Made new icon on Desktop, can't get it to work
 

To all you Linux gurus out there. I installed Netscape browser using root and made a Desktop icon with no problem. The only one I had is that when I tried to point the command to the netscape script which starts the browser, I got a message saying "only executables on local file systems are supported" Does that mean that netscape files are supposed to be in my home dir for it to work. The files are in /usr/bin right now. Should I just install netscape in my home dir instead? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.

This usually means that you can't run executables from a different PC over a network, like via NFS, only ones that reside on your local filesystem. It does not mean that the executables need to be in your home directory. You will not need to install in your home dir.

I'll need a little more info to get to the bottom of this, please answer the following:
What disto are you using?
What window manager are you running?
Are you trying to create this desktop icon while logged in as your root user or a normal user?
What happens when you type the command to start Netscape from a terminal?
Are you using the full path to the executable? (i.e. - /usr/bin/netscape)
Try creating a launcher for your panel & see if you get the same problem.

I don't have Netscape installed, but I'm pretty sure you don't have to install it to your home directory. I think you did something wrong when you created your launcher. Can you start Netscape using a command line? If so, Netscape is installed properly and the problem is in creating the launcher. The error message seems to say that programs must be located on your computer rather than out in the network somewhere.

Consider using the Mozilla Web Browser instead of Netscape. Mozilla is included in several distributions, so it might already be installed on your computer. You don't say which distribution you are using, but creating a launcher on the desktop could be as easy as click and drag.

I am running suse 10.0 with KDE. I can start netscape using the terminal as a normal user using the the /usr/local/bin/netscape path. I was trying to create the icon as a normal user. I saw when I created the icon and looked at the owner is root. Maybe I need to be root to be able to do that. How do I do that in KDE? I was thinking of putting other icons on the desktop, not just netscape so I don't have to open up the terminal.

actually, you can do one of a few thigns.

Either you can change the permissions of the file (which would be easy) or smlink it and change the permissions of it.

Did you install it as root? Either way... you can chmod 770 it, (if you don't know much about permissions, you can google "linux file permissions" and it'll come up with some great descriptions.

Bingo! I finally got it to work. I had to change the permissions as root since I installed netscape as root also. I used chmod 770 and it couldn't execute the netscape script as a normal user so I changed it to chmod 775 and it worked. I am wondering is 775 a bad permission to use for netscape?. Thanks

Nah
775 is good


I just quoted you the wrong permission.. Sorry abotu that, forgot to edit my post.

Thanks a lot DeusEx. I changed it to 755 before I saw your last post and it worked too. Thanks man, you are a lifesaver! :)