I am running Debian "Sarge" on my machine and I am new to the linux world. My question is in regards to the installation path of a deb package. If I were to download a deb package and install it, what directory would it install in? I have researched countless sites on the net but nothing tells me what the default installation path is. I find plenty of sites that talk about how you can find where a package installed. The reason I ask this question is I am curious if I am putting packages in the correct file. From what I see, most users install packages in /usr/local directory. Is this the default install path for every deb package or does the deb package have a script that tells it where it needs to place all the contents. Am I able to open a deb package up and find a README file that will tell the installation path.

Most packages install various pieces of the application in different places. The actual binary file will most often go to /usr/bin/

To see where the various elements of a package will be placed, install apt-file; (as root) apt-file update; then $ apt-file <package-name>

To see what is "in" a .deb file before installing it, you can open a terminal and use this command:

Typical .deb files will install different types of files to different locations. It seems like madness at first, but the filesystem layout is pretty logical. To find out more about what files should go where, you could have a browse of the the FHS standard. This describes in detail what each directory is for, and the rationale behind it.