Question re: file organization
 

I got Mandrake working last night on my Dell Inspiron 4000. So far, everything is great. I downloaded and installed both Firebird and Thunderbird. Here's my question, I basically just decompressed them both into directories into my /home/andy directory in their own folders. I am getting the sense that it does not really matter where I install programs under Linux. Is that right?

I dont think it really matters where u install stuff..unless theres a dependency issue..then you have to let other program know where this program is installed. As long as you know where things are..I think you should be okay

Very helpful. Thanks. One follow-up, do I need to install all programs as root?

Those programs don't have full installers yet, but come prebuilt... both of which is a little unusual. what you should ideally be doing is decompressing the tarballs or whatever to /usr/lib/MozillaFirebird (for example) and then creating a symlink from /usr/lib/MozillaFirebird/MozillaFirebird to /usr/bin/firebird for ease of access.

Am I correct in thinking that I can log in as root, move the files to /usr/lib/MozillaFirebird/MozillaFirebord, create the link, and maintain my bookmarks, etc?

yeah, as the bookmarks are not kept there, but always on a per user basis, currently in ~/.phoenix i think.

Thanks. This will all keep me busy tonight.