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Installing w/apt vs. Installing tar.gz in /home/mydir



All my network is running Debian except my workstation, which is running 
Mepis.  Overall it's worked okay, but every now and then I hit a glitch with 
I don't think I'd have with pure Debian, since Mepis uses both testing and 
unstable for sources.  (Any comments or insight welcome, flames and religious 
discussion unwelcome!)

Oh, and I might add that I'm finishing a project.  When it's done, I plan on 
backing up /home, wiping the drive, using 3 partitions and making one stable 
and one unstable, so I can use pure Sid, but have a backup when needed (the 
3rd partition would be /home).  So for now, I only want thing to work for the 
next month or two.  I'm not anticipating upgrading many programs I install 
now.  (I *really* want to get off Mepis and mixed sources and go to straight 
Debian!)  So there's no need to tell me to change the system -- I intend to 
anyway.

Right now I'm having trouble with Eclipse 3.1, which I installed through apt.  
It's stopped working.  I've tried apt-get remove --purge eclipse, then 
re-installing, and it doesn't help.

I was thinking of installing Eclipse from eclipse.org.  I just recently had a 
problem upgrading Firefox through apt, so I downloaded and installed it 
in /home/hal and I was going to do the same with Eclipse.  I realized in both 
cases I'm installing a program in /home/hal and not in the /usr directory 
tree.

If I'm installing programs that are intended for one user in /home, what kind 
of effects does that have on dependencies and other parts of the apt system?  
if I install a program from a tarball, am I better off installing it in my 
home dir than somewhere in /usr?  If I do, does it "isolate" it from other 
installs?

Any comments on this are welcome.  I prefer apt, but I've had to install a few 
programs like this and I am wondering about the overall effects.

Hal



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