Two Versions of FFmpeg installed!!!

[Andy Bircumshaw]

On 14/4/2011, at 5:28pm, Steve wrote:
> ...
> Stranger and stranger!!
> I have the new version in /usr/bin and an older version in /usr/local/bin ?????
> 
> I've renamed the older one to ffmpeg.old. Wonder why it was using one version one time and the other version another.

/usr/local is usually used for software that you have installed manually.

The package manager would normally install packages in /usr/bin and thus if you're compiling yourself (or possibly installing from some 3rd party repo, although those might use /opt instead) you'd put it in /usr/local to ensure that the package manager (`apt` or whatever) didn't clobber this software that it knows nothing about.

> I know all the failed downloads were run on an hourly cron job, maybe the manual ones ran the newer version?
> very strange.

Unless the cron job lists the full /path/to/the/bin/executable (good practice) the version run would be dependent upon the order listed in your $PATH. `echo $PATH` at the command line - those directories are searched in order for a file with executable permissions matching the name of the command entered. As soon as a matching command is found it is run. (NB: shell built-ins are run first).

aB.