Standard Way to Update Path?

Question

I recently installed Apache Maven on Mac OS X.

apache-maven-3.0.4-bin.tar.gz

I gunzipped this file to /Users/Downloads/apache-maven-3.0.4.

Then, I updated my $PATH to include /Users/Downloads/apache-maven-3.0.4./bin.

Is this acceptable, or is there a standard place to put external binaries?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Adding a bin directory to your $PATH is quite acceptable. External 3rd party binaries should be placed in /opt directory. Filesystem hierarchy should be followed & consistant.

/opt/<provider or package>/bin

Maven's documentation encourages installation under /usr/local/apache-maven/<package>. This is also a common practice, but I found updating $PATH can be an unnecessary headache with package version updates & rollbacks. Instead, I'll place each package under /opt, and create a symbolic link to /usr/local/maven. At which point, I'd update $PATH to /usr/loca/maven/bin and update the link as needed.

How I'd install Maven

• Extract downloaded package to /opt directory
  • cd /opt
  • tar zvxf ~/Downloads/apache-maven-3.0.4-bin.tar.gz
• Create symbolic link
  • ln -s /opt/apache-maven-3.0.4 /usr/local/maven
• Update $PATH
  • echo "export $PATH=/usr/local/maven/bin:$PATH" >> ~/.profile
  • source ~/.bash_profile

If and when a new version comes along

Repeat the above steps; except, remove old link first.

• Remove old link
  • rm /usr/local/maven
• Recreate link to new version
  • ln -s /opt/apache-maven-3.0.5 /usr/local/maven