I've been playing with Linux on and off for several years and the most vexing problem I've found is that I am never sure where to look for executable files. Heck, I'm not even sure sometimes whether a file I've found is executable or not. There have been multiple occasions where I have installed a .tar or .rpm only to never find it again (or at least not without some significant search time.)

Is there any good search utility that can find all my executables (and differentiate "parent" programs from subroutines?) Is there any good utility which will allow me to easily construct a menu system, or add to my Fedora 3's existing gnome-based menu?

Thanks for your help!

Regards,

Dadzilla

To see if a file is executable, you just have to see if its execute bit is set. Do an 'ls -l <file>' and if you see an x show up in the beginning of it, it's executable.

many times when you install a program, it won't add it into the menu program. the best way to find the program is to open a terminal and type
and that will usually result in an output of something like
and maybe a few other lines if it has associated libraries and stuff.

to run a program, use the run command or open a terminal and type the program name, and it should run for you.

*edit
also, i believe all the executables will be included in the /usr/bin directory. if you can't find something you installed and you think it's executable...check out /usr/bin and see if it isn't hanging out in there....

A very slow and hackish way of listing all executables on your system is
Of course, that won't tell you where they are. You can modify the regexp in the grep part to find certain things.
Just use whereis to find where an executable is.

When looking at an idividual file, use the 'file' cmd, (man file).
To find excutables, use the find cmd with the -perm option (you'll need to specify this exactly) (man find).

How's about a [TAB][TAB][TAB] look? It will show you all the files marked executable in your $PATH variable.

Cool

Yeah, that definately beats the pants off my idea. I guess I just wanted to use pipes, since pipes are cool.

Hi Dadzilla,

The executables installed by rpms and tarballs usually get installed in '/bin, /usr/bin, /sbin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin, unless you specify otherwise at thetime of installation. You can list the commands in these directories and find them.

Thanks;