Finding installed software

[Bdrmachine]

I do not fully understand the program installation process in Ubuntu. I have the latest LTS version of Ubuntu installed and would like to install some software. As an example, I followed the Visual Studio Code install steps from Microsoft (sudo apt install ./<file>.deb), after downloading and using the cd command to go to the Download folder. The program seemed to install successfully but Where? How do I run the program? Where is it installed? I will appreciate any help with this, and additionally any links to web resources that will help get me up to speed with Linux. I have read a lot of information on using terminal commands but, they all seem to be missing some of the basic mechanics of using the operating system.

Thanks Much.

 

[craigevil]

It should be under the Development menu.

You can find the executable by doing:
which code
/usr/bin/code
or
command -v code
/usr/bin/code

You can also do apt-cache policy code

 

[Bdrmachine]

It should be under the Development menu.

You can find the executable by doing:
which code
/usr/bin/code
or
command -v code
/usr/bin/code

You can also do apt-cache policy code

Thank You Craigevil.

That solves the VSC issue but, in general how did you figure this out? Assuming this works because the executable is named code, What if it was called VSC? How would I know what the name is?

 

[osprey]

Bdrmachine wrote:

I do not fully understand the program installation process in Ubuntu.

As you wrote, you can install with apt. Doesn't seem to be a problem there.

The program seemed to install successfully but Where?

If you run: apt-file, you can see where the files of a package are installed, e.g. for the package iftop:

[flip@flop ~]$ apt-file show iftop
iftop: /usr/sbin/iftop                
iftop: /usr/share/doc/iftop/TODO
iftop: /usr/share/doc/iftop/changelog.Debian.gz
iftop: /usr/share/doc/iftop/changelog.gz
iftop: /usr/share/doc/iftop/copyright
iftop: /usr/share/man/man8/iftop.8.gz

How do I run the program?

You can usually run the program from a terminal by running the executable file which is usually found in one of the directories /bin, /usr/bin, /sbin, /usr/sbin. Programs can also run from other directories such as /usr/lib/exec, /usr/local/bin, /home/<username>/bin and more, but the main ones are as mentioned.

If there's a GUI menu from which to start the program, the GUI button will access the same executable file as the terminal would, but it may have some particular options or switches that the DE has built in. The effects of those options are usually described in the man pages.

I will appreciate any help with this,