Subj : Re: Where should installed programs go?
To   : comp.os.linux
From : Larry I Smith
Date : Fri Aug 06 2004 04:23 pm

Scott Bell wrote:
> Where should programs go that I install? I've just installed Firefox
> but it asks me where I want to install to, I've installed it in the
> directory /usr/bin/firefox/ and created a launcher to
> /usr/bin/firefox/firefox but although this works I'm not sure if this
> is the correct way to install software.
> 
> Most of the software I already have can be launched from the bash
> prompt (eg. mozilla) by typing the program name but this won't work
> with Firefox unless I type firefox/firefox. What should I be doing so
> this works with Firefox?

Well, here's the way my pc is setup...

Extra apps are often installed in /opt.  Then links to those
apps are put into /usr/bin.

For example:

   "Mozilla" is installed in /opt/mozilla
   /usr/bin/mozilla is a link to /opt/mozilla/bin/mozilla.sh

Sometimes extra apps are installed in /usr/local.

If you display your PATH environment variable from a
command line you will see the 'default' search path
setup by your linux distro, e.g.

    > echo $PATH

Mine looks like this:

  /home/larry/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:
  /bin:/usr/games:/opt/gnome/bin:/opt/kde3/bin:/usr/lib/java/bin

You can see that the 'bin' dir in my home dir is searched first
(to find any 'private' progs I've installed).
Then '/usr/local/bin' is searched.
Then '/usr/bin'
etc, etc, etc

You can browse the HTML version Linux Filesystem Hierarchy
Standard at the following URL.  It explains the intended
purpose of each directory:

   http://www.pathname.com/fhs/

Regards,
Larry

-- 
Anti-spam address, change each 'X' to '.' to reply directly.

.