 When you're trying to run a script on Linux, why do you have to put a dot slash before the script name to execute it? Well, many of you new to Linux users have this question. I had this question too when I switched to Linux and the reason is on Linux all of your programs, all of your executable binaries, they are in certain directories on your system that are part of what we call the path, typically slash user slash bin. And that way you don't have to type the full path to a program. So when you type Firefox, for example, it knows to go in user bin and look for Firefox, the binary. But when you're running a script, you're running something outside the user bin directory, typically. So you actually need the full path to that script. Otherwise, it's going to look for it in user bin and it's not going to find it. That's why the full path to your script names are dot slash name of script dot slash means in this directory you're currently in, name of script, Linux, the more you know.