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Old 11-06-2005, 05:30 PM   #16
shepper
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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.
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.
 
Old 11-06-2005, 06:34 PM   #17
egag
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well...in my previous post i suggested that the makers of gphoto didn't follow
the standard, but i was wrong: they do

from the gphoto faq:
------------------------
Set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the lib directory into which you installed your new libgphoto2 (e.g. /usr/local/lib).
------------------------

and:
------------------------
If you want to, you may make the changed library search path permanent.

Either set LD_LIBRARY_PATH by default in your shell init scripts, or configure your dynamic loader ld.so permanently.
-------------------------
you just didn't follow the documentation.

also /usr/local/bin is in your path:

---------------
egag@slack21:$ cat /etc/profile |grep PATH
export MANPATH=/usr/local/man:/usr/man:/usr/X11R6/man
# Set the default system $PATH:
PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games"
---------------
so that should give no prob's.

anyone is free to do what he or she wants, but keeping to certain standards
is a good idea, as software writers will most likely do that too.

btw.: this doesn't look like a flame war... ;-)

egag
 
Old 11-08-2005, 09:42 AM   #18
Nobber
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Here's another vote for using /usr/local for stuff compiled from source or unofficial packages (where it's possible to choose a location). The only time I break that rule is when compiling and installing a KDE update; instead I put that in /opt/kde-X.Y.
 
Old 11-08-2005, 03:48 PM   #19
marsm
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To sum things up a bit, we have the holy hierarchy trinity (as with compiling: configure, make, make install):

/ -- the primary and root directory, contains the system's bare essentials
/usr -- the secondary and "distribution's directory"
/usr/local -- the tertiary and "users' directory" for everything else, save for things that go in

/opt -- for packages such as KDE, OpenOffice, ...

This leaves three major places as installation directories (excluding /). I suppose it would generally make sense to go by egag's suggestions: compile small programs from source and use any given package management tool to install the major ones.

Don't really want to open a new thread for this one:
Faithfully following this ruleset, to what kind of distribution of disk usage would this amount for the average user if the partitions were /, /usr/local, /var, /tmp and /home? With the intention of giving /home as much space as possible.
 
  


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