Linux - NewbieThis Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question?
If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Ok, I am a total newbie when it comes to linux(just installed it about an hour ago). I am current running Fedora Core 3. Now my question is, how do I update firefox. I've downloaded the firefox-1.5.tar.gz file and now I am at a total loss as what to do. If someone could explain this to me it would be greatly appreciated.
That isn't a particularly helpful response in any way - nicdaug is new to linux, he has only just installed it an hour ago, and doesn't even know how to install a .tar.gz file (everyone was like that at one time, including myself, and after using linux for almost 3 years I still had to ask for help with TAR a few days ago).
Saying "Hey Nick Just Copy Firefox Of Windows 2 Ur Nix Hd And Wine It Or Use Opera" isn't helpful at all, and these forums were designed by Jeremy in order that we can all share our knowledge and help each other, therefore helping the entire community knowledge base.
One of the ideas behind linux is "anything is possible". With such a defeatist attitude such as the one you displayed in your post, no wonder desktop migration is slow.
If you car refused to start in the morning, would you bin it and go and buy another one? No you wouldn't, you would tinker with it yourself if you knew what you were doing, or get help from the people who know.
If he has trouble with firefox, what trouble do you think he'll have setting up and running wine? That is just a daft suggestion, and whilst opera is good, by the look of it, he is happy with firefox, so don't try and impose your personal preference just because the guy doesn't know how to fix his problem.
To the mods: Didn't mean to rant, I use this site often and I think that it is the best linux related forum site out there - certainly the most helpful, but with posts like the one above, no-one gets help and no-one wins.
nicdawg, you stated in your post that you followed the instruction you were given and you thought it didnt seem to work. Well.. it did work, thats exactly what it's supposed to do. it installed firefox for you. But i am wondering, is FC3 not packaged with mozilla firefox? i'm on FC4 and it sure is.
i'm pretty damn new to linux myself but i'm just starting to understand it and i really love it now.
as i said its installed so its likely in your /usr/sbin directory.
so try cding to that directory and typing ./firefox.
if not run a whereis firefox and see for yourself where it may be.
also, not that for any command someone gives you, if they dont' offer an explanation you can find one by typing "man" and then the command.
so "man whereis" would tell you all about the command. Good luck.
ok i first i would like to reiterate that i am not trying to install firefox but update to a newer version.
here is what i am not understanding, i open my terminal and type tar -xzvf firefox-1.5.tar.gz and it runs through what i posted above
i then type cd firefox-installer and i get this
[nick@localhost ~]$ cd firefox-installer
bash: cd: firefox-installer: No such file or directory
if anyone can break down this process in simple step by step, it would help alot
To me (another NooB), it looks like it upchucks during the untar because firefox is already installed to that directory. So maybe you need to uninstall your existing firefox before trying the install. I don't run FC, so I don't know how to do that.
Another thing you might try is to find a binary package repository that you can add that contains updated binary packages. You then install them with your package manager. In Debian, I just find a package repository where someone else already figured out the deps and packaged them in the same place so that I can just apt-get update && apt-get install blah (or apt-get upgrade) and it will show the new packages available.
It looks like you just have to delete the original installation directory (I don't know what it is on fedora core) but something like rm -ir /usr/lib/firefox. Make sure that is the right directory before you remove it!
OK, first off I don't think your file downloaded properly because it says "Exit delayed by previous errors". Also, firefox 1.5 doesn't have the firefox-installer file anymore. All it does is unzip a fully working firefox into a directory called firefox (just like winzip would do in windows...you'd unzip it, move into the directory and run the firefox.exe file, only in linux it doesn't have an exe extension).
As I said, I don't think your download is complete so try that again. Then use your package manager to remove your old firefox. Now, also as root, untar your new tarball and copy the whole 'firefox' directory to /usr/share.
Finally, to get it so that you can just type 'firefox' to run it, you need a sym-link to the firefox executable:
Code:
ln -s /usr/share/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
You might need to change your icon in gnome / kde so it points to /usr/bin/firefox if it didn't already.
Ok so firefox is now upgraded to 1.5. The file was complete but for some reason I had to delete the previous version of firefox. My problem now is that my web icon is no longer linked to firefox(does not even give firefox as an option). How would I go about correcting this so that i don't have to open the firefox folder to access the program???
ps: Thanks anyway komakino. I am sure that the info you provided will be useful to me with other tar files
In GNOME, it is simply a case of right-clicking on the icon on the taskbar, and make sure that the "command" field has the full path to firefox, i.e. "/usr/bin/firefox" or "/usr/share/firefox/firefox".
If it is within the Applications menu, the easiest way is to use a menu editor program - I think FC3 has one, if not, search your current package manager for a program called "SMEG" (Simple Menu Editor for Gnome) and use that. Besides that, you have to modify a .desktop file manually and I'm not too sure how to do that.
I think it is also similar in KDE, but I've not used it in a long time.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.
total newbie question
