[ale] File System for Newbs

[Thompson Freeman]

On 07/28/2009 10:27:01 AM, Tim Watts wrote:
> I have /usr/local/share/applications on my ubuntu distro.
> It's where Adobe
> reader put it's .desktop file although it put the binaries
> in /opt. I guess
> they were playing to both sides of the fence?
> 
> From what I can tell, the "correctness" of install
> location seems to depend on
> the distro. I think some distros try to keep FOSS and
> non-FOSS software
> separate (e.g. non-FOSS in /opt, FOSS in /usr/local). Just
> my casual
> observation.
> 
<<snip>>

I'll chime in here. My understanding is that  
/usr/local/share/applications/ is the location for all the  
.desktop files so that the various menuing systems can find  
and parse the various entries for the GUI menus. The actual  
program belongs either under /opt or /usr (as in /usr/bin  
or /usr/local/bin and so forth), with conventions that defy  
my limited intellegence to keep straight. I gather that if  
you use the appropriate packaging system for your  
distribution, it probably doesn't make too terribly much  
difference which convention you choose to follow, but since  
I'm not a developer don't put much faith in that statement.  
I you are doing a straight compile with install, probably  
going straight to either /opt or /usr/local/bin would be  
desireable, since I don't think the package managers play  
in those directories often.

Hope this helps more that it raises the noise level.