Config ideas

[mairving]

I am curious as to what others strategies are for placing files in Linux. I have loaded quite a few distros lately trying to find the right flavor. It seems they all stick files in different places. Here is an example, if you install Mandrake & Slack with Apache compiled, Mandrake creates a directory /httpd in /etc. Slack creates a directory called /apache in /var/lib/apache.

I have come up with a plan of sorts.

-Create a directory /usr/local/downloads for downloaded files.
-If given a choice, create a directory for all new programs in /usr/local/new program name
-Don't use RPM's which will put things where they see fit. Of course, using slack will cure any RPM envies.

What are other strategies?

[Gaccm]

why /usr/local ? why not /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin Linux wants to keep backward compatability, and thus has these folders that basicly do the same thing.
I just had an idea, for each distro to just choose one of these folders, (say /usr/bin) and have /usr/local/bin be a link to /usr/bin
would any progs be messed by this? (installation should work, but running?)