http://www.linuxpackages.net/howto.p...=Package+Howto says:

First we do this because if you have noticed most programs will install to /usr/local by default. We don't want this since we are going to let others use this package /usr/local is off limits basically for packages that others will be using. This is outlined in the FHS.

But I thought /usr/local is for software that is not part of the distribution? So a package like mplayer, which is not in the official slackware release, should go into /usr/local, no?

Not quite ... the /usr/local comes in as a discriminating
factor when you're in a networked environment, and your
/ and/or /usr are on nfs. So /usr/local means exactly that,
that's stuff that is installed ONLY on that machine.

However, all my stuff that's compiled from source lands
there ;) ... I think of the FHS as a guide-line for the makers
of distros, and don't necessarily feel bound to adhere to
it for my private use.


Cheers,
Tink

If I ever have to start completely over with my install, I would consider putting /usr/local on a separate partition. Then all of those extra programs that I install I would put them there. That way any time I had to do a clean install at upgrade, I would still have all of those installed on my machine. As it is, I don't plan on ever having to do that again..... (sound of knocking on wood).

Going back to the early 1990s I have been a fan of partitioning. In MS-DOS I had three partitions, a C:, D:, and E: partition. System stuff went on C:, applications on D:, and I used E: to store all of my data files. I continued that basic strategy into Windows. Keeping all of my data files on a separate partition has always saved me much grief, especially back in the days when I tended to tinker a lot more than I do today. I could reinstall software to my heart's content and never touch my data.

When I started tinkering with GNU/Linux a few years ago one of the first things I learned was to divide my hard disk into partitions. This saved me much time in the beginning because I was flirting with several distros and with the partition scheme I did not have to reinstall a lot of files.

Currently I save all of my custom-made bash scripts to /usr/local/bin. I also installed all of my TrueType fonts in /usr/local as well as many system event sounds (I use KDE). This partitioning scheme will save me time once again in a few weeks as I install Slack onto another box. I'll simply copy the files from usr/local and be done.

I also use a dedicated /boot partition, which allowed me to play with several kernels when I was playing with several distros. I have all of my GRUB files installed to /boot and I need only edit the one config file when adding a new kernel to test.

I use a dedicated /home partition and never have to reinstall anything there either. My /opt directory is on a separate partition and this helps when updating KDE or other third-party software.

Some people don't care for the extra up-front work with partitioning, but once one gets the hang of things the idea is one of those that simply makes sense for a lot of people. At least for me---YMMV.

According to the LFSH /usr/local should be empty when a distro is delivered.
I personally feel that software that is handled by the native package management tools can also be installed under /usr, leaving /usr/local for locally COMPILED software -just as a way to keep it apart from software that uses pkgtools.
I mean that for your own computer -installing on a high-security networked box will probably mean taking other considerations into account. But I doubt that anyone with high security concerns is going to be installing packages from linuxpages.net...