Program paths under linux

Question

Hallo,
I need in my application to launch specific programs (common ones like firefox, adobe etc..). I could find the following posting, which gives the path of the installed software by passing the software name (like firefox.exe), under windows. My question is how to do the same under linux?!
public class FindProgramOnWindows
     public String find(String exeName)
          String path = "";
          try
               Process r = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("reg query \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\" +"Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\App Paths\\" + exeName + "\"");
               BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(r.getInputStream()));
               String line = "";
               String exeNameRegexp = exeName.replaceAll("\\.", "\\\\.");     
               Pattern p = Pattern.compile(".+\\w:\\\\.+" + exeNameRegexp,Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
               while ((line = buffer.readLine()) != null)
                    Matcher m = p.matcher(line);
                    m.matches();
                    if (m.matches())
                         String param[] = line.split("\t");
                         path = param[param.length-1];
                         break;
               buffer.close();
          } catch (Exception e)
               e.printStackTrace();
          return path;
}Thankefully
Christian Rosenfeld

Answer 1

As differemt Linux distributions install programs in different folders in combination with no central program registry, I would say that either you have to communicate with installation package managers (apt, rpm) or search in to common folders for the program name, e.g. /usr/bin /usr/local/bin /opt/bin ...