If you run
in the terminal you'll likely see something like.
Code:
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
This means that programs in /usr/local/bin will be automatically recognized, as they are in path, while those in /opt will not, and you'll have to add them to path. If you have a lot of programs, your PATH variable may get quite long.
But really, you can use either one. In general you would put the whole program in /opt in a single folder, such as /opt/jdk, while in /usr/local, you would follow the systems standard folder structure, using /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/lib and so on. I believe /opt is also the older way of doing things.
What I've done personally, which probably isn't the correct way, is to install custom software in /opt/programname/version and then create symbolic links as needed in /usr/local (generally just bin is enough). So for instance I have /opt/celtx/celtx-2.9 and a link /usr/local/bin/celtx -> /opt/celtx/celtx-2.9/celtx. This way I keep the program folders self contained, and can keep parallel versions on disk, so I only need to update the symbolic links for different versions.
07-28-2011, 07:41 AM
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