Re: Experiment: Neophyte versus Windows XP & Debian Woody

[Paul Morgan <paulswm@earthlink.net>]

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