OK, I've got Mandrake up and running, and now I'm ready to start experimenting. My first step is to move my files onto the filesystem - I've got a bunch of icons that I like, I downloaded Mozilla Firebird, and I need to put my mp3 collection and some ebooks and such. Where do you put your files? If I have an app to install, like Firebird, where should I put it and why? Where is a good place to store mp3s and media files? Where is a good place to store downloads - where do you put them and why do you put them there? Of course, I realize that I could just dump everything in /home/user , but I think I need some other way of organizing my stuff. So the question is, how do experienced Linux users organize their files?

thanks,

-dbc

well i mean when it comes to anything like you mention, i know i just leave it in my home folder or on my secondary drive ...
cause i know me and most others when you download stuff in windows it more so goes to my documents and thats what /home/user basically is imo ...
as of an app like firebird, well some are just lazy and just extract it in their home folder and run it from there (it doesn't require install as you must have already seen), but i through mine in /usr/local/bin... i just typed as root tar -zxvf firebird.tar.gz -C /usr/local/bin, and put it there .... same as mozilla thunderbird ... but i only do that with stuff like them apps that don't have an installer per se, but most do and they are already set up by default to go where they are set to go, but yes some do have arguments you can pass in the script to put it wherever, but i just leave it do its thing ..
but personally with me and my media/movies, i have them on a secondary drive where i store almost everything, but if i didn't have any secondary drive, i would probably just have to say i would just have a folder set in my /home/user folder ... same goes for ebooks or anything of the such ...

I've got a /opt directory...don't know if mandrake has one...and that's where I put any "extract and run" programs.
Any files I have like downloads or projects, I try to stay somewhat organized by adding directories in /home/mik like "downloads" and "media" and such....just like I did with "my Documents" in windows, like the Dr mentioned.
There's also a /home/mik/bin on my system which I use for symlinks to binaries that aren't in my path, and for scripts. There was also a /home/mik/Documents directory automatically created when I installed suse...I was considering getting rid of it, but ended up using it for filing of saved web pages and text files and miscellaneous reference material.
Basically I try to be as organized as possible...when I first started with Linux I didn't care for the way home was arranged (too many individual configuration files to sort through), but over time I've gotten used to it. I'd still prefer having a single subdirectory for all my rc files, but not sure how easy that would be to accomplish.

I thought I would describe how I've been handling my downloads, since it's so difficult to keep them organized.

I use my computer to download software, download mp3s (nothing illegal of course), and to rip my DVD collection. So I have a lot of downloads to deal with.

Since I will have to back up /home anyway eventually, I decided that it's the best place to store most of my files. But I don't want my own home directory to get too cluttered with downloads, so I made /home/incoming and /home/downloads . I put all my incoming files and incomplete downloads in /home/incoming . I expect this folder to get pretty nasty, and I don't plan on backing it up.

I move my finished downloads to /home/downloads and that folder can be easily backed up. One of these days I plan on making a script that will check to see if the folder contains more than 650 Megs, and if it does to remind me to back it up. (if anyone already has such a script it would save me a little research!)

I would create a directory in /home/[username]/ for the mp3s (something like XPs "My Music", but you can use any name you want. I'd also create one ther for pictures, mpgs, avis,etc.You can safely create any directory in your personal directory under /home. Change your path environment variable so that it can find them and the programs that will open them. Remember that some Windoze files will not work with Linux. (Anything with a .com, .exe, .pif, .scr, and so forth are executables, and will not run in Linux. I mention this, because you mentioned ebooks, that can be made into .exe files. If you have done this with the ebook program, you may want to rebuild them as normal .html files so you can open them with a browser. In addition, Linux uses xbm for icons, usually. You may want to google around for a conversion program for your icons, and I would also put them in their own directory, under /home/[username]/ . Most image types work fine in Linux (except perhaps .ico, .cur, and .ani. .bmp is a M$ developed image format, and may not be opened with some Linux apps - I'm not sure about that, but I convert everything into .png files. anyway; it saves space over .bmp, and has none of the lossyness of .jpg. (.png files are bigger than .jpg files, so they will take up more disk space. I haven't spent very much time checking out the Linux specific image formats, so I can't as yet give any advice on them, other than xbms as icons.)

I create a directory
/SHARE
to put files and programs that will be shared. Of course, you can name it whatever you like.

for instance Mozilla Firebird I would put in a new directory
/SHARE/Apps
then put a symbolic link to it with
ln -s /SHARE/Apps/MozillaFirebird/MoillaFirebird /usr/bin/MozillaFirebird

It is best if you have a seperate partition for
/SHARE

If I usually wanted to install something that everyone can access (its a family computer) I usually list it under /usr/share. Good way of organising files. You can split it into games and so on, or in other places. The /home/* directory isn't good as they are usually personal files.

My Slackware box is set up like this:

10gig primary master drive partitioned into a 5gig Windows 2000 and the rest is Slackware.

30gig FAT32 drive used by both Windows and Slackware for file storage.

In Slackware, I mount that 30gig FAT32 drive in my /home directory and that's where I pretty much keep everything.

I can get to that 30gig drive from Windows 2000 as well (it's my D-drive), but I'm almost never running in Windows on that machine, so it doesn't come up much.

That 30gig drive is also a network-drive, and I can get to it via my D-Link wireless router from my laptop (also Windows 2000, though I'm contemplating repartitioning the laptop and dual-booting Win2k and Slackware on it as well, now that I'm more comfortable with Slackware than I was).

I pretty much do this this way because my data drive is a separate physical hard drive with NO operating system installed on it.

That way, if I totally hose something up with my Windows installation on that machine, or my Slackware installation, or my MBR, or whatever... I'll still have my data safely sitting there on a 30gig hard drive that is unaffected by any OS woes.

I've lost everything before, and I'm determined not to have that happen again.