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!

  • Blizzard@lemmy.zipEnglish
    7·
    9 months ago

    Why do programs install somewhere instead of asking me where to?

    EDIT: Thank you all, well explained.

    • NaN@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      8·
      9 months ago

      Because Linux and the programs themselves expect specific files to be placed in specific places, rather than bunch of files in a single program directory like you have in Windows or (hidden) MacOS.

      If you compile programs yourself you can choose to put things in different places. Some software is also built to be more self contained, like the Linux binaries of Firefox.

      • krash@lemmy.ml
        2·
        9 months ago

        Actually, windows puts 95% of it files in a single directory, and sometimes you get a surprise DLL in your \system[32] folder.

    • Julian@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      9 months ago

      Someone already gave an answer, but the reason it’s done that way is because on Linux, generally programs don’t install themselves - a package manager installs them. Windows (outside of the windows store) just trusts programs to install themselves, and include their own uninstaller.

    • shadowintheday2@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      you install program A, it needs and installs libpotato then later you install program B that depends on libfries, and libfries depends on libpotato, however since you already have libpotato installed, only program B and libfries are installed The intelligence behind this is called a package manager

      In windows when you install something, it usually installs itself as a standalone thing and complains/reaks when dependencies are not met - e.g having to install Visual C++ 2005-202x for games, JRE for java programs etc

      instead of making you install everything that you need to run something complex, the package manager does this for you and keep tracks of where files are

      and each package manager/distribution has an idea of where some files be stored

    • penquin@lemm.ee
      0·
      9 months ago

      I wish every single app installed in the same directory. Would make life so much easier.

        • Ramin Honary@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          They do! /bin has the executables, and /usr/share has everything else.

          Apps and executables are similar but separate things. An app is concept used in GUI desktop environments. They are a user-friendly front end to one or more executable in /usr/bin that is presented by the desktop environment (or app launcher) as a single thing. On Linux these apps are usually defined in a .desktop file. The apps installed by the Linux distribution’s package manager are typically in /usr/share/applications, and each one points to one of the executables in /usr/bin or /usr/libexec. You could even have two different “apps” launch a single executable, but each one using different CLI arguments to give the appearance of different apps.

          The desktop environment you use might be reconfigured to display apps from multiple sources. You might also install apps from FlatHub, Lutris, Nix, Guix, or any of several other package managers. This is analogous to how in the CLI you need to set the “PATH” environment variable. If everything is configured properly (and that is not always the case), your desktop environment will show apps from all of these sources collected in the app launcher. Sometimes you have the same app installed by multiple sources, and you might wonder “why does Gnome shell show me OpenTTD twice?”

          For end users who install apps from multiple other sources besides the default app store, there is no easy solution, no one agreed-upon algorithm to keep things easy. Windows, Mac OS, and Android all have the same problem. But I have always felt that Linux (especially Guix OS) has the best solution, which is automated package management.

        • penquin@lemm.ee
          1·
          9 months ago

          Not all. I’ve had apps install in opt, flatpaks install in var out of all places. Some apps install in /etc/share/applications

          • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
            0·
            9 months ago

            In /etc? Are you sure? /usr/share/applications has your system-wide .desktop files, (while .local/share/applications has user-level ones, kinda analogous to installing a program to AppData on Windows). And .desktop files 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.

            • penquin@lemm.ee
              0·
              9 months ago

              OK, that was wrong. I meant usr/share/applications. Still, more than one place.

              • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
                2·
                9 months ago

                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/bin or 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.