When you extract files made with the
tar
command, they are written into the current directory, and if there are any directories packed up in the tar file, they will be written to the current directory too. For this reason it is best to
cd
to the correct directory before extracting anything.
Consider who is going to use LispWorks before you decide where to put the extracted files. Once installed and configured, the executable Lisp image should be somewhere in the UNIX file system likely to be on its users' search path. A suitable place might be
/usr/local/bin/lispworks
.
The run time directory structure (basically, everything except the image file) should be somewhere publicly readable:
/usr/lib/lispworks
, by default. If there is not enough room in any of the normal publicly accessible locations, you could put a symbolic link there pointing to an installation directory in a partition with more disk space.
LispWorks Release Notes and Installation Guide - 23 Dec 2011