How to find the installation path for a software under linux?
Under linux, I launch a software by typing, e.g., fluidplot. How can I find the installation path for this software?
9 Answers 9
to see where it is executing from (if it’s in your $PATH). Or:
find / -name fluidpoint 2> /dev/null to look for a file named fluipoint and redirect errors on virtual filesystems.
Usually they are in /sbin , /usr/sbin , /usr/local/bin or ~ as a hidden directory.
NAME which - shows the full path of (shell) commands. SYNOPSIS which [options] [--] programname [. ] @Michael excellent to know. Because of your comment, I just discovered that newer versions of bash also do this. +1 to your comment.
The «Usually they are . » line is pretty disingenuous, additional software should be in /opt/* or /usr/local/bin . ~ is your home directory, I’m confused why you call it «hidden».
Sorry to be ambiguous, I mean ~/.dir . The hidden directory is below the home directory. And I completely forgot about /usr/local/bin dop.
If you use an RPM based distribution (CentOS, RHEL, SUSE, openSUSE) you can use rpm -ql
rpm -ql findutils /bin/find /usr/bin/find /usr/bin/xargs /usr/share/doc/packages/findutils /usr/share/doc/packages/findutils/AUTHORS /usr/share/doc/packages/findutils/COPYING /usr/share/doc/packages/findutils/NEWS /usr/share/doc/packages/findutils/README /usr/share/doc/packages/findutils/THANKS /usr/share/doc/packages/findutils/TODO /usr/share/info/find.info.gz /usr/share/man/man1/find.1.gz Things aren’t installed to locations in the Linux/UNIX world like they are in the Windows (and even somewhat in the Mac) world. They are more distributed. Binaries are in /bin or /sbin , libraries are in /lib , icons/graphics/docs are in /share, configuration is in /etc and program data is in /var .
The /bin , /lib , /sbin contain the core applications needed for booting and the /usr contains all the other user and system applications.
Just to add some point to @djsumdog’s answer, if you are using DPKG based dist, like Ubuntu, you can use
to check what it is about, and
dpkg --listfiles some_package to check what files are included/relevant to this package. It’s for packages that don’t have a binary to run, like libnss3 . And
to find what package includes this file.
For example, dpkg —listfiles libnss3 gives me:
/. /usr /usr/lib /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libssl3.so /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nss /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nss/libsoftokn3.chk /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nss/libnssckbi.so /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nss/libnsssysinit.so /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nss/libfreebl3.chk /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nss/libnssdbm3.chk /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nss/libnssdbm3.so /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nss/libsoftokn3.so /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nss/libfreebl3.so /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libnssutil3.so /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libsmime3.so /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libnss3.so /usr/share /usr/share/doc /usr/share/doc/libnss3 /usr/share/doc/libnss3/copyright /usr/share/doc/libnss3/changelog.Debian.gz /usr/share/lintian /usr/share/lintian/overrides /usr/share/lintian/overrides/libnss3 Note that the folders are not only owned by this packages, but by others too. Just check the files.
And reversely, dpkg —search libnss3.so gives me:
firefox: /usr/lib/firefox/libnss3.so thunderbird: /usr/lib/thunderbird/libnss3.so libnss3:i386: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libnss3.so libnss3-1d:i386: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libnss3.so.1d How can i find the location of installed software in linux?
Is there any command that I can use in the console to know the location of installed software in linux? i have copied a xyz.bin from windows machine to linuxdesktop and installed it. more over can you please tell me how to uninstall a software which is installed in linux Thanks in advance
You might be able to use the find command to search for it. Have a look at this unix.stackexchange.com/questions/19369/…
3 Answers 3
to find the path where the binary is linked to.
Other application specific files may reside in
The way a package is installed/uninstalled on Linux depends on either the specific Linux distribution AND the specific package.
Since you have used a .bin file for installation, it is likely that you have an uninstall command specific for your program in the path.
If you provide more information about the package and the Linux distribution, we can give more help.
It depends on the distribution you’re using. Supposing you are using a debian\ubuntu distribution, you can uninstall it by the apt command, using sudo apt-get remove software_name sudo apt-get purge software_name
Of course you need to have root privileges.
The softwares are usually installed in bin folders, in /usr/bin, /home/user/bin and many other places, a nice starting point could be the find command to find the executable name, but it’s usually not a single folder. The software could have components and dependencies in lib,bin and other folders.
