You are correct on the second half of your post. Those lines are meant to be run, typically as root, in the "Terminal" window. The # is just to show you the prompt, and is not actually a part of the command, so leave the # off (in short: you can't copy and paste that entire block.)

As far as "finding" interpreted programs.. I don't know of any short/quick way to do so.. there are many different languages that these are written for.. as Benson pointed out: Flash, python, java, ruby, perl, etc. An example of a program that is interpreted is Flyback. The extension on the program is ".py" which means it's written in Python, and requires the Python interpreter to be installed before you can run it.

Now.. depending on the different modules that any particular interpreted program requires.. just having the interpreter may not be enough.. and they STILL may not run appropriately. To keep with flyback, it requires several python modules, and a couple of which I do not think have been ported to "maemo" yet - therefore, even though you can get "Python" for your n800 - you may NOT be able to run Flyback on your N800.

Now, using Mer, or the Easy Debian setup, this becomes more of a possibility because debian and ubuntu have ported large numbers of their libraries and modules to the ARM architecture.. but these libraries/modules may not be compatible with Maemo's libraries (typically much older, gnome-based libs) so cannot be just directly loaded into maemo.

The process of "which programs can, or can't I run" is actually really very complex.. which is why for newer users it is best to stick ONLY TO the applications you see listed on here, or at the official Garage sites, or if you're experimental and find some random website where they've made something that specifically says it works on "N8x0".. then you might be ok.

However, that doesn't stop you from finding an app you would LIKE.. coming here and searching for it, if not finding it then starting a thread asking A) if it's possible, and B) if so, is it already ported? C) if not, will someone be nice enough to take the time to do so?