Where should I place a downloaded tarball?

Question

I have downloaded the ChromePlus tarball and extracted it to my home directory. The extracted folder contains an executable that I can double-click to launch ChromePlus. So I assume I do not need to any extra things to install it.

I'm new to Linux. Where should I place the ChromePlus directory? It's currently sitting on my home directory, and it does not look neat. After googling, I thought about /bin/, /usr/bin, /usr/lib. Where is the best place?

Answer 1

By convention, /opt is used for manually installed programs with self contained directories.

Programs in self contained directories will not show up in your PATH by default, but generally this is solved by creating symlinks in /usr/local/bin to any binaries under /opt.

As implied above, /usr/local is the other location for manually installed files, but it's generally only used for programs that split their files (/usr/local/bin for executables, /usr/local/lib for libraries, etc.).

Using /opt and /usr/local avoids potential conflicts between manually installed files and files installed by a package management system (yum, apt, etc. generally install files in /usr/bin, /usr/lib, etc.). Historically, conflicts tended to result in files being silently overwritten, causing all sorts of unexpected behaviour. Modern package management systems are better about this, but it's still best not to rely on automated conflict resolution that may or may not always do what you expect.

Answer 2

Wherever you want. /opt and /usr/local, as expressed by Kowh, are good conventions for reasons he explained.

I keep a folder /home/alan/Programs where I place programs like that. However, every distribution is a little different and if you want to follow the "standards" of that distribution you'll have to check their site.

If at all possible I would recommend using the distribution's package manager unless you have a good reason not to. The package manager will do a better job of keeping your software up-to-date.

If you can't install the software from the package manager then check the site for repository source to add. Adding the repository will allow your package manager to install/update the software. You do have to use caution and make sure you trust that source.

Finally, if all else fails and there are no other options when download the tar file and place it wherever you want. I use /home/alan/Programs/

But ultimately the great power of Linux is that you can do it however you want, there are so many options. That is why you can't find a definitive location.