Ubuntu – Organizing software – where in the filesystem

filesystem

I guess it's also a matter of personal taste, but since I'm starting with a fresh 10.10 install I thought maybe this time I'll keep my system more organized.

What is/are the conventional place(s) to store software and applications?

I have some stuff I get using git (e.g. bioperl), there are some apps I simply download and extract to some place (e.g. eclipse) and obviously I install software using apt-get.

Where is the conventional place to put all of these?

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For software installed via package management you do not need to care where it is installed, you will only manage it with some package management software like apt-get, aptitude or synaptic anyway.

The usual places are, as already mentioned by txwikinger, /opt and /usr/local. I would generally put software that I compile myself into /usr/local, as that has the usual directory structure (bin, lib, ...) already in place. Big software that expects a directory of its own I install into /opt, I think that is the original intent of that folder.

I'm also using a folder for small, self-contained applications in my home folder for some apps, mainly because my home folder is on a seperate partition that I keep when reinstalling the system. So I don't have to install those applications again.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – find the application executables in the filesystem

The complete answer is to check out the Filesystem Hierachy Standard documentation on what stuff goes where.

But in your case, if you want to know where a particular executable is (for example firefox) use

which firefox

And you will get the full path like this

/usr/bin/firefox

Ubuntu – Where in the filesystem should I store shared data

This question does seem to have a clear answer in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, which specifies /srv as "contain[ing] site-specific data which is served by this system ". (3.16.1)

This main purpose of specifying this is so that users may find the location of the data files for particular service, and so that services which require a single tree for readonly data, writable data and scripts

(my emphasis)

Note: 'Served by the system' doesn't necessarily refer to the Internet. It needn't even mean a network. It's applicable to even a shared system. Further, the words site and service should be understood in their pre-internet meanings. Your site can be "the physics department" or "the finances office".

It goes on to say:

On large systems it can be useful to structure /srv by administrative context, such as /srv/physics/www, /srv/compsci/cvs, etc. This setup will differ from host to host. Therefore, no program should rely on a specific subdirectory structure of /srv existing or data necessarily being stored in /srv. However /srv should always exist on FHS compliant systems and should be used as the default location for such data.

You should therefore further structure your data in directories such as /srv/nfs, /srv/backup and so on.

I should also mention that few people do this anymore. But there is no good reason why they don't. The standard is by no means out of date.

/var is traditionally used for things like print-spools and log-files, but it's also used by the Apache web server (on Debian systems anyway - SUSE use /srv); There doesn't seem to be consensus on whether /var is a proper directory for shared data. But if you decide to use it instead, you will have no regrets I'm sure.

Note also: Karthick's answer is by no means wrong. The FHS says /srv " should be used as the default location for such data", but the standard leaves some room for your own preference, depending on how you interpret the terms.

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Ubuntu – find the application executables in the filesystem

Ubuntu – Where in the filesystem should I store shared data

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