Whither binaries?

[Remko Lodder]

Hey Phil,

Phil Thomson wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I'm a relative *NIX newby running FreeBSD on an somewhat older (750 MHz) 
> machine. I've been installing programs, and they seem to install in my 
> home directory by default, but I have my partition table set up so I 
> don't have much room there. My questions are: 1) is there a better place 
> to install programs (like /usr/bin for example?) and 2) is there an 
> established procedure for installing programs in that location by 
> default? Sorry if the wording of my questions in unclear; let me know if 
> you have any questions.

If you install programs manually you have mostly a option in the 
./configure script that enables you to select a prefix. Mostly that 
prefix will be /usr/local/, there all non default applications will be 
installed.  (./configure --prefix=/usr/local)

Also, perhaps it's better to use the ports on a FreeBSD system, you can 
upgrade them easy with "portupgrade" and they all get installed in the 
/usr/local directories.

HTH,

-- 


Kind regards,

Remko Lodder
Elvandar.org/DSINet.org
www.mostly-harmless.nl Dutch community for helping newcomers on the 
hackerscene