Hello,
I'm new to linux and have many question, I start with my simplest one!
I've downloaded and extracted the Firefox, it works without any problem, but I'm curious about its location on my hdd.
Where is the best location to put these kind of software?
I copied it to /usr/share/firefox, but am not sure is this a good place for it.

yet another question: I can't run firefox by run dialog (Alt+F2), what should I do in order to run firefox from there?

Thanks,
- Alex

I'm new to linux and have many question, I start with my simplest one!
Great. Take it easy or you'll scare us all away ;-p


I've downloaded and extracted the Firefox, it works without any problem, but I'm curious about its location on my hdd. Where is the best location to put these kind of software? I copied it to /usr/share/firefox, but am not sure is this a good place for it.
If you downloaded Firefox as a tarball its kinda selfsufficient AFAIK so it could be anywhere. Distributions will usually spread stuff over the /usr tree, users are encouraged to use /usr/local but there's no rule unless you want it to be in your $PATH statement (so you don't have to prefix the full path to start it) or want to be compliant with some standard.


yet another question: I can't run firefox by run dialog (Alt+F2), what should I do in order to run firefox from there?
Probably prefix the full path.

Great. Take it easy or you'll scare us all away ;-p
LOL

Thanks for the complete answer.

- Alex

I'm even more of a new it seems - what do you mean by "prefix the full path"

I've extracted the tarball to /usr/share/firefox and I can't seem to find the way to actually execute the program

I suppose the prefix full path instruction would allow me to do this...?

Sorry about my incredible noobness, thanks for the help!

What distro are you using? They almost certainly have a binary package available for it, which would install itself into the proper locations on your system.

S'ok. This is confusing for the uninitiated.
Please let me explain. If you bring up the monitor (it's the equivalent of the command screen in windows where one can enter dos commands) then you can execute commands and programs by typing in their name and hitting return. BUT (big but), the name has to be 'fully qualified'. That is, you must type the entire directory path to the executable, as well as the executable name, except for the files in a few special directories whose paths are known by default. You can see which directories these are by typing "echo $PATH" (without the quotes) at the command line. For programs in any other location, you must type in the full path.

No, that's not confusing, but the confusing part is that this applies to the directory that you're in, too. The directory that you're in can be fully spelled out, but it's also "." (just the .). So a file in your current directory path is ./somefilename and if it's an executable like firefox, then you generally type (from that directory) ./firefox at the command line to bring it up.

Clear as mud? Now your initiated.

Thanks for the initiation, however I just realized that I can't extract the tarball to anywhere but my home folder.

I think it has to do with not being in superuser mode but I have no admin account on the machine... my normal account is the admin account.

Running - ubuntu

Follow the guide here:
"This guide is for installing Firefox 1.5 in Ubuntu Breezy 5.10. Ubuntu Breezy and its repositories have Firefox 1.0.7. If you use this guide, do not remove the Ubuntu version of Firefox. "
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FirefoxNewVe...=%28Firefox%29

You are almost always better off using APT/Synaptic whenever possible.

As far as superuser account see:
"By default, the password for root is locked in Ubuntu. This means you cannot login as root or use su. Instead, the installer will setup sudