Where to locate software applications

NotionCommotion · 03-25-2014, 12:18 PM

I previously installed wkhtmltopdf as follows:

Code:

wget https://wkhtmltopdf.googlecode.com/files/wkhtmltopdf-0.10.0_rc2-static-amd64.tar.bz2
tar -xvzf wkhtmltopdf-0.10.0_rc2-static-amd64.tar.bz2 -C /opt
chmod +x wkhtmltopdf-amd64
mv wkhtmltopdf-amd64 /usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf

wkhtmltopdf no longer is hosted by googlecode, and I found a new version. Attempting to do the following resulted in errors due to the xz file type, but I eventually got it installed.

Code:

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/wkhtmltopdf/0.12.0/wkhtmltox-linux-amd64_0.12.0-03c001d.tar.xz
tar -xvJf wkhtmltox-linux-amd64_0.12.0-03c001d.tar.xz -C /opt

The software is now installed at /opt/wkhtmltox/bin/wkhtmltopdf.

According to http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_boo...ystem/opt.html, this is "This directory is reserved for all the software and add-on packages that are not part of the default installation" Should I leave it here and not move it to /usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf? Do I no longer need to make it executable using chmod as I originally did (also, why not)?

Thanks

frankbell · 03-25-2014, 08:21 PM

It is perfectly okay to leave it in /opt, if that's where it wants to be.

As for needing to make it executable, what does

Code:

ls -l /opt/wkhtmltox/bin/wkhtmltopdf

tell you?

On my Debian system, both Googleearth and XAMPP installed to /opt and they are quite happy there.

NotionCommotion · 03-26-2014, 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frankbell

It is perfectly okay to leave it in /opt, if that's where it wants to be.

On my Debian system, both Googleearth and XAMPP installed to /opt and they are quite happy there.

Are they more happy than if located at /usr/local or /usr/local/bin? I won't bother moving it, just curious why different locations are used.

Quote:

Originally Posted by frankbell

As for needing to make it executable, what does

Code:

ls -l /opt/wkhtmltox/bin/wkhtmltopdf

tell you?

It tells me I don't need to do so as it already is executable to all. You know, this Linux thing is finally starting to make sense

frankbell · 03-26-2014, 07:55 PM

I wouldn't consider trying to move them, because I'd have to move all their libraries and stuff and would probably break stuff.

/opt was created for user-installed (that is, optional) programs, though not many software packages use it these days.