/usr/lib vs /usr/libexec
 

I just installed nagios 1.2 & nagios 1.4 plugins from packages on linuxpackages. Interesting where different things were installed

nagios executable /usr/bin
nagios plugins /usr/lib/nagios/plugins
nagios cgi scripts /usr/libexec/nagios

While I assume the location for these files was in part decided by the package builder, can anyone shed light on general use of the various /usr directories?

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html
I'm not sure you'll find exactly want you want, but it can help.

It would appear that /usr/libexec is an instance of the /usr/lib<qual> directory. What does <qual> mean there?

http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/...fhs/index.html

PS Bear in mind that Linux distributions (including Slackware) sometimes may deviate from the FHS, that can be considered as a guideline more than a strict specification. This is especially true below the top level directories and usage vary upon distribution. For instance, documentation sub directories often are stored in /usr/share/doc in many distributions but in /usr/doc in Slackware and derivatives.

Not really. An example of <qual> would be 64, i.e. the 64 bit shared libraries are stored under /usr/lib64.

Instead, /usr/libexec usually stores binaries (and shell scripts in practice).

negatratoron, this is an eleven year old thread that you stumbled across. There are many bad things about that, and one of them is that you looked at a 13 year old standard that was superseded long ago.

Here's the up-to-date version: http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/...s/ch04s07.html