Probably a simple question, but linux is still new to me.

I downloaded the new version of firefox 2.0 to replace 1.5, but the download was just a tar.gz file. Extracting this gave me a firefox folder, but I cant find an obvious installer package. Any ideas?

Hi, download ftp://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/...0.4-i686-1.tgz
close firefox
type su to become root
type upgradepkg mozilla-firefox-2.0.0.4-i686-1.tgz
that's one way.
The other is download the same package, become root and type pkgtool, and follow 'current' or 'other' menus to install the package.
btw, check the slackbook, here:
http://www.slackbook.org/html/package-management.html

the file you download from Mozilla's site is a binary file, so no installer needed. Just make a new entry in the menu to point to that location and call firefox binary file. It will launch Firefox

I extracted the Firefox 2.0 tar.gz file to /usr/lib

The current menu item in KDE opens 1.5, and the KDE menu editor lists the command as:

I was expecting this to point to the 1.5 folder. What is the %u, and how can I redirect to the new firefox install?

I would get rid of the older FF. Then symlink the 'firefox' script to somewhere in your $PATH ... like '/usr/local/bin'.

i don't think /usr/lib is the correct path, but it's up to you. I usually extract Firefox in /opt.

%u is the URL given

You can change that to /path/to/firefox %u and it will launch Firefox from KDE's menu.

OK, i directed the KDE shortcut to the actual path of the firefox script and this obviously works. Im thinking this wasnt the best way to do this however. Im still confused on why the original firefox shortcut didnt need a path. How did it know where the firefox shell script was located?

H_TeXMeX_H: Is their something special about the /usr/local/bin location where I would not need the full path to the file in the KDE shortcut?

Well, what I do is just symlink the 'firefox' script, like if you installed FF in '/usr/lib/firefox'. I would symlink:

That way all you need to do is run 'firefox'. Of course, you could include the full path and keep the old FF.

OK thanks, will do. I guess I didnt understand what /usr/local/bin/ was for. It sounds like if you type a command without a path linux looks in this directory automatically.

OK I see whats happening. There is a symlink to the old firefox in /usr/bin. Thats what KDE is looking at when I tell it to just use 'firefox'.

H_TeXMeX_H: I think You meant "ln -s", not "ls -s".

Cool it works now, thanks everyone!

oops, sorry about that

If you want to know more, look in '/etc/profile', you'll see a line much like this:

That's what I was talking about by $PATH. Yes, the system checks for executables in all these directories. So if you link it in there and run firefox, it will run it. Now, you shouldn't have more than one thing called firefox in any of these paths or this will get messy. That's why I said to uninstall the other firefox ... if you choose not to, you could still use the full paths to get around this issue. You could also make scripts called 'firefox' and 'firefox-old' then put those somewhere in $PATH, and they call the new and old FF.