For a long time the "de facto" standard was to spread a package around in many
directories under /usr/local.  This proved to be a bad idea, as removing the
package
became very difficult.

With POSIX there is a written standard, which says that each pacakge goes in
it's own
directory under /opt. eg. /opt/midas.  Each package gets to define it's own
structure
within that directory.  One could imagine several versions installed at the
same time
/opt/midas/v1.9.2 and /opt/midas/v1.9.4 each with a bin, lib include etc. 
Following the
ROOT example, you could make a link from /opt/midas/pro to
/opt/midas/v1.9.4, so that
system files and login files are easy to maintain etc.  The basic idea is

MIDASSYS=/opt/midas/pro
PATH=$PATH:$MIDASSYS/bin

though a more sophisticated approach is

MIDASSYS=/opt/midas/pro
echo $PATH | grep -q $MIDASSYS || PATH=$PATH:$MIDASSYS/bin

where the assignment line (Bourne shell, and BASH shell) ensures
that multiple entries are not added on the PATH even if the script is more
than once.

POSIX also goes on to say that links from /opt/bin can be made if desired. 
I find this
usefull if a package has only one or two executables, and I don't to make
multiple
versions available.

I hope that the POSIX ideas are usefull,

John.

> > Here's my suggestion
> > MIDASSYS=/opt/midas-1.9.4 (for example)   
> 
> I guess we should follow the "standard" as much as possible. MIDASSYS was
inspired by
> ROOTSYS. Now where do people usually install ROOT? Is it /opt/root-x.x.x
or something
> else. Some years ago (when I did the last time some linux administration)
optional
> packages were put into /usr/local by default. I guess you have more
experience with
> today's tradition, so do whatever you thing is standard.
> 
> > so the Linux binaries would go to 
> > MIDASHOST=i386-pc-linux-gnu
> > $MIDASSYS/$MIDASHOST/bin
> > $MIDASSYS/$MIDASHOST/lib
> 
> Does that mean that the path has to be modified to include
$MIDASSYS/$MIDASHOST/bin?
> If we put a link to /usr/local/bin, the path does not have to be modified.
What about
> shared libraries? Does ldconfig know about /usr/local/lib, or
$MIDASYS/$MIDASHOST/lib?
> 
> > and the shared stuff would go to 
> > $MIDASSYS/include
> > $MIDASSYS/share/drivers
> > $MIDASSYS/share/examples
> 
> What about /usr/share? Is that a common place for documentatino etc?
> 
> Thanks for your advice.
> 
> - Stefan