Thanks. right to the point and fast.
Very usefull for me.