Im running RH 7.2 and whould like to know where the best directory to install software. Like Star Office for example... by default it wants to stick it in subdirectory in my home directory. Maybe im to used to the windows way of doing things but is there a *nix equivelant to "Program Files"?
Would /usr/local be a better place?


Thanks for any suggestions.

if your installnig as a user then it will install to your home, but as root it'll go for /usr/local. unless it doesn't.... maybe it's weird. if so, /usr/local is a very god place for it. generally all normal prgrams (i.e. NOT staroffice etc..) will install nicely into your /usr branch fine. there's very seldom a casue to change the dafult

An impressive document to consider (although I don't know how closely it is followed by the major distributions) is the Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. It covers what should be where, and poses a good argument for having most of your system running from a CD so that it cannot be overwritten.

It recommends /usr/local or /opt for additional software like StarOffice.

Joe

Funny thing... just before I read your post, joe, I came across that Filesystem Standard doc; pretty interesting read, kinda like porn for geeks

Thanks for your inputs.

Hi ho,

The idea of running "much of the stytem" from CD is intriguing and would certainly provide bulletprooof over write protection, but isn't there a substantial performance hit? Speed is one of my main issues with Linux, espeially in GNOME, as it is. Not crazy about going back to command line entry; reminds me too much of Hollerith cards, I guess. Any thoughts?

Cheers.

The Linux kernel will be loaded from the CD into memory at boot time so there won't be a loss of speed from that. The only thing you might notice is a slight delay in loading new apps because the CD has to spin up.

The problems you're seeing in GNOME are more than likely not caused by the read time of the particular device you have the software loaded on. It's probably more of a problem with running too much at once. Even if you don't think you have a lot running, there may be more daemons than you think in the background. Not to mention that the primary goal of GNOME was not speed.