Quote:
The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally. It needs to be safe from being overwritten when the system software is updated. It may be used for programs and data that are shareable amongst a group of hosts, but not found in /usr.
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If you are installing an application that is not a standard Slackware application it should not be overwritten on system upgrades. I would also suggest that there would be little reason to compile something from souce that comes standard in slackware. Non-standard applications (for me it is things like gqview, gphoto, streamtuner, beep-media-player, downloader for x) I think will not be overwritten with system upgrades. In slackware you can take the role of developer
There all also times when you wish to upgrade a slackware package. For me it was when I compiled downloader for x. It needed a newer version of openssl. Although it was risky, I unstalled the Slackware version and installed the newer version in exactly the same place according to Pat's build scripts. I was concerned that other apps that depended on openssl find the libs in the same place. It has worked fine in 10.1 and Pat went to the newer version in 10.2.
I personally have software in both /usr and /usr/local more based on what is easiest and most efficient. For a distro that includes gphoto it is "best" for the developers to install to /usr and if you look you will find debian packages and rpm's for Suse, Mandrake, Fedora all place gphoto there. Yet I could not get qcad to install anyplace other than /usr/local. (Qcad uses an install.sh script that uses /usr/local). Opera's install script installs to /usr. I find install scripts inflexible and difficult to edit consistently all the way through.
There are other reasons one might want to install to /usr. It is quicker for a user to start something from a user terminal if it is installed to /usr. The user just enters "gqview" if it is installed to /usr. With intallation to /usr/local the entire path is needed "/usr/local/bin/gqview"
I am not trying to start a flame ware. Many applications install fine in both places.
I am suggesting that being pendantical about the "best place to install software" is more dependent on what you are installing and who is going to use it.