Ubuntu (Linux) follows the filesystem hierachy structure. There is a description of the main directories in that link.
The location where software gets installed depends on how you install it. If you use the most obvious method (Ubuntu Software Center/.deb
's) it generally gets installed to the default locations. In that case libraries will end up in /usr/lib/
(Libraries for the binaries in /usr/bin/
and /usr/sbin/
.) and the executable in /bin
(Essential command binaries that need to be available in single user mode; for all users, e.g., cat
, ls
, cp
), /usr/bin
or /usr/sbin
(Non-essential command binaries (not needed in single user mode); for all users).
Some other important directories are /opt
and /usr/local/share
.
/opt
: Optional application software packages. Jasperserver (a stand-alone and embeddable reporting server) for instance installs into /opt
.
/usr/local
is for data that must be stored on the local host and is used for installing software/data that are not part of the standard operating system distribution. In this directory you will find lib
for libraries en bin
for executables.
You can use system settings
, main menu
to browse for executables. Or from command line with locate
. Or inside Ubuntu Software Center
you can browse all the files that are used for a package. Examples using locate
and libreoffice
:
locate libreoffice|grep bin
will show /usr/bin/libreoffice
.
Sidenote: Eclipse is in the software center so no need to download a zip (unless you want the newest version and not the most stable one):