Where is installed software stored in Linux? [duplicate]
I’m new to Linux and I want to ask a bit more about packages. In Windows, I download an .exe file and install it. When I install, I define the path where I want that application to be stored. In that folder, I have all the files required for the application. However, when I install a package in Linux using yum or apt-get , I don’t know where the package is installed to and where the required files for that application are stored. I have seen that most of the configurations are in the /etc directory. But why does Linux store the required files for an application in different directories? Can someone tell me how packages are installed, and where and how are they stored? And if my understanding about package management is wrong, please correct me.
If your distribution uses rpm , you can use rpm -q —whatprovides to find the package name for a particular file and then rpm -q -a to find out what files a package installed.
8 Answers 8
Many programs (the binaries/scripts) end up in /bin or /usr/bin with other parts in various configuration directories (often in/under etc ) as you already noted.
For any specific command you can checkout whereis
and it will give you some information about where this command is to be found. You can also try which
@KOU I don’t know the history of this, but it could be so that programs could be updated without messing up the configuration information since it would be in a different directory. This way different versions could use the same config information (assuming the format etc was not changed ie was compatible). I am just surmising here. You’d have to research the history of the Unix/Linux file system for a definite answer.
I’m not sure of the history of the decision to put all system-wide config files in /etc/ , but having one central location for config files makes it very easy to back them up. (Imagine backup up system-wide config files in Windows, where they’re scattered all through the filesystem and registry. )
You can get a list of the files that a given yum package installs by doing:
Then you can run it like so:
(Obviously, replace «yum-utils» in that second one with the name of that package whose file list you’d like to see.)
Under Windows, particularly older versions, it was common for programs to store configuration files and non-constant data in their C:\Program Files directory. This is derived from how programs were usually installed and ran under single-user, non-networked, non-file-permission DOS.
From a security standpoint, this is a bad idea. Places where executable code lives should be separated from modifiable data. That way it’s easier to apply appropriate file permissions to prevent modification of installed binaries by unauthorized users. Similarly library directories which may be updated separately from main executables should also be in a separate directory.
With the advent of Vista and UAC annoyances, this tradition is finally starting to seriously lose traction.
UNIX, and Linux, being a multiuser system from much earlier on, had the tendency to separate executable directories from other directories much earlier, since there was a need to prevent users other than root from modifying installed binaries. It’s also why /usr and even /sbin are sometimes separate partitions — a particularly security conscious admin can mount those partitions readonly and remount them read/write when an install/uninstall needs to happen.
Packages are usually installed from a package manager. There’s various package managers, such as aptitude (Debian and derived distributions), yum (Redhat and derived distributions), pacman (forget which distro this is. ), and others.
The package manager lets you browse repositories, download, install, query, and remove software, much like a sophisticated (and free) «app store.» It assumes responsibility for ensuring dependencies are taken care of and tracking what is currently installed.
Usually the package manager will also allow the same operations on a package you downloaded manually outside of any repositories. Tools are also available if you want to create your own from software you made or compiled yourself.
Since the package itself is NOT an executable file, you don’t have to run an untrusted executable which you don’t really know what it does. (Windows is finally coming around with updates by distributing .msu ‘s instead of .exe ‘s — but .msi ‘s have been around a while. )
Where is Ubuntu storing installed programs?
I am using Ubuntu and when I click on a program to download Firefox asks me «What should firefox do with this file?» And in the «Open with» I would like to find a program «Package installer». The problem is — I don’t know where to look for. Where is the program stored (I installed it using Ubuntu Software Center)
8 Answers 8
They are usually stored in the following folders:
If you’re not sure, use the which command:
~$ which firefox /usr/bin/firefox If you installed the package with the Ubuntu package manager (apt, synaptic, dpkg or similar), you can get information about the installed package with
Is it possible to do a search if I don’t know exact name of the program. i’m asking because the name of the program is «Package installer», therefore I tried with «package_installer», «package-installer», «package», and I can’t find it
dpkg -l lists all installed packages. You can use something like dpkg -l | grep package and than use dpkg -L
@Dantes If you write dpkg -L p and press tab, it will show you the name of packages that starts with p installed on your system.
for some applications, for example google chrome, they store it under /opt. you can follow the above instruction using dpkg -l to get the correct naming then dpkg -L to get the detail.
Just for an addition reference to the above answers. I can not use dpkg -L to find the correct path for cuda. See the results I got from dpkg -L
$ dpkg -L cuda /. /usr /usr/share /usr/share/doc /usr/share/doc/cuda /usr/share/doc/cuda/copyright /usr/share/doc/cuda/changelog.Debian.gz the correct path is /usr/local/cuda
$ ll /usr/local | grep cuda lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Oct 20 18:45 cuda -> cuda-9.0/ drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 4096 Oct 20 18:44 cuda-9.0/ Btw, I did install cuda by the command of