Where are the programs? Where do things get installed?
 

I'm unsure where to look for programs.
I found a folder for gcc, but it did not have gcc.exe

I installed Allegro programming library but it did not say where it installed the program.
I'm also unable to find where menu programs in xfce link to (target program.exe)
I don't know where to look for this menu so I can manually open up the link file to find out.

try typing into a terminal and seeing what path is returned.


.exe files usually means that its a windows file and they usually dont work in linux.

Note also that an extension of '.exe' is an MSWin thing.
Executables don't have an extension in *nix.
If you want to check the file type, try file cmd thus

In Linux/UNIX systems programs don't get installed the way they do in Windows. The binaries are usually installed int /usr/bin, libraries into /usr/lib, and so on. More info on that can be found here: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/

Thanks for that 'which [program name]' thing

So if I create a program with gcc I was told to make it .exe, but what should the extension be if it is a linux program?

extension is not important for the unix. In general it tries to identify the type of the file by its content, not by the extension. (that is the command file - see man page of it).
Extension is used to make the file type visible for yourself, for humans, for the users only.
So you can make your app as somename.exe, it will not be a problem at all, just it is not the usual way (in linux).
Executables usually have no extension (on linux).

i usually put an .x at the end (but whatever floats your boat).

after using windows throughout my childhood seeing a file without a '.suf[fix]' seems naked. but its totally cosmetic. unlike windows files dont have to have a certain name to be functional -- you can essentially rename buju-banton.mp3 to financial-report.pdf and using the file command it will look at the first few bytes of the file and realize it is a music file.

Another concept about that is that you were being told to make that program "executable" as in permissions.

will show you the permissions and if it doesn't have 'x' for owner, then you can't execute it. I think mostly when you compile a file using gcc, it uses your umask to generate the permissions for your new file.