http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing/

Those aren't really executable's though, they are archive formats to install
executables.

I think it is ELF, or Executable and Linking Format.

en....pedia.org/.../Executable_and_Linkable_Format

There are others, basically any code to be executed, however, is simply a list
of binary instructions to do things, though you are right that different
operating systems use different data formats that the OS knows how to get to the
actual code of, etc... It isn't so much about extensions (.exe, .app) but how
the data is laid out in the file.

Also note that Linux allows users to execute scripts very easily, so even though
they are not native code, they are executable. These are formatted as shell
scripts and are basically text documents with a header line that tells the shell
what executes them... Usually in the format of "#!/bin/bash" or some such.

Then you have universal formats such as Java.

Ok, but thats installation packages. What format does it actually run?
For example, to install Mac generally uses .bin binaries, but
applications run on .app format.

nix does not depend on extensions but rather permissions. A quick run
through executables will show most have no extension.

TAR is a compressed file that can be open in Linux or Unix. DEB and RPM is Linux
format. Please see the link I gave you to install. If you use a deb based linux
O/S. Such as Ubuntu. Deb files are unpacked and loaded up. Most of the installed
can be found in the etc folder.

Well, to be more accurate, most programs installed to a Linux system are spread
around to different directories. Binaries are /bin, /usr/bin, /opt,
/usr/local/bin then settings are stored usually in /etc, /usr/etc,
/usr/local/etc, data files are stored in /usr, /usr/share, /usr/local/share, and
the like. One of the greatest things in Linux is that it stores most any file
in a predictable place, it is very organized (unlike Windows that
data/executables all in lumps).

TAR's are 'tape archives', files stuck together into a clump, made for the days
of archiving to tape drives that didn't really have file systems like we know of
now. TAR can be opened on any operating system, though most common to a
Linux/Unix-like operating system and the standard for storing source code for
open source projects as well.

DEB/RPM files are specific file formats that are packages of pre-compiled and
configured software, the packages tell the package manager where to install
files as well as other packages required for them to work. This way, unlike in
Windows, you don't have huge monolithic installers that install anything you
could possibly need to run software, these tell you what other packages you need
to make things work.

RPM is for RedHat/Fedora (or so-called RPM based distributions) where as DEB is
for Debian based distributions. Both RPM and DEB based distributions have
semi-standard ways to install files, certain places and certain ways things are
made to work.

/etc itself is where 99.9% of a Linux system contains its settings files,
including initialization scripts run on boot.

I am using Ubuntu actually, very happy with the distro itself, though
the community generally leaves a bad taste in my mouth
(ubuntuforums.org). I am not talking about installation, I think that
is where the confusion lies. This sounds like a conversation I had with
someone else about this topic. Now tar is a compression format, like
.zip, you can .tar anything you would like, expand it and it is back to
its regular form that it started in, such as .jpg, .gif, or .mp3 or
anything else. Now of course .jpg or .gif or .mp3 is something that is
handled with an application of some sort, like GIMP, for a picture file
like .jpg or .gif, or VLC for an audio file such as .mp3. But of course
the OS has to read and manipulate GIMP or VLC while GIMP or VLC reads
and manipulates the .jpg or .gif, or .mp3, or anything else that it can
for that matter. Now I think I got my answer in what format the OS
reads when someone told me .elf, but maybe that is not the correct
answer. Documents use formats like .jpg or .gif, or .mp3, or .au, or
.wmp. And then are the programs covered under .elf? Or something else?

TAR is not compressed. This is why you see tar.gz, tar.bz2, etc... Because .gz
is gzip and .bz2 is bzip2. These are stream compression formats, tar stores
files as a single stream, and running that stream through a stream compressor
gives you a compressed archive.

ZIP is a compressed archive format that operates differently.

.elf isn't an extension though, Ubuntu reads the file header in the file to
determine its type for most of the time. You'll notice that looking in your
/usr/bin directory, they are executables, sometimes shell scripts will have an
"sh" extension, or python "py" and "php" for PHP. But this isn't required.

Linux also rely on the execute bits in the file permissions, if it doesn't have
a execute bit, Linux won't execute it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_(file_format)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_%28file_format%29 .tar is an archive
format, just like .zip. It actually stands for "tape archive".

But perhaps "archive" doesn't necessarily mean "compressed"? .zip
implies a single file containing many, and the details needed to extract
them, and additionally (optionally) compresses then. If I understand
aright, tar doesn't offer the compression?

It is not just like ZIP, there is no compression. ZIP includes compression and
file indexing, you can also access files in a non-linear way, where as a TAR
cannot be accessed in a non-linear way.