To your first question:
surfex is a shell script which collects all needed data
and then calls java with the right arguments.
Singular uses (in addition to the original surfe/x)
the first argument as working directory, i.e.
you should make sure that you call the script surfex which comes
which Singular. To test with, try within Singular
system("sh","which surfex");
or
system("sh",type -p surfex");
Second question: binary package for Linux:
There is no single complet package (too many distributions out there),
but you may try:
-ftp://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/pub/Math/Singular/UNIX/surf-1.0.2-ix86-Linux.tar.gz
(binary package for surf, to be installed like the other packages
for Singular described at
http://www.singular.uni-kl.de/UNIX/generic_install.html )
- surfex needs surf and java, everything else is already included in
Singular (more precisely, in Singular-3-0-4-share.tar.gz)