Proper placement of apps like dropbox?

[mariusse]

I downloaded the Dropbox app which consists of a shell script and a folder with a bunch of files. The README says to put it in ~/.dropbox-dist but I was thinking there may be a more proper linux-convention-place to put it? I don’t like littering my home folder with things like this.

Is there a proper place I should put this?

[cscs]

@mariusse

I downloaded the Dropbox app

Why?

Its in the AUR.

(either way though you should learn the basics of things about unsupported/third-party software)

Arch User Repository

To answer some of the questions anyways…

@mariusse

Is there a proper place I should put this?

Without seeing the actual source/files its difficult to say whats best.
Usually we avoid just dropping things in $HOME, but then again lots of software still does that, and this would be a hidden folder (prefaced with .)
Its also possible it doesnt matter at all, in which case I would probably opt for ~/.local/share/.
All things being equal anyways. I still think you probably just want to install the AUR package.

[mariusse]

AUR is well and good, but not what I’m asking about. Dropbox is just an example.

As I understand it ~/.local/share/ is more the application data rather than the application itself.

Oh well, I think I will just go for ~/bin

[cscs]

@mariusse

As I understand it ~/.local/share/ is more the application data rather than the application itself.

Is that source data … not application data?
Would you not then add a .desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications for launching the data found in ~/.local/share/dropbox ?

@mariusse

Oh well, I think I will just go for ~/bin

An extra (unhidden) directory in $HOME is the worst suggestion so far. Or, at least its about the same as the README, with the main difference being it will be constantly visible.

For ‘everything is contained in the directory’ “portable” installations … its usually /opt.
This could also be ~/.local/opt for a user.

Or maybe you are meaning ~/.local/bin, which would be for executables themselves, like an actual script, ~/.local/bin/dropbox.sh … which is what bin is usually for. Just the executables. (not any associated data)
See, ex, ls /usr/bin

[mariusse]

@cscs

For ‘everything is contained in the directory’ “portable” installations … its usually /opt.
This could also be ~/.local/opt for a user.

This feels exactly right! The Dropbox application is portable/self-contained, but should not be system-wide. So ~/.local/opt should indeed be the correct place to put it!

Thanks for the input!