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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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What is the /opt directory? (self.linux)

submitted 8 months ago by AlexPewMaster to c/[email protected]

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I've seen a lot of self-hosted software wanting to store their data in /opt, is there any reason why?

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Add-on application software packages

How are applications that go into /opt different than any other packages? Even after reading that spec, it seems arbitrary.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yes, it's arbitrary.

Packages that bundle a bunch of stuff, or otherwise make a mess, should go into /opt. Well-behaved packages that integrate with the system should be fine to install to /usr.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Who gets the final call on that, the developer or the maintainer? I've noticed that Landscape goes into /opt, and Canonical is both developer and maintainer there.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

The developer could do one thing, but whoever builds the package could change it, so the packager.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The system admin.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Especially when some dumbass app starts writing log files to /opt.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sure, but in the case of dpkg?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

The packager.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago

It is very arbitrary. Some/most non-free applications usually drop stuff into /opt, so it does not spread all over the filesystem. It makes sense if the application was not developed with Linux in mind, like Discord, Teamviewer etc.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

I think it refers to applications that do not respect the standard directories like /usr/bin, /usr/share/man, /etc

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

On all the work servers I maintain we pretty much install anything that's not in the base repo to /opt/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

If you didn't get it through your distro's package manager, it probably should go into /opt.