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For applications installed via system package manager, binaries, man pages, and docs go in /usr/bin/, /usr/share/man/man<n>/, and /usr/share/doc/<app-name>/ respectively. For example:

example application

According to XDG Base Directory Specification, for applications installed for a single user, the binaries go in $HOME/.local/bin. But I cannot find mentions of man pages and docs. (I imagine it would be inappropriate for them to go in /usr when the corresponding binaries aren't installed system-wide.) So where should they go, and is there a standard/specification for this?

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  • Read man hier, it's the Linux Filesystem Hieracy document, which explains where things go.
    – waltinator
    Commented Nov 17, 2021 at 21:03

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Applications installed for a single user are normally installed as that user and may not have permission to modify existing directories under /usr.

Since the user is likely the one that installed the software, the documentation can go wherever permissions allow as they are the only user that needs access to it. I am not aware of any universal standard for the preferred location of user installed documentation.

If you are looking to organize everything in relation to $HOME/.local/bin, you should be able to just replace the prefix of those installed directories and files to use $HOME/.local instead of /usr. Then the files in your examples would be located in directories such as $HOME/.local/share and $HOME/.local/bin.

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