[ale] File System for Newbs

[Tim Watts]

I have /usr/local/share/applications on my ubuntu distro. It's where Adobe 
reader put it's .desktop file although it put the binaries in /opt. I guess 
they were playing to both sides of the fence?

>From what I can tell, the "correctness" of install location seems to depend on 
the distro. I think some distros try to keep FOSS and non-FOSS software 
separate (e.g. non-FOSS in /opt, FOSS in /usr/local). Just my casual 
observation.

Personally, I was raised to believe that 'usr' stood for 'Unix system 
resources' and /usr/local was the place for site-specific stuff. But actually, 
as long as it's in one of those locations, I really wouldn't care where you 
put it. And as someone else mentioned, symlinks have the potential to make 
(almost) everyone happy.


On Tuesday 28 July 2009 9:27:33 am Greg Freemyer wrote:
> Marc,
>
> Are you doing this just on your own machine(s)?
>
> Or are you releasing a tool that others are installing?
>
> I think /usr/local is treated as a directory for the local admin to
> utilize.  If I have to do ./configure; make; make install then the
> /usr/local tree is typically my target.
>
> /opt is typically used for decent sized add-on packages to reside in.
>
> fyi: the issue may be your choice of /usr/local/share/applications.  I
> don't even have that directory on my distro.  Did you create it
> yourself?
>
> Greg
>
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 5:09 AM, Marc Ferguson<marcferguson at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > Hi Folks,
> >
> > I'd like some guidance in figuring out where do I install programs? I got
> > some flack from a group in a #songbird IRC channel for putting the
> > package in /usr/local/share/applications.  The nice one, pointed me to
> > Red Hat docs and from there I found my way to pathname.com.  I think I've
> > seen this site before, but it's a bit too long for my taste. I started to
> > look through it and fell by the wayside.
> >
> > http://proton.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html
> >
> > After my reading, I'm confused. It looks like applications should be
> > installed in the /opt folder.  I could be totally wrong, in my thinking,
> > but I don't want to install apps in my /home directory.  Thanks.
> >
> > --
> > Marc Ferguson
> >
> > www.fergytech.com
> > www.digitalalias.net
> >
> > "When life gives me lemons... I make Linuxaide, hmm good stuff!"
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale

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Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live 
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 -- Oscar Wilde