Alright, so now that I've got my mouse working 100%, I have some general questions about the filesystem and X regarding where installed programs are stored and how you go about setting up shortcuts for them.

Question 1:
When downloading a program, where should I download it to? Is my home folder okay?

Question 2:
When installing that program, where should it be installed? How can I install it for all users?

Question 3:
How do I go about creating a shortcut with the proper icon, and can I do it for all users? (do I use the .bin, the .sh? they don't have the program's icon)

Thanks immensely,
Seiken

/usr/local/bin is where most user instaled programs should go
/usr/bin is also good
/bin is ok, but not as good
and yes, id download into your home directory... or perhaps a special downloads directory within your home directory

You might find the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard useful for getting a sense of how the Unix directory structure is laid out. Note: this varies between Linux distros and sometime fairly significantly between different type of Unix and Unix-like systems.

btmiller: thank you for the link to the FHS. I have a lot of reading to do.

frieza: after I have the installed program in /user/local/bin (in this example, I have a folder in there called Mozilla Firefox with all the Firefox files in it), how do I go about making a shortcut in the umm, Gnome Menu (?) for all users to start the program?

not sure about the gnome menu, but if you left click on a blank section of the bar, it should give you an option to add a 'launcher' to the panel, then just put in the path /usr/local/bin/firefox (or browse to it if you need to) and make sure it has an icon

Perhaps it would be better to install programs to /usr/local or /opt. Then you create a symbolic link to the application in /usr/bin.

EG:
will create a link in /usr/bin called firefox. You can then start firefox with the command "firefox".

This is more in compliance with the FileSystem Standard, and IMHO keeps things tidier.

--Ian

You don't install all the program's related files into /usr/local/bin, /usr/local == C:\Program FIles, the bin directory just contains the binary files or links to them. You can also install "optional" software into /opt

If you're using Slackware the easiest thing to do is to find the package either on the Slackware ftp's or on http://linuxpackages.net/ (be sure to choose the right version number). Then download that package to your homedir (or where ever) and run 'installpkg <package>'. That way Slack will install it for you and you can run it by typing 'firefox' or 'mozilla-firefox' depending on the package.