Pardon me if this has been addressed countless times, but I'm curious to know how to install programs such as OpenOffice and LimeWire, so that they'll work for all users? When I installed those two programs, they installed in my /home/rob directory. That's fine and dandy, but suppose later on I want to have Linux on a computer with more than one user. How do I install programs so that all users have access rights, and that they all can save to their personal folders?

Hope this helps.............I am not an expert but this should work

It all depends on what type of format you are using to install the application. If you are using a distro that uses RPM (ex: mandrake and RedHat) the files should be accessable to all users that want to use it automatically. rpm -Uvh to install and rpm -e to uninstall

On the other hand, if you install from source (ex: blah.tar) it is best to install to a directory with the correct permissions. For the most part, I install all compiled from source applications in /usr/local/src. You would then set the directory /usr/local so that any user would be able to execute the program. If you are not very familiar with the permissions commands, man chmod should do the trick (but I think it is setup this way by default). From then on, as long as you have that directory set up in your PATH variable in your /etc/bashrc file (just append :/usr/local to the end of the PATH that is already there) you should be able to execute the programs as any user.

If that doesn't work, then you may need to play around with the permissions of the "other" to allow other users to execute the applications.

Hope that isnt too confusing and is a little help at least

Thanks, I'll try installing in the /usr/local path once I get Gnome2.4 up and running. Good thing I have KDE as a backup incase something happens to Gnome between when I take 1.4 off and put 2.4 on....

(Hope this is right - don't have access to documentation right now)

Not sure this option is still available.

If OpenOffice is the same as Star office was,

as root
type ./install /net

It will install to "application server"

each user needs to go in to the installed package and

as user
type ./setup

This will allow the user to setup a networked version of OOo or a full install.


I suppose the user side of this could be automated with a script.

Thanks, I'll try out the /net path when I install it again.

at that point in the command it is really considered a 'switch'
make sure there is a space before /net