Am I supposed to do a brew ln after every brew install? (Mac OS Package Manager homebrew)

Question

I'm not sure I'm using the Mac OS brew package manager properly. Packages don't end up in /usr/local unless I follow a

brew install foo

with a

brew ln foo

What makes me suspicious is nearly every quickstart tutorial I see on using brew doesn't indicate that the ln step is required.

Am I missing something?

It's especially annoying when I install something like ffmpeg, that installs a lot of prerequisites. I find myself having to read the log, finding what it installed and manually doing a

brew ln yasm
brew ln videolan
brew ln faac

etc, for each prerequisite installed. I can't believe it's supposed to work this way. What am I doing wrong.

Answer 1

You shouldn't have to; brew ln should be performed automatically after a package is installed.

Answer 2

only if you do a manual compile/install, change formula, non-default location