Re: Experiment: Neophyte versus Windows XP & Debian Woody

[Paul Morgan]

Edward Murrell wrote:

On Fri, 2003-11-21 at 12:23, Roberto Sanchez wrote:
 

I haven't come across packages that install into /opt. For source
packages, I use ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/stow/packagename
and have "stow" handle the symlinking to /usr/local/bin, etc.
     

The OpenOffice.org binary tarball defaults to /opt (at least it did
in version 1.0)
   

I've never understood the need for /opt/. Or more precisely, I've never
understood the need for /opt/ when you have /usr/local/, and in my
travels have yet to find any solid reasoning beyond what seems to be
that the first person to create /opt/ didn't know about /usr/local/.
(I'm almost certainly wrong of course, but I still haven't been able to
find anything that tells me so with any decent authority.)
- Edward

Check out the FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) in the debian-policy 
package.

In my experience, /opt and /usr/local have slightly different functions. 
/opt would be used for vendor applications, etc., whereas /usr/local 
would be used for locally built tools, etc.

For instance, on SunOS/Solaris boxes, you would probably find, let's 
say, a reservation system, in the following trees

/opt/apps/res
/var/opt/apps/res    #data, logs, etc
And you would probably find bash in

/usr/local/bin/bash

..........................................paul



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