Re: Where to install user stuff

["Jeremy C. Reed" <reed%reedmedia.net@localhost>]

On Thu, 16 Jul 2015, Greg Troxel wrote:

> > .... On various SGI, Linux & FreeBSD boxen, I have always installed
> > in-house software under /usr/local.  I notice no such directory on my
> > NetBSD 6.1.5 box. I did notice that pkg_add installed sudo under
> > /usr/pkg. Is that the recommended/standard/canonical place to install
> > user software under NetBSD ? I'd like to keep everything as tidy &
> > buttoned-down as possible :-). TIA & have a good one.
> 
> /usr/local is reserved for bits managed locally per system.  Hence
> pkgsrc does not use it.  My view is that because pkgsrc manages
> /usr/pkg, you should not hand install anything in /usr/pkg.  So if you
> build something not with pkgsrc, /usr/local is a fine place for it.

To add to Jeff's and Greg's responses ... commonly most open source 
software defaults to /usr/local for installations. So if you download 
some source and use their default recipes to install, commonly they will 
end up in /usr/local/.

(As an example the default autoconf m4 macros contain 
ac_default_prefix=/usr/local which ends up in the default ./configure 
scripts.)

If you mix and match, the package system may get some incompatibilities 
or when you try to clean up you may lose some dependencies, for example.

And yes, /usr/pkg/ is the standard place to install packages on NetBSD. 
Even the default configurations for executable search paths and man 
pages include directories under /usr/pkg/.

> But really if you need something, and it's not in pkgsrc, the best thing
> is to add it to pkgsrc.

That's what I try to do ... hundreds of times :)
The first times add extra time and difficulty, but later cleanup or 
reinstalls (or installs on others systems) it saves lots of time. And 
when it hits pkgsrc officially it helps others too.