I'm a Linux newbie, just installed Ubuntu yesterday as a matter of fact. I love it. But I do have one question. Is there a way to get to /usr/share/applications faster than having to go through the FileSystem? I tried making a Hard Link to it, but for some reason it won't let me.
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Takkat
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user2096634
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Please edit your question with *how* you tried to make the hardlink. Have you tried `ln`? – jobin Dec 10 '13 at 17:23
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Or instead you can try Dash... You can view a list of all installed applications or you can type in the names for quick search...
Unity, the default UI since Ubuntu 11.04, has this wonderful Dash desktop search utility. You can access Dash by hitting the Super key (aka 
key in Windows keyboard).
At the bottom of the Dash, click the application lens among others, as shown in the snapshot (in Ubuntu 12.04 you can directly access this using Super + A):
Click "Installed: See ... more results" to view a menu list of all installed applications.
Click to launch the application you want. Use arrow keys or the scroll bar to browse for more application down the list.
Or you can create a bookmark for the directory. For this browse to the /usr/share/applications directory and in there press Ctrl + D and the bookmark will show up in the Nautilus' side bar (use F9 to toggle side bar visibility).
rusty
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We probably never need to open the directory /usr/share/applications under normal desktop usage, beacause all installed applications can easily be accessed through the Dash.
If for other reasons we often need a quick access to /usr/share/applications we may want to bookmark this location in Nautilus. See this question on how to do this:
After we had made our bookmark applications we can quickly open it from both, a right click menu from the Launcher, and in the side pane of Nautilus:
