Executable problems
 

I just installed Fedora 2 Linux. I had some trouble at first with the GRUB, But it is up and working now.
I am a student and am new at using Linux
I tryed to compile a simple "hello world" c++ program using g++, and when I tried to run it by typing the default a.out it didn't run, but gave me an error message, something like, "not a valid command".
any help would be nice.

I'm guessing the error was "command not found".

linux only searches using the path environment and not the current working directory. The shortcut for current working directory is ./

To execute your program use:
./a.out

You can add current working to your path environment but I do not recommend it for a newbie

Hi

Try this when compiling

g++ -o programname programname.cpp

This will output to programname the executable file.

You can then run this with

./programname

in a terminal/xterm/terminal emulator.

BTW if you find typing ./ to access files int he current directory, simply add this to the .bashrc file (if you use bash) that gets executed when you start an xterm:

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/:./:

To add more stuff to your path simply put more entries between colons:

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/:./:./bin:/usr/java/j2re1.4

is a small sample of my path.

After closing and restarting the xterm with this bashrc, you should be able to run programs in the current directory without having to type ./ before all of them.

Thanks for choosing Linux!