I have installed Mandrake 10.0 Official after a few months cool down period from from my last attempt to switch to Linux. This time everything has gone really smooth. I got a few things installed from the 4th disk (I haven't set up my urpmi) and I can do the basic stuff on here.

I don't much care for the web browser nor the email clients so I was going to install Firefox & Thunderbird, (Windows apps that I am familiar with). I downloaded an installer from Mozilla:

://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/0.9.1/firefox-0.9.1-i686-linux-gtk2+xft-installer.tar.gz[/url]
(I had to remove the http, since this is my first post, I am not allowed to use them)

Which incidentally installs 0.9 & not 0.9.1 Anyways, Once the file downloads, it opens automatically and I extract the contents into my "Documents" folder. I then go into the folder that is labeled "firefox-installer" and I double click on the shell script "firefox-installer" and Firefox installs. Now here is the weird part, it never shows up in my menu under web browsers. Also, I found that the folder where I ran the installer from is also the folder that it is installed in. I kind of thought that there would be an equivalent to a "Program Files" for the applications to be installed in. If I double click on the "firefox" shell script, I can bring up the program, but Firefox itself does not seem to work well.

I then decided to go find a RPM and do it that way. I found this one:

://norlug.org/~chipster/rpms[/url]

However when I open it, I always get a bad signature warning. Once, I said to go ahead and install anyways, but it actually crashed my PC. I have had no problems other than this so far with this install, so I am actually pretty happy.

Info that you might find useful, I am running MDK 10.0, KDE 3.2 and I am only using packages from the disk's, not the internet (with the exception of Firefox of course.) I wish I knew more to tell you, but I do not. If you need me to go into more detail, I will try. First time posting in a support forum so I am new to the help process.

Hi Phin666 welcome to LQ

You are making life very difficult for your self, to install Firefox go Here click Download Now for Linux
and save it in your home folder

Then all you have to do is unpack it and run it

You could run it in your home folder but it is better to unpack into /usr/local and run from there

To run simply /usr/local/firefox/firefox on the command line or add a launcher to your Desktop

Regards

Pete

Thank you for the reply Pete. I am afraid I do have a someone strange question though. When I try to extract to that folder, I am told I do not have access rights to it. However it does not give me the option to log in as the root. How do I get the root priveledges to extract this folder?

Also, is that folder (/usr/local/) where I should install all my prgrams from now on? Like the "Program Files" from Windows?

i'm having the same problem.

I Know you can log in as root in the terminal.

you type "su"
and then your password

the command to unpack is "tar zxvf firefoxname.tar.gz"

i don't know the command to copy or move files sorry

ok guys...this is what you can do..hope I'm correct cuz i've not really tested it out..all from my memory. beside..I never install firefox on my Mandrake box..here goes..

On the Konsole:
(1) su
(2) you will be prompted for the root password. you should have it..enter it
(3) now...if you package is on your home directory. you might as well copied/move it to your /usr/local; to do that. here what you do. at the command prompt.
cp firefoxname.tgz /usr/local or
mv firefoxname.tgz /usr/local
(4) now you may untar the tgz file. command is
tar -zxvf firefoxname.tgz


While.think its done! you may wanna rm the tgz file as well.

As root from the directory where you downloaded firefox

]$ tar zxvf firefox-0.9.1-i686-linux-gtk2+xft.tar.gz -C /usr/local

Pete

Phin666
Placing programs such as firefox in /usr/local gives other users on your machine access to it

If you are the only user then it,s not really important other than if you install lots of things you always know where to find them so it keeps things neat and tidy

Pete

thanks, never knew about the cp command or I could have did it

OK, with all the help on here I have the file extracted, however I cannot load firefox. I went into the folder with the compressed file and did the:
mv firefoxname.tgz /usr/local
tar -zxvf firefoxname.tgz

I have tried double clicking the firefox-bin as well as the firefox shell script and nothing happens. Correct me if I am wrong, the firefox-bin is the equivalent of a windows EXE, right?. I know that I am missing something very simple here.

Also, once I get it to work - to add this to the menu, is that accomplished with the menudrake?

I got firefox & thunderbird working. Turns out that I had installed a "bad" RPM and then not uninstalled it before installing the correct one from the repository. Thank you to everyone who replied.