Knowing what's installed on my machine..
 

What's the best way to see if a program is installed on my computer or not? Like now I want to install python but I have no idea if I already have it installed or not, what would I do to find out?

FC2.

try typing at the terminal:

rpm -qa | grep python

Some distributions are very easy to find out what packages you've installed. Slackware, for example, has a complete list located at /var/log/packages. Redhat should have an equivalent for that, but I don't remember :(

With rpm distributions:
rpm -qa | grep python

beat ya for 30 second david_ross :). Usually it's me who posts a little late ;)

if you want to see if python or anything that runs is installed, why not just type the program name and see if it runs? Or start typing it, press tab and let autocomplete show you the possibles...