I'm new to Ubuntu, and I've been a bit confused about where to install new programs...
The answer here says:
If the program needs to create a folder, then /usr/local is the directory of choice; according to the FHS:
The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally.
Furthermore, most references I've read (e.g. here) say that the root partition should be ~30 GB.
My problem is that if I want to install memory intensive programs (e.g. MATLAB, Mathematica etc.), this really doesn't seem like enough memory for me... I guess I'm just confused as to why the recommendation is so low. Furthermore, this article here (maybe a bit dated?) claims that 25-35% of the root partition should be left as free space for "self-cleaning" purposes. With the OS taking ~6 GB, I just don't understand how this can satisfy any user's needs. Is it because most programs are far below the memory needs of the more memory intensive programs I mentioned?
Any help is greatly appreciated :D
/usr/local
?