Douglas Muth on 24 Jan 2006 14:35:55 -0000


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Re: [PLUG] /usr/local vs. /opt


On 1/24/06, Art Alexion <art.alexion@verizon.net> wrote:
> I have been led to believe that the /usr/local branch is where packages
> that aren't part of a distro should be installed.  I put custom scripts
> in /usr/local/bin for that reason.
>
> But I have also been told that's the purpose of the /opt branch.
>
> What is the difference between these two and when should one use which?
>

According to http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html, /opt is for
"add on software packages", while /usr/local/ is "for use by the
system administrator when installing software locally".

I interpret that as a commercial software package (such as say,
Oracle) would go in /opt, while building and compiling something from
source (like say, Apache) would go in /usr/local/.

-- Doug
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