Software Location

University of Wisconsin Madison

Computer Systems Lab CS1000

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Software Location

  Before you can run a program, or put its directory in your path, you must know which directory that program resides in. This can often be difficult to figure out. Fortunately, the Computer Systems Lab is in the process of standardizing the location of software. From the beginning of the summer of 1995, all newly installed software is placed in the /s directory. If you do an ls -F on this directory, you will see a long list of directories and symlinks. The directories are named by the version number of the specific software package (i.e. xv-3.10a), and the symlinks are simply the name of the specific software package (i.e. xv) and they point to the latest version of that package. Hence, you should always refer to the symlink name to use the most up-to-date version of that software. The directory /s/std/bin contains many symlinks to common programs and should already be in your path.

The old convention of installing software was to put it in /usr/sup/bin and /usr/psup/bin. You may still find software in these directories. However, it is being phased out, and generally, this software is not supported.

Also see CSL's Software page for more information on available software.



Caitlin Howell
Thu Jan 16 20:24:40 CST 1997