Ubuntu – find the application executables in the filesystem

executablefilesystem

Where are executables for programs stored in Ubuntu?

An application (Komodo Edit) is asking me to identify an application to be used as a web browser. I've become used to just entering the application name as a command for situations such as these, but this scenario got me thinking.

I know in Windows it would just be the relevant application folder in the 'program files' folder, but I'm assuming things are a bit different on Linux?

I thought somewhere like bin would be logical but this appears to standard Linux/Unix applications. Where would I find the binary executable for applications stored on my system?

Best Answer

The complete answer is to check out the Filesystem Hierachy Standard documentation on what stuff goes where.

But in your case, if you want to know where a particular executable is (for example firefox) use

which firefox

And you will get the full path like this

/usr/bin/firefox