Hi all,

I am new to Linux. I have used windows for the past 10 years and decided to use Linux for all the good reasons we know.
I am trying to install firefox 2.0.0.3 on my new distro RedHat v 5. I have to say that this is not working at all. I have downloaded firefox and then I have uncompressed firefox. That is as far as I went. I have tried to compile it as the .tar.gz is the source code of the soft. SO i think I have used the command below but it didn't work. Nothing happened. I am really lost here. Can anyone help me please.

tar zxf linuxquestions.tar.gz
cd linuxquestions
./configure
make
make test (optional)
make install

Thanks for everything

Riganta

you may have just downloaded a binary package in tar.gz format, look inside the directory for firefox and firefox-bin, if there is a Makefile.am and a configure file then yes you downloaded sourcecode, if there is no Makefile.am & configure file then you downloaded a pre-built binary in a tar.gz package...

Did you actually download the source code for Firefox, or the prebuilt binary? Just because a file is in .tar.gz/.tar.bz2 format for example doesn't necessarily mean it contains source code. The "tar" is for "tape archive" and the "gz" or "bz2" indicates the type of compression used.

Also, what does "linuxquestions.tar.gz" have to do with Firefox?! You also didn't say exactly what "it didn't work" means. We aren't at your machine and can't see the output from commands you use, so you need to give us detailed information - error messages for example.

Well, I don't get any error message at all. Nothing happens. That's it.
I have dowloaded firefox from firefox's website and it seems that I have no Makefile.am & Configure file. So I have a pre built binary in tar.gz. I dowloaded firefox in /usr/local. I used the command tar zxf firefox-2.0.03.tar.gz to decompress the soft. It created another directory called firefox and then I tried to use the command below to install it or run it but nothing happened. I couldn't even get to the directory firefox.

cd firefox
./configure
make
make test
make install

PS: the "linuxquestion" is my mistake. It has no relation to the soft firefox

I hope this clarify a bit


Cheers

riganta

One last point. The old version that was installed is not working anymore. It has become firefox.old now. It is my mistake. I have just repeat a command line that I found in the website without really knowing what I was doing. I have to say that linux is not easy at all but a lot more fun than windows

Perhaps this will give you some hints

http://www.bobpeers.com/linux/firefox2_on_fedora_core_6

Why not?

Sigh, you don't use "configure", "make", "make install" for pre-built packages.

I think I have messed badly my system. I had only firefox.1.5.0.3 preinstalled on it. Since it has become firefox.old it is not working anymore.
I have now managed to download and decompresse firefox.2.0.0.3. It is in my directory /usr/local but I don't how to make it work.

please help

riganta

Again, all you need to do is decompress the archive, cd to "firefox" (or whatever the directory is called) and run "./firefox". Okie pretty much told you this..

Actually Nylex, the instructions that come with firefox are crap (and that's being complimentary). Even looking at their installation instructions (which is all the readme.txt says to do) tells you nothing about running firefox. Okie didn't even really hint at that (he says to look for it), and having installed plenty of precompiled packages, I'd have thought that I had to copy the firefox executable to some other directory (which from my quick read was implied from the link I posted before). I can see if you know that's what you need to do, Okie's comment makes sense, but not otherwise.


My 2c

Yes exactly. Doing so, I get the error message as follow
"error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Cheers

You need to install the C++ library package that provides that file, though I'm not sure what that package is called under Red Hat. It may simply be called "libstdc++-<version>", but I don't know. I assume Red Hat has some kind of tool you can use to search for packages, have a look there and tell us what you find (or if another RH user sees this thread, they'll be able to guide you).

You mentioned you're using Red Hat 5, which is years out of date (and probably explains that error), so it would be worth upgrading to a current distro (if you want to carry on with Red Hat type stuff you could use Fedora or CentOS). These will also likely include the latest version of Firefox as a binary package, which you can just install via the package manager.

eg.
(I think, I don't really use Fedora)

1337_penguin

I assumed the OP was using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Hi Guys,

Yes the op is running Red Hat ES V 5. Which is the latest version (hopefully so). I tried to install the librairy but it told that it was already there. i tried the yum install command. It didn't work either.

Cheers,