The "Macumba Hacker" on Linux and W*****s
Claire Wolfe loves Linux, but she groks why most non-geeks use Windows. [claire]
BUT ... Linux is still frickin' weird. Here's a favorite: You install a software package which -- the moment it enters your computer -- disappears!!! -- without a trace -- vanishes more completely than Jimmy Hoffa. It's not on your desktop. It's not in your menus. Your brand new, shiny app appears to have been abducted by aliens. So you figure you'll try to add it to the menu manually. You hope Linux will let you browse to some nice new folder labled "User's Shiny New App" so you can get at the thing and activate the program. But Nooooooooo. Linux expects every single poor beleagured and bewildered user to already know exactly where to find the single executable for that app buried deep within the filesystem.
Thanks. I'm a geek who's
Thanks. I'm a geek who's used Unix since before Linux existed, so I knew that (have even used "whence" on systems that had no "which"), but maybe some Linux-using non-geeks will read your explanation and be suitably confused.
heck, use PC-BSD
Yeah, I've noticed that little hitch (although
Debian doesn't seem quite so bad (sometimes)).
But PC-BSD does it right. All installs go into
just one place. Install "Boof", and it's in the
Boof directory... ALL of it. Uninstall by just
deleting the contents of the directory.
I wonder why it took so long for somebody to
figure out such a sensible way to do this?
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Use the which or find commands
which <binary name> will tell you where it is within your path. If it is not, then you'll need to either read the docs that came with it to find the standard installation location or use the find command locate the executable.
If you compile from scratch, you can set the location using the prefix option.
Of course, it should do the right thing. But it's up to the programmers to do that. Bad stuff in, bad stuff out....
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