Questions on Application Install Behavior on SuSE Linux

How come if I install program X in Windows, it's usually available to
all user accounts, and even if not, only one version of the program is
installed. In Linux, you install a program, it often installs only for
one user account, and then you can have different versions of the same
app on different user accounts. So what explains the behavorial
differences, and how do modify how an app installs itself in Linux? Is
this behavior particular to SuSE Linux, or applicable to other distros
as well? Thanks.

M.H. adjusted his/her tinfoil beanie to post:

> How come if I install program X in Windows, it's usually available to
> all user accounts, and even if not, only one version of the program is
> installed. In Linux, you install a program, it often installs only
> for one user account, and then you can have different versions of the
> same
> app on different user accounts. So what explains the behavorial
> differences, and how do modify how an app installs itself in Linux?
> Is this behavior particular to SuSE Linux, or applicable to other
> distros
> as well? Thanks.

Here comes a very vague answer which will probably contradict itself as
well:

It all depends on who you are when you install the app, also how the app
install procedure was coded, what the app is, how you install it, and
where you install it, what the app does, what it requires, etc....

For instance:

[1]
I want to install a game that uses the loki installer, so as user I run
it, it defaults to installing in somewhere like /usr/local/games, user
does not have write permissions to those dirs so I have to redirect it
to say a directory in my home dir which is good as the sys admin would
go ballistic if i started b0rking all the system by installing what
could be a /bad/ program in the system ( security and system stability
are to the fore here, and is the way it should be, think virus and/or
trojan ) this game will now only run for user (me) because I alone will
have the permissions on that dir, and if all goes wrong or it is
malware it only b0rks my home hence one reason why virus and others are
not as prevalent on linux as they are on other OS`s.

[2]

Normal rpm applications are system wide and can only be installed as
root and therefore unless this app is something that /needs/ root
privileges then it will be accessible for all.

Now to answer your multiple instance Q, do not forget linux is a true
multi user OS, the user could be anywhere in the world and connecting
over the network, he could be using his home dir from the main server
or from his home machine, in fact his /home could be on another machine
in another part of the world, so if you look at it this way the main
server might not have the application that he wants to use and so he
installs only in his /home dir, if I have 100 people logged in to my
server I might only have a basic linux base system installed and all
the users have their apps installed on their machines.

Does that make sense?

Not got the caffeine flowing enough yet.

One more example, I am going to brainshare, one of the last things I do
before leaving here will be to burn my home dir to a dvd ( just the
needed bits ) and take it with me, will load it on a machine there and
hopefully my desktop will look exactly the same there as here and I
will have access to some tools apps that are not installed on the base
machine because I do not know what will be on it plus I doubt that I
will have root acces, I would like tobe able to login over remote to my
server but doubt if the network there will be good enough as everyone
and their dog will be hogging the bandwidth.

This is pain and basic security, there are other things to take into
account but basically that is how it works

As I say this is a very general and somewhat fuzzy explanation but gives
a good idea.

HTH
--
Mark
Twixt hill and high water
N. Wales, UK
Novell Support Forums SysOp