Where do you install

where do you install general software to on your linux box.. as in respect to folder / directory ?

Check out this:
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/

Thats the standard, I believe most distros adhere to it.

software

If you're the only user or if you don't want others using said software, install it to you home/user/bin. Or else just stick it in /bin. Most things install themselves where they want to go anyhow...

Most software installes itself somewhere in the /usr directory, and more specifically, in the /usr/local subdirectory. But as was mentioned before, most software will install itself where it needs to go inorder to run correctly. That is especially true of programs that you have compiled yourself, as when you do the "make install" commmand, it reads the make script in the source directory, and then installes the program according to what the script says.

i agree that third party software should go in /usr or /usr/local
cheers!