I have in the last two weeks installed mandriva Linux. However from the word 'go' I was unable to get Mozilla Firefox to function correctly. The Browser would not even find my ASDL router on 192.168.1.1.
Finally (after removing Mozilla)I went over to using 'Konqueror' which works a treat as does 'Opera' which I downloaded as an FTP file.
Therefore you may ask 'Why do you want to use Firefox'.
Reason, it's purely personal - I don't like it when I can't get programmes to work, and yes I suppose that I am being bloody-minded. Besides the Progs run OK on my Win2K setup.
I have in the last day or two downloaded both Monzilla Firefox and Thunderbird as '.tar' files but in spite of reading 'Linux for Dummies' until my eyes hurt I cannot find out what I need to do with the downloads in order to load them. Do I need to unzip with Ark and if so what do I do with the files so created?
Has anyone on the LQ forum had a similar problem and if so how do I get over it?

Installing files from .tar is... something you get used to if you need to. You should be able to get a new installation of the latest firefox for mandriva though, precompiled.

Otherwise, from tar, you need to untar, make, make config, and make install(generally) to compile your own software. This sounds fairly easy and is...mostly, but the dependencies can be bad, and you need everything installed. A Package manager like those in SuSE, Fedora, and Mandriva MASSIVELY simplify the process, and you should try to take advantage of that.

I kinda had the same issue. I installed Suse 10, and it had Firefox 1.0, and I wanted to install 1.5.
So I downloaded the tarball, used Ark to extract the Firefox folder in it to /usr/share/ (I guessed based on where other programs were installed...and it didn't have any make files or readme files or anything, just the firefox folder, and inside that still no make files or readme, so I guessed that just needed to be extracted.) (Also, I did all this as a superuser.)
One other thing of note, when I tried to open firefox.bin, nothing happnend, but double-clicking on firefox.sh opned it right up and it ran fine.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the info. As suggested I 'Ark'ed' the file or rather I tried to, but apparently I got a message
'Cannot extract, xxx files not found in archive.'
Some of the files went in though to user/share and although I managed to get the Firefox homepage up on the screen it still won't access the ADsl router.

Where would I get hold of the precompiled 'Firefox'? which I would assume (?) is an FTP. I've installed a couple of those and find them easy to install.
Please excuse my ignorance but Linux is new to me and my second excuse is that I'm a silly old (retired) sod.

http://rpm.pbone.net/

Advanced Search for firefox with Mandriva 2006 selected as the only rpm type. Make sure you search in description and summary. I got 9 pages of results with 1.5+ in many languages through various mirrors. Don't search for rpm name, leave the stock "Search for rpms which contain given file name" option set or it often doesn't find what you need.