[CLUE-Tech] distro question

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 21:33, Angelo Bertolli wrote:
> > 1. Compile and build and install somewhere you put everything that is 
> > non-standard... (/usr/local... /opt... whatever) -- you can obviously 
> > do this on any Linux system.
> >
> You know, I've always been a little bit confused by the slight variances 
> in how people use directory structures.  I mean, is there really 
> something better about putting something in /usr/local vs /opt?  I've 
> noticed things like ColdFusion install themselves in /opt.  I tend to 
> put my custom programs and scripts in /usr/local.  I don't know why I do 
> that, it just seemed right.  I've also seen stuff in /usr/pkg on other 
> systems.  Another confusing thing is why some things are in /usr/bin vs 
> /bin or /usr/sbin vs /usr/sbin.  And since /var is supposed to be 
> variable data anyway, why is there a /usr/local/var ?  There seems to be 
> too many places for things.

Have you read the FHS? There's a method to the madness, though not all
distros conform to the FHS completely (even when they claim to be
LSB-compliant...) and you might not agree w/the rationale for the
locations for various things. 

I don't recall /usr/pkg being a standard part of the filesystem... 

/bin is for files that are needed at boot, or for system recovery, etc.
/sbin is for files for system administration needed at boot or recovery,
etc., /usr/bin is for common system utilities not needed at boot,
/usr/sbin same thing except for superuser. 

/usr/local is "for use by the system administrator when installing
software locally." -- basically, as I understand it, for software
installed by the system admin (rather than by the vendor) that isn't an
upgrade. 

/opt is for "add-on" software packages. Well-behaved third-party apps
should install themselves into /opt. 

/usr/local/var is not part of the FHS, from what I can tell, and doesn't
exist on my system. 

The whole FHS is here:

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html

If you work with Linux system administration much, I highly recommend
that you read it. 

Best,

Zonker