Where to put local Latex *.sty files under Fedora11

[reg at dwf.com]

There used to be a place to put local *.sty files for Latex so that they would 
be found.  Under the current latex under Fedora11 I cant figure out where
that directory might be and am having to copy them into the directory
with the *.tex file to get them recognized.  Not nice.

Any Latex users out there that know the answer?

[[ The Latex System seems to be looking in /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/<filename
>/*.sty
  but there must be an index to this directory somewhere, as just putting a 
new Local
  directory in there with the files in it does no good.  Thoughts on that 
approach??? ]]

-- 
                                        Reg.Clemens
                                        reg at dwf.com