[ILUG] Application Locations

[Gareth 'bigbro' Eason]

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On 12/05/10 17:38, Rory Browne wrote:
> Sorry - forgot to cc ilug.
> 
> On 12 May 2010 17:37, Rory Browne <rbmlist at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Personally if it was a commercial app, meant to live in it's own
>> little sandbox/world, I'd put everything under /usr/local/appname
>>
>> In your case, I'd put
>>
>> executables in /usr/local/killerapp/bin
>> config in /usr/local/killerapp/etc, or /usr/local/killerapp/conf (
[snip]

	As the discussion shows, it depends. The FHS (File System Hierarchy)
certainly helps but as you also pointed out, different distros seem to
have their own conventions.

	If the app is closed source and relatively self contained, I'd suggest
putting it in /opt. So:
/opt/killerapp/bin - binaries
/opt/killerapp/etc - shared /default config
/opt/killerapp/lib - libraries (there are good arguments as to why you
might want to put these in /usr/lib too...)
/home/$USER/.config/killerapp - user specific configuration. Again, good
arguments that you could use /home/$USER/.killerapp/

	If killerapp is something that runs more systemwide, then there are
good arguments that you should use /etc/defaults/killerapp to store
default config and /etc/killerapp/ to store running config. This is
particularly relevant if a daemon is involved (and should include a
/etc/init.d/killerapp script complying with the standard protocols for
same too, please :)

	The main thing is to pick one standard - I particularly like the idea
of having everything self-contained under /opt, but if you make a .deb
or .rpm then it matters a lot less since maagement of the files can be
done sanely with the package management system :)

	Hope this helps.

Ob. disclaimer: All the above is merely my opinion. There are other
opinions which are undoubtedly equally and/or more right than mine :)

	Best regards,
	-->Gar
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