From the FHS: "The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally. It needs to be safe from being overwritten whe

From the FHS: "The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally. It needs to be safe from being overwritten when the system software is updated." [1] And I believe that "system software" today means "installed by a package manager" (please correct me if I'm wrong). I personally (rarely) use /usr/local for manually-installed packages. This way there's no risk of a package manager accidentally overwriting stuff outside its control. [1] http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#THEUSRHIERARCHY http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#THEUSRHIERARCHY