Program Installation – How to Tell Ubuntu Where to Install a Program and Locate Existing Programs

aptinstallationserver

I'm totally new to Ubuntu/Linux, using Ubuntu Server at the moment. Just trying to figure out something basic.

How can you tell where you are installing a program. For example I just installed Sphinx search engine by placing the tarball that I downloaded from their site to my:

/home/sphinx

directory. I created the sphinx directory to place that tarball in. Then I ran these commands:

tar xvzf sphinx-0.9.8.1.tar.gz
cd sphinx-0.9.8.1/
./configure --with-mysql-includes=/usr/include/mysql --with-mysql-libs=/usr/lib/mysql

and then these:

make
sudo make install

Now I have a lot of files sitting in the directory where I ran these commands. Is this my Spynx installation or did it install somewhere else?

In windows if you run an installer (.exe file) anywhere the program will still install in your C:\Program Files directory. Does something similar apply to linux where all programs are installed in a central place, or can you install programs anywhere on the system.

Questions

I would prefer to keep all my installed programs in one place so
what is the right place for this in terms of best practice. In
other words what is the Linux equivalent of C:\Program Files?
And how does one always install at this location, is it just a matter of placing the tarball and running the install commands from this location?
What about if I use sudo apt-get to install a package. How can I point to this location to tell apt-get to always install there?

Best Answer

Does something similar apply to linux where all programs are installed in a central place

Approximate equivalents of Windows install directories in Linux

\Windows = /bin
\Windows\System32 = /lib and /sbin
\Program Files = /usr/bin and /usr/lib

I would prefer to keep all my installed programs in one place so what is the right place for this in terms of best practice. In other words what is the Linux equivalent of C:\Program Files?

That would be the directories under /usr, specifically /usr/bin and /usr/lib.

And how does one always install at this location, is it just a matter of placing the tarball and running the install commands from this location?

No. Where you are when you run the install commands almost never matters.
Programs you install via apt-get (or aptitude) will almost always end up appropriately in /usr. BUT programs you compile from source and make install will more often end up in /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/lib, etc, and you may have problems with that since the user-installed path in Debian/Ubuntu is /usr and not /usr/local.
When compiling from source, add this switch to configure: ./configure --prefix=/usr. This way when you make install the files will end up in the right directory
Also look into the checkinstall program, which keeps track of the files a package compiled from source installs, makes a deb file, and allows for easy uninstall/reinstall.

What about if I use sudo apt-get to install a package. How can I point to this location to tell apt-get to always install there?

apt-get/dpkg take care of this automatically. You can use dpkg -L name-of-package to see all the files installed by a package and where they were installed.

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APT – Default Location of PostgreSQL When Installing Through apt-get

In the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, `/var/lib/ is stated as (in italic the most important part):

5.8.1 Purpose

This hierarchy holds state information pertaining to an application or the system. State information is data that programs modify while they run, and that pertains to one specific host. Users must never need to modify files in /var/lib to configure a package's operation.

State information is generally used to preserve the condition of an application (or a group of inter-related applications) between invocations and between different instances of the same application. State information should generally remain valid after a reboot, should not be logging output, and should not be spooled data.

An application (or a group of inter-related applications) must use a subdirectory of /var/lib for its data. There is one required subdirectory, /var/lib/misc, which is intended for state files that don't need a subdirectory; the other subdirectories should only be present if the application in question is included in the distribution.

/var/lib/ is the location that must be used for all distribution packaging support. Different distributions may use different names, of course.

In short: /var/lib/ is for data that is used locally.

So it makes perfect sense to put a database's data into /var/lib/{mysql|postgress}/ directory but... the FHS is a standard created mostly for use by distributions. As a user you are free to put your data wherever you want and it is mostly a matter of opinion.

You are misunderstanding the word "local". /usr/local/bin/ is not for system software but for your own software (basically anything with "local" in must never be touched by the system. As explained by FHS:

/usr/local/

4.9.1 Purpose

The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally. It needs to be safe from being overwritten when the system software is updated. It may be used for programs and data that are shareable amongst a group of hosts, but not found in /usr. Locally installed software must be placed within /usr/local rather than /usr unless it is being installed to replace or upgrade software in /usr.

An executable installed from system software should never go to anything local.

Now for /usr/lib/.

4.7.1 Purpose

/usr/lib includes object files, libraries, and internal binaries that are not intended to be executed directly by users or shell scripts. Applications may use a single subdirectory under /usr/lib. If an application uses a subdirectory, all architecture-dependent data exclusively used by the application must be placed within that subdirectory.

postgressql is probably a daemon started at boot? If so it makes sense to put it here. You are not suppose to use the command yourself but start a service. The files in /usr/lib/ tend to have their own user and group and/or a daemon that restricts access to /var/lib (only mysqld can access /var/lib/mysql/ for instance; this will be the same for postgressql)

Ubuntu – How install or uninstall half-installed thesql-client-5.6 on/from ubuntu 15.10

I had the same issue on VM with Ubuntu 14.04. The only thing worked for me is similar to what Richard Uijen has suggested:

sudo apt-get --purge remove mysql*
sudo apt-get autoremove mysql*
sudo rm -rf /etc/mysql/
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/mysql/
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --reinstall mysql-client-5.6

Basically you need to remove all mysql packages (mysql*), clean and install again

After that I could install php7 mysql client without any issues

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php7.0 php7.0-mysql

Best Answer

Approximate equivalents of Windows install directories in Linux

Related Solutions

APT – Default Location of PostgreSQL When Installing Through apt-get

Ubuntu – How install or uninstall half-installed thesql-client-5.6 on/from ubuntu 15.10

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