Hi, it's me, super-n00b. Anyway, I'm using Mandrake 10 (installed it yesterday, lovin' it), and everything seems to be running fine. I have a question, though: I downloaded an RPM installer and installed it. It wanted me to put in one of the Mandrake discs. I did as I was told. But after you install it, how do I access it? I installed BitTorrent, by the way. I mean, I don't see it in the...start-menu-esque thing.

Usually they go in /usr/bin You can check by simply doing

whereis rpm

I get back

rpm: /usr/bin/rpm /usr/lib/rpm /usr/share/man/man8/rpm.8.gz

So I have a binary, and library and some man pages.

If your using KDE right clicking on the menu button brings up a list where you will see a menu editor. You can use this to add thing to the menu. Also under settings you wiull find a Menu Updating Tool that can scan your system and and links to the menu for you.

Leonscape I think he meant he installed an .rpm package of some BitTorrent client, not RPM itself, because Mandrake comes with rpm, and the urpmi helper app asked for the disk to resolve dependancies.

ygokazuki you cant install BitTorrent itself, it's a protocol, that's like saying you installed http or teh interweb...
Could you give the site you downloaded from, or the package you downloaded? I'm guessing it was a BT client app.

Um...Ok...sorry...I'm totally new to this. What does all that mean? How do I launch BitTorrent? (I'm used to .exe files, heh)

Edit: Oh sorry didn't see your post. Yeah, I'm pretty experienced with BT (on Windows that is). Ack! I don't remember where I DL'd it from, anyway. So how would I torrent something? It asks me to specify what I want to open the torrent with, it shows me basically what's on the start-menu-esque thing. No BT there.

*mumble*Huh no Azureus I liked Azureus huh gotta use Bram's huh*mumble*

FYI System-wide programs in linux are installed in standard locations, as are libraries(shared code) and configuration files. Then you have your shell's path which is its list of places to look for executables when you type them in a command prompt (or a gui like KDE calls them). Your user and the file's permissions determine whether you're able to run the program or even see its existence.

As for BitTorrent clients, I think there's at least one included on the install cds. Did you try using the Install screen in the Control Center to search?

W00t! I got it off the CD, and it's working fine! Thanks all!

Wait...OK, so I INSTALL the RPM (done), but how do I LAUNCH the program?

RPMs usually install an entry in the menu system. If the program is not found in the menu system, you can usually launch if from the command line. If it is in the PATH, then typing the program name at the command prompt will launch it. You can use whereis at the command line to find where the program is.

[chris@localhost chris]$ whereis gaim
gaim: /usr/bin/gaim /usr/lib/gaim /usr/share/man/man1/gaim.1.bz2


Most are in /usr/bin. You can type the path to the executable to run it also from the command line: /usr/bin/gaim will launch gaim on my system. I can also type gaim at the command prompt with the same effect.

Hope this helps.