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I have an executable for the perforce version control client (p4). I can't place it in /opt/local because I don't have root privileges. Is there a standard location where it needs to be placed under $HOME?

Does the File System Hierarchy have a convention that says that local executables/binaries need to be placed in $HOME/bin?

I couldn't find such a convention mentioned on the Wikipedia article for the FHS.

Also, if there indeed is a convention, would I have to explicitly include the path to the $HOME/bin directory or whatever the location of the bin directory is?

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In general, if a non-system installed and maintained binary needs to be accessible system-wide to multiple users, it should be placed by an administrator into /usr/local/bin. There is a complete hierarchy under /usr/local that is generally used for locally compiled and installed software packages.

If you are the only user of a binary, installing into $HOME/bin is the appropriate location since you can install it yourself and you will be the only consumer. If you compile a software package from source, it's also appropriate to create a partial or full local hierarchy in your $HOME directory. The full local hierarchy would look like this.

  • $HOME/bin Local binaries
  • $HOME/etc Host-specific system configuration for local binaries
  • $HOME/games Local game binaries
  • $HOME/include Local C header files
  • $HOME/lib Local libraries
  • $HOME/lib64 Local 64-bit libraries
  • $HOME/man Local online manuals
  • $HOME/sbin Local system binaries
  • $HOME/share Local architecture-independent hierarchy
  • $HOME/src Local source code

When running configure, you should define your local hierarchy for installation by specifying $HOME as the prefix for the installation defaults.

./configure --prefix=$HOME

Now when make && make install are run, the compiled binaries, packages, man pages, and libraries will be installed into your $HOME local hierarchy. If you have not manually created a $HOME local hierarchy, make install will create the directories needed by the software package.

Once installed in $HOME/bin, you can either add $HOME/bin to your $PATH or call the binary using the absolute $PATH. Some distributions will include $HOME/bin into your $PATH by default. You can test this by either echo $PATH and seeing if $HOME/bin is there, or put the binary in $HOME/bin and executing which binaryname. If it comes back with $HOME/bin/binaryname, then it is in your $PATH by default.

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Thanks for your answer! So, as per the convention, I can have directories like bin, lib, tmp in my $HOME. Correct me if I'm wrong. – user640378 Apr 19 '12 at 14:52
You certainly can. – uther Apr 19 '12 at 15:01
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as long as $HOME is not on a noexec mounted filesystem. /tmp/ is usually mounted noexec too. – ewanm89 Apr 19 '12 at 17:24
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This is correct, its part of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS). pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRLOCALLOCALHIERARCHY – Patrick Apr 19 '12 at 22:58
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I would not recommend using $HOME. This inundates your home directory with numerous directories that you are not interested in at all. Who wants to have man, lib, etc. in ones home dir? I would rather create the hierarchy below $HOME/bin or $HOME/local. That adds only one subdirectory to your home dir, instead of ten. The PATH can easily be adapted to include $HOME/bin/bin or $HOME/local/bin. – Marco May 3 '12 at 0:43
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