Where do programs go when you install them?

[undefined]

Yup, I'm a n00b, but I install programs and I can't seem to figure out how to open them. They aren't in any menus, if I type the name in terminal, it doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about, and as far as I can tell there aren't any single files that you can just run, and that runs the program. I'm running ubuntu only because my friend does and I tried installing other distros and they didn't really work out.

[Dapper Dan]

Many programs will wind up having the 'executable' in /usr/bin. What program or application is it that you have installed that you cannot find?

[undefined]

Let's see, I've tried installing mondo, gddrescue, bugzilla, and mplayer.

[Thrillhouse]

Are you using apt-get to install these packages? If not, they may not be placed in /usr/bin. They would be located in whichever directory you installed them to. In Ubuntu, using apt-get is the ideal way to install software, for instance:

sudo apt-get install mplayer

would install mplayer and place it in /usr/bin so that you could invoke it either by executing the commands 'mplayer' or 'gmplayer' or by selecting it from your desktop environment's menu.