Alright, this is exactly what I have done.

1.) Download firefox 1.5 from getfirefox.com
2.) In konsole, I typed: tar -xvvzf /home/username/Desktop/firefox-1.5.tar.gz
3.) I opened Konqueror and went to /home/username/firefox and I double clicked on firefox

That is exactly what I did, and when I double click on firefox, nothing happens. I have also downloaded and tried to install firefox several times now, would that make any difference? In the firefox folder, there is also one more shell script file called run-firefox, it doesn't work either.

have you tried to run it by navigating to it's directory in konsole and executing it like ./firefox

that will give you some sort of error output and let you know what exactly the problem is.

I have no idea how, but it now works. After this problem is solved, I promise to end this topic. Alright, so, I'm trying to install gaim 1.5.0, I have uncompressed it into my home directory. I then went to konsole and typed in ./configure after getting into the correct gaim folder. About 20 lines of text come on the screen, and then it says:

configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See 'config.log' for more details.

I've installed the gcc file from rpmdrake like another poster in this thread said. What now?

Why not install it via urpmi? gaim 1.5 is available.

When I want a new program, I always search the repositories first before I go looking to compile stuff from source.

Sorry, but could you explain how to use urpmi? I went to the site in your sig and I'm not sure how it works. What do I have to do there? At first I just selected some random sources and re typed them into the console, but nothing happens except that I get an error message.

Just follow the 3-step instructions, get all the sources and copy and paste the script it generates into a terminal as root. So when you start up konsole (the terminal program) click Session->New Root Console to get a root terminal which you can paste that stuff into.

One last thing, someone earlier said to just get firefox 1.5 from urpmi, but it wasn't added yet. When will it be added? (currently on 1.0.7)

It all depends on if someone will package it or when mandriva gets around to packaging it. I'm working on it, but I'm delayed because I'm writing my finals right now. I'll try to get to it over the break.

to learn about mandriva, you should check out the club site. Mandrivaclub.com

they have great forums and some good documentation.

Actually the Firefox for 2006 is named '1.0.6' - even though they've backported all the security patches from 1.0.7 so it effectively is 1.0.7. Similarly the one in 2005LE is '1.0.2' but they've backported all the stuff from 1.0.7 as well. So unless mozilla stop supporting the firefox 1.0.x series there never will be a Firefox 1.5 RPM in the main repository for 2006. It will be in Mandriva 2007.

Of course 3rd parties (eg. Thac maybe) will build RPMs for Firefox 1.5 for Mandriva and even the Mandriva club will probably build one for their paying members.

You probably need libstdc++5
I found that this one worked for me. Simply allowed it to default install.
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/Mandrake/9.2...-2mdk.i586.rpm
Presto! Firefox 1.5 runs! I then uninstalled the distro Firefox 1.0.6
<Took about 2 hours; but not bad for a total noobee!>

zilla

Good catch, but if you need libstdc++5 then just install the package of the same name using urpmi/RPMdrake. You don't need to search rpmfind for it since its in every version of Mandriva, not just 9.2