Noob Question Thread: Ask Any Questions About Linux!
I thought I'll make this thread for all of you out there who have questions but are afraid to ask them. This is your chance!
I'll try my best to answer any questions here, but I hope others in the community will contribute too!
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Not all. I've had apps install in opt, flatpaks install in var out of all places. Some apps install in /etc/share/applications
In
/etc? Are you sure?/usr/share/applicationshas your system-wide.desktopfiles, (while.local/share/applicationshas user-level ones, kinda analogous to installing a program toAppDataon Windows). And.desktopfiles could be interpreted at a high level as an "app", even though they're really just a simple description of how to advertise and launch an application from a GUI of some kind.OK, that was wrong. I meant usr/share/applications. Still, more than one place.
The actual executables shouldn't ever go in that folder though.
Typically packages installed through a package manager stick everything in their own folder in
/usr/lib(for libs) and/usr/share(for any other data). Then they either put their executables directly in/usr/binor symlink over to them.That last part is usually what results in things not living in a consistent place. A package might have something that qualifies as both an executable and a lib, so they store it in their lib folder, but symlink to it from bin. Or they might not have a lib folder, and just put everything in their share folder and symlink to it from bin.