Use of /opt
 

How much does the various distributions use /opt, and using how much space?
RH 7.x didn't put anything there, Slack puts a few things there.
What about Gentoo, which I'll probably switch to in a near future...
Likewise for non-distro apps. Oracle likes to install itself there. OO puts its installer there.

Once upon a time there was discussions that all non-distro should go to /opt, haven't heard much of that since.
I haven't looked at Debian-based modular project (forgot the name), maybe htey're doing something interesting...

It's not a problem for me, I'm merely laying out the structure for a new system. I usually puts all non-distro in /usr/local, but some apps likes to install into /opt per default.

From what I've seen, /opt really isn't all that necessary anymore. Stands for optional...

I know in some cases KDE might install stuff there but it really doesn't take all that much space. You can easily place it on the same partition / is mounted at, etc.

Coming from an LFS/source code point of view, I think it's a nice directory to keep around. I use fluxbox but decided to give the new KDE a try. Since I built everything with a ./configure --prefix=/opt/kde , I can just delete the entire damn directory with no ramifications what so ever..... Nice.... But, yea, I don't think alot of distros use it anymore. It's more of a Unix thing....

Tnx guys. Been using Linux since '96, so I kind of knew things. I resently switched from RH to Slack, and plan to move to Gentoo, so I was interested in what various distro's do in /opt.
Back some years ago, there was talks about keeping most non-distro stuff in /opt, so traditionally, I've had a separate /opt partition. No use for that anymore :-