Software installation location
 

Is there a recommended installation location for software? I installed the Java version of Eclipse on my Fedora box through the Package manager. I then downloaded the C++ version from the Eclipse's website. It's tar.gz file - I extracted it and ran the app, but I was wondering if there is some "standard" location for software - like Program Files in Windows?

Hello,

So you are saying that you extracted it, but never ran "make install" to install it? Well, you aren't going to like this much, but I am giving you homework. Yes, homework :)
Pick ANY command, and replace "command" within the code above, and look at your output. It will give you the directory in which it resides. I recommend using commands that are available to your normal user and not root, since commands that are given permissions only to root are most likely stored somewhere different (hint ;))
Hit me back up with your findings! :)

Cheers,

Josh

ventsyv,

typically, it is placed under /usr or /usr/local ....but that again is one of the many GREAT things about linux....You can do whatever you want!!!!

To add to what others said, read this article (link) that talks about guidelines for organizing files. These are just guidelines and not rules, so we shouldn't be surprised if things are a little different.

Why not just install it through the package management system, too, instead of downloading from the website?

The Ubuntu Software Center (the GUI software install tool) is only picking up the Java version - I'm not sure why.

I guess I could've done apt-get install but I didn't know the package name.

Doesn't make install require a make file? The tar.gz I downloaded contained binaries, not source code and no make file is included.

Please let us know which distribution you are actually trying that on, if you use different ones. How should we know that you are trying to install it in Ubuntu when you state you tried it in Fedora?
Anyways, the name of the ubuntu package is eclipse-cdt.

Sorry about the confusion. I have a couple of different machines and VMs. One of them is Fedora, the other (VM) Ubuntu. Both of them got the same stuff installed - and both GUI software manager are only picking up Eclipse for Java.

That package list is great by the way. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

That is because it was (is) the main language in Eclipse, but you can add plugins to it. As you can see on the page for the eclipse-cdt package, it is dependent on eclipse-platform, which is the core of eclipse without plugins. So may be you have to search for Eclipse plugins in your package manager. Can't help with that, I don't have a Fedora or Ubuntu install here at the moment.