CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxfhs
Cedar
Cedar

Reputation: 887

What does 'local' mean?

Linux has /usr/local and ~/.local (for gnome and Ubuntu). So what does "local" mean? What is the 'remote' which contrasts with this 'local'?

Does it have anything to do with networks where all the computers share the same system files?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2205

Answers (2)

Abdullah Shahin
Abdullah Shahin

Reputation: 1052

it has something to do with the history of it, originally, '/usr' was representing the home directories of the users, recent implementations of Linux, '/usr' is where user programs and data are.

Where the original idea behind '/usr/local' was to have a local read-only copy of '/usr' directory on a machine along side of '/usr' folder that mounted from somewhere else, recently, '/usr/local' folder is to be used by the user when installing softwares 'locally'. It needs to be safe from being overwritten when the system software is updated by the 'globally' softwares installed on '/usr' folder by operating system.

Upvotes: 1

Jeff Breadner
Jeff Breadner

Reputation: 1438

It's typically reserved for "locally installed" applications, meaning stuff you install yourself, not stuff that came with your distro. It's a pretty old naming convention:
http://objectroot.org/articles/brief-history-of-hier/

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard:

Tertiary hierarchy for local data, specific to this host.

There is no real "remote" counterpart, the correct counterpart is more like "global" instead (meaning functionality that everyone else has, versus functionality that only this local system has).

Upvotes: 4

Related Questions