Dumb Question: Installing new version of Kopete

[James Wilkinson]

Andrey Andreev wrote:
> BTW, maybe I shall mention that modern Linux does not have a directory 
> organization similiar to Windows's "Program Files". Our binaries usually 
> go in /usr/bin, our libraries in /usr/lib, our configuration files in 
> /etc, etc.. We tend to use some packaging system (RPM for Fedora, and 
> many others) to keep track of what goes where, and do the management 
> (uninstalls, upgrades, etc).
> 
> Look at
> 
> http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/index.html
> 
> and look at some RPM documentation. to get a clearer idea of how it works.

Well, there have been variations on the theme, but that must predate
Linux by at least ten years...

Note that there are similar trees under /usr/local (e.g. /usr/local/bin
instead of /usr/bin). It's been recommended since RPMs were new that if
you're compiling from source (without using rpmbuild and / or rpm), you
should configure the program to put files there, rather than in /usr/bin
or wherever. This keeps them out the way of the RPM-installed files, and
makes it that much easier to clean them out later.

Many people find it easier in the long run to build RPMs.

James.

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