### 38.3 Administrating Packages

On UNIX-like systems it is possible to make both per-user and system-wide installations of a package. If the user performing the installation is `root` the packages will be installed in a system-wide directory that defaults to `OCTAVE_HOME/share/octave/packages/`. If the user is not `root` the default installation directory is `~/octave/`. Packages will be installed in a subdirectory of the installation directory that will be named after the package. It is possible to change the installation directory by using the `pkg prefix` command

    pkg prefix new_installation_directory

The current installation directory can be retrieved by typing

    current_installation_directory = pkg prefix

To function properly the package manager needs to keep some information about the installed packages. For per-user packages this information is by default stored in the file `~/.octave_packages` and for system-wide installations it is stored in `OCTAVE_HOME/share/octave/octave_packages`. The path to the per-user file can be changed with the `pkg local_list` command

    pkg local_list /path/to/new_file

For system-wide installations this can be changed in the same way using the `pkg global_list` command. If these commands are called without a new path, the current path will be returned.