I've been using Synaptic so much recently that, without thinking, I went there to get Firefox for my new PCLinuxOS installation. It's academic,since I'll just go to firefox.com, but why couldn't I use Synaptic to download Firefox?

Most distributions change the source of firefox when they include it in the distribution. Mozilla asks them to rename it, so people know they are using an altered version.
I can't believe Firefox isn't pre-installed on pclinuxos though.
And even thought the distributions rename it in the program menu, it should still be called "firefox" in synaptic... so, I don't know why you can't find it.

Something's odd, then. I searched for "firefox" in Synaptic, and then "Mozilla," and found neither.

After that, I tried to follow the instructions on the firefox.com Linux installation page (I just cut and pasted the two commands into the console), but they didn't work.

Does that explain Iceweasel (which I first saw in Knoppix) being just Firefox with the trademarks removed?

Yeah, what if MS released a version of FF that was unstable and generally awful and offered it to Windows users as Firefox. It could even start out good until IE7 caught up and then it could decline. People might feel better about installing software like that from MS, but end up duped.

Or it could even be innocent. Let's say Red Hat's patches started getting buggy and people thought it was Mozilla's fault.

Additionally, as far as I understand it though, debian (which Knoppix is based on) refuses to release their distro with even that restriction on freedom and releases Iceweasel with no trademark restrictions on the name or graphics.

Back On-topic: according to distrowatch.org PCLinux does come with firefox. Could you try opening a console window and just typing firefox? That way we'll be sure.

Oh, do you have mini-me? That doesn't come with FF.

when in synaptic make sure the left hand window shows either "applications/internet" or "all" selected

I typed "firefox" in a console, but the command wasn't recognized.

I probably did install Mini-Me by mistake...I'll do it over.

I've installed 3 instances of PCLOS, one of which is still in regular use. All of them used Firefox 2.x. If I remember correctly, I had a hard time finding it in the repo but it was there. I think it is called mozilla-firefox.

The search function in Synaptic finds firefox with no problem. I'm not sure if "mini-me" makes a difference---I would think it more about making sure the right repositories are enabled.

crap, I forgot the mozilla part. But wouldn't firefox find mozilla-firefox, too?

mini-me is a lightweight version of PCLinuxOS without firefox installed. It shouldn't affect the repositories though.