problem when installing applications on redhat 9 ...
 

Im a total noob with linux so pls be gentle :)
i got a a copy of rh9 from a magazine. Ive partitioned my hd and installed it all right, connected to the net and downloaded and run the new up2date --cool so far. But ive decided i want to use firefox and thunderbird. So ive dl them both and followed the instruction (from everywhere: fx, thnderbird, Mozilla, howto, manuals, webpages and everything for installing applications) but i get the same problem.

unpacking the tar in home -- cool,
i cd in Fx or thunderbird -- thats fine too
i then try to ./configure and i get - bash: ./configure: No such file or directory
i then try the make command from with in firefox and get - make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.
i then just go to ./firefox and i get-(QFA)Talkback error: Can't initialize. - but it runs??
the problem is when i close the terminal it closes firefox or thunderbird also ..
the only way i can get then to run is to got to the file and ./ them. None of them stay as the preferred application after they have stopped.
Ive also tried to install adobe and i cant.

Ive read the troubleshooting with Fx and it says - If Firefox 1.5.0.1 is installed to a location with spaces in the path, it may not be able to set itself as default browser and may keep prompting at startup. The work around is to install into a path without spaces.
[#######@####-2vkc#####6 gr1dlok]$
[#######@####-2vkc#####6 firefox]$ - what space do them mean????

what am i doing wrong, i know im not understanding something or doing it wrong, but what !!!

Sorry about the length of my first post but i thought i should try to put in as much detail as possible ..

Any advice please ...

The easiest way is to get the RPM for firefox from some repository and install it. Hope it will solve the issues. If u download firefox from mozilla.com please read the README/INSTALL file included in the tarball.

regards
Manilal

i have dl and run a rpm ... but it still will not load. Is it somewhere that i can not find? Ive searched but i cant find it. but thanks for the advice. Any more would be appreciated

Did u read the README/INSTALL file that accompanied the package from mozilla.com ?

yes, which said see foxfire release notes from modzilla and those said - Extract the tarball in the directory where you want to install Firefox:

tar -xzvf firefox-1.5.0.1.tar.gz

This will create a firefox subdirectory of that directory. - thats all. And yes i did google for howtos, manuels etc, etc and searched other forums to see if anyone else had this problem - and i couldnt find anything.

You should be able to extract the tarball, change to the directory created and run "./firefox". You will not be able to ./configure or make, because it isn't a source tarball so there is nothing to compile. The spaces they mean is "Directory Name" vs "DirectoryName". Linux command line does not handle spaces in file names very well.

Since you are starting from a terminal, Firefox is a child of that terminal. When you close the terminal, firefox will close too. Start firefox using "./firefox &". This runs firefox as a background process, and you can then close the termial.

Redhat 9 is a few years old now, I suggest getting either Fedora (new redhat) if you are getting comfy with Redhat. Otherwise, Ubuntu is a very good distro for beginners. Both of these come with Firefox / Thunderbird installed, along with new versions of all the other software, ie Openoffice 2, rather that 1.0.

--Ian