[Scottish] Hopeless newbie part 2

[abatkin at batkin.net]

> - Conceptual #1.  I'm struggling to figure out where Suse/Linux puts
> things.  On XP, on the whole, programs are installed (by default) in
> c:\Program Files, dlls etc in C:\Windows and subdirs, user data in
> C:\Documents and settings\User\ and sub dirs.  Is there a direct Linux
> equivalent?  And I'm beginning to think that Suse ain't the same as
> Redhat?  Can you give me a HoNe Rule Of Thumb for where to find stuff?

On Windows (and sort-of on OSX), each application has its own directory,
and within there it contains whatever it needs: Executables, additional
resources (images, sound files, etc...), possibly some DLL files and maybe
documentation if you are lucky.

_In general_ on Linux, each application will scatter its files throughout
the system (at least if you use most packaged distributions). But it isn't
as bad as you think. First of all, binaries will usually go in /usr/bin,
other random resources probably go in something like
/usr/share/application-1.2.3 (whatever its name/version), docs in
/usr/share/doc/application-1.2.3, manpages in /usr/share/man/manX
etc...Also, supporting libraries (on windows, all those .dll files) are
often part of a separate package, but either way they will probably go in
/usr/lib (and possibly a subdir of that with the library name).

Managing all of that is much easier than you think. "man rpm" for more
information. The major advantage of a package manager (rpm, deb, etc...)
is that it takes care of all of that for you.

What package owns file /blah/x?
% rpm -qf /blah/x
What in the world IS package x?
% rpm -qi x
Show me all of the files that belong to x?
% rpm -ql x
I hate x, delete it!
% rpm -e x

The wonderful thing about this whole system, is that when you use a distro
that uses packages like this (i.e. suse, redhat/fedora, debian among
others), almost EVERY file on the system is owned by a package. This means
that installing, removing and querying anything about any file or package
is quite easy. I know of nothing on Windows that even comes close.
(example: pick a random dll file from your Windows system
directory...where did it come from? how do you uninstall it)

RPM can do much more, just check out the manpage, and that should help
quite a bit with getting you started.

Hope that was helpful and not too long-winded.

-Adam Batkin