LinuxQuestions.org - Where to install Firefox?

- Linux - Software (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/)

- - Where to install Firefox? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/where-to-install-firefox-286127/)

Where to install Firefox?

Hi,

I extremly new to the world of linux, recently decided to switch from windows and see what the whole hype is about. I trying to install a Firefox 1.0 on my mandrake 10.0 (i currently have Firefox 0.8 installed using Mandrakeś urpmi util) but i have no idea as to which folder i should install it into. In windows it was simple - 99% of programs wento into Program Files folder, so whats the equivalent of that on linux?

Please help, as i about to follow these instructions from the other forum:

Quote:

1. Try to find existing installation.
2. Give up.
3. Reboot back to windows.

Kind regards,
Nick Goloborodko

The equivalent for user installed programs is /usr or /usr/local folder. It doesnt really matter where you install as long as you run it from there. I installed firefox from source. It was installed into the directory, I unpacked the source to. It was a bit tricky as the executable was named similarly to the installer executable. So it took me some time to find it. The easies way for you to find a file is to run updatedb and then use the command locate filename to find a filename.

are you trying to install the binary firefox package from mozilla.org?

Quote:

Originally posted by __J
are you trying to install the binary firefox package from mozilla.org?

Yep :)

when you run the installer, it creates an installation (by default, though this can be changed) in your home directory. This is fine but it will only work for that user. With the prebuilt binaries, I personally like to install it to /usr/local/firefox (run the installer as root and tell it to install to that directory) and create a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin:

Code:

ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox

which will put firefox in your path.
Keep in mind this is only my preference and with these prebuilt packages you can install them anywhere you want without any problems.

By convention, /usr is where the files that came with your system are and /usr/local is for any changes you have made to the system. Note that if you have a prefix /usr, the parts of an installed program are split up ( not like the Program Files directory in Windows where every program has it's own directory) into the appropriate directories.

executable binaries go into bin (so a prefix of /usr they will end up in /usr/bin)
icons, themes, etc.. go into share
header files for compiling against the app/library go into include
libraries, both shared and static go into lib
man pages go into man
and so on.

the above does not apply to the prebuilt "all-in-one" packages like firefox and mozilla. They use a different method of throwing everything into the same directory and using shell scripts (inside you installed firefox directory open up firefox with a text editor and you will find out that it is not the actual browser, but a shell script. firefox-bin is the browser itself, but you have to call it through the firefox script) and altering your environmental variables.

Quote:

Originally posted by __J
when you run the installer, it creates an installation (by default, though this can be changed) in your home directory. This is fine but it will only work for that user. With the prebuilt binaries, I personally like to install it to /usr/local/firefox (run the installer as root and tell it to install to that directory) and create a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin:

Code:

ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox

which will put firefox in your path.
By convention, /usr is where the files that came with your system are and /usr/local is for any changes you have made to the system. Note that if you have a prefix /usr, the parts of an installed program are split up ( not like the Program Files directory in Windows where every program has it's own directory) into the appropriate directories.

executable binaries go into bin (so a prefix of /usr they will end up in /usr/bin)
icons, themes, etc.. go into share
header files for compiling against the app/library go into include
libraries, both shared and static go into lib
man pages go into man
and so on.

Thank you very much for clearing that up :) Linux file system was a bit of a gray area for me.

Kind regards,
Nick Goloborodko

Those are generall rules and you will find that distro's all do things differently. It's just a matter of learning the particular distro your on and how they do things. It all gets easier after awhile ;)