setting up installed web browser

The Mad Scientist · 08-20-2007, 05:06 PM

Hello to all,

I am new to Linux and have question pertaining to my installed web browser. I recently downloaded FireFox 2.0. I decompressed it properly...I hope. I used the command:

tar -zxvf (filename).tar.gz

The directory seems as it should. However, I can't quite find how to lanch the web browser. Do I have to move it to a different location???

Any info would be appreciated.
Thank you.

reddazz · 08-20-2007, 05:11 PM

Using a file manager like Konqueror or Nautilus, browse to where you extracted the firefox tar.gz file and navigate into the firefox directory and click on the icon named "firefox". Alternatively, you can do

Code:

$cd /path/to/firefox
$./firefox

It will probably be easier to copy the Firefox directory to /opt or /usr/local and then create (or update your short cuts) so that they point to the new Firefox installation.

The Mad Scientist · 08-20-2007, 05:42 PM

Inside the extracted file there isn't a firefox icon to launch from. Also, when I tried to lauch it from the shell I got an error message:

./firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraried: libfontconfig.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

?????

reddazz · 08-20-2007, 05:52 PM

What Linux distribution are you using? Do you have fontconfig installed?

The Mad Scientist · 08-20-2007, 06:00 PM

I am using Red Hat 7.3 (Valhalla)

It came with a text book I am using to learn about Unix/Linux.

reddazz · 08-20-2007, 06:27 PM

Well, thats a really old version of Linux and I doubt that you will have the required libraries needed by Firefox. I suggest you take a look at newer Red hat based distros such as Fedora and CentOS.

teckk · 08-20-2007, 06:34 PM

RH7 is around 9-10 years old I think. It's not supported for a good while now. RH9 was the last free version. After that came RHEL and it's on version 5. You may want to install something more modern or you'll have problems with modern browsers and other software. Red Hat is no longer free. Fedora is the free test OS for Red Hat and it's on version 7. There is also Centos and White Box if you want Red Hat for free. Same OS just no support. Running RH7 would be about like running win 95. You can yes, but upgrading is better.

http://fedoraproject.org/
http://www.redhat.com/
http://www.centos.org/
http://iso.linuxquestions.org/

The Mad Scientist · 08-21-2007, 06:19 PM

Thanks for the input. I guess I am a little out of the loop with Linux.