Cannot Find Installed Packages
 

If my terminology is wrong please excuse me. I'm still a newbie. And I'm not a software person by any stretch of the imagination. I recently download GAIM and installed it using the rpm package. Then it dawned on me that there was no "shortcut" in either the menu or the desktop. But with the help of a friend I found out how I could open it through a shell.
But that led me to another question: How do I create shortcuts to programs?
Which led me to another question. Where, exactly, do packages and so forth get installed to? Is there something along the lines of a "program files" for Linux? Where do all those packages end up?

hi there

the packages installed by the user generally get installed in /usr/local

the binaries go nto /usr/local/bin

and same for the libraries(/usr/local/lib)

also to creat shortcut
on the desktiop create the shortcut and put the path of the executable in the properties of the shortcut

regards

For KDE:
To add to start menu: Alt + F2. Type: menudrake <return>
Menudrake program opens.
In the left hand pane you'll see 'environment kde' then a tree list that looks like your start menu. Click on Internet -> then expand Instant Messaging. Click the + button 'add application'. In the new window for title type: gaim. In the command type usr/bin/gaim. Click OK, gaim is added to your menu. You can add an icon by clicking on the 'icon' button and then browse to the Gnome directory where you'll find the gaim icon.

To add to the desktop:
Right click an empty area of desktop, from the menu choose: Create New -> File -> link to application.
In the new window that opens fill in the boxes as you did for menudrake, making sure that the command line reads usr/bin/gaim. OK your changes and the icon gets created. You can specify the icon to be the one in the Gnome icon file by clicking on the 'window' icon in the create link dialogue box.

Thank you gentlemen, or ladies as the case may be.