file/dir structure
 

i'v been installing a heap of programs recently and was wondering were they are stored

i figured out (hope im right here) that the 'stand alone' commands (were you can type in a command in the shell without needing to be in a certain directory) for the programs i have installed are in the dir /usr/local/bin

but, were are all the other commands stored, like reboot, shutdown, lilo

and were are the programs files that relate to the commands in /usr/local/bin stored

firefox runs out from its down dir as sh /firefoxdir/firefox , i want to intergrate it within the file system so i can run it from the shell as 'firefox'

also, were are the fedora firewall settings stored so i can edit them

thanks for time, hope i can get some answers

There are several bin directories -- /bin (critical system binaries), /usr/bin (generally stuff that came with your distro) and possibly others like /opt/bin, depending on how stuff is set up. Likewise, binaries primarily intended to be used by the superuser are placed in sbin directories, /sbin, /usr/sbin, etc. Shutdown and friends generally live in /sbin.

As for firefox, you can symlink the executable into a directory in your PATH or add the firefox directory to your PATH. The firewall config for Fedora probably lives somewhere in /etc/sysconfig -- root around a bit and you should find it.

Try, as root,
You can then run firefox by simply typing firefox. This will also work for any other programs that you install.

If you want to add a new directory to your path, add the following lines to your ~/.bash_profile
When you log out and log back in again, the new directory will be part of your PATH, and you can run executables in that directory by just typing their name.

I hope this helps
--Ian

yep it does mate
cheers