Once I have installed a program on Ubuntu, how do I run it?

Question

I have just installed mongodb using apt-get. Now, unlike some other programs, it has not appeared in the applications drop down (I am using GNOME and Ubuntu 10.04).

Also: Apologies for the simplicity of this question. I have just moved from using Windows and am just a bit confused.

Answer 1

MongoDB is not an application but a service – it does not have a graphical interface by itself. It is used only through other applications, for storing and retrieving data; most commonly by web sites (diaspora*, Craigslist, for example).

When writing a program yourself, you would use a "driver" to connect to the database from whichever language you use. For example, in Python (interactive mode):

$ python
>>> import pymongo
>>> connection = pymongo.Connection("localhost")
>>> db = connection.testdatabase

There are applications for browsing the entire MongoDB contents; most of them are listed in the Admin UIs page at MongoDB website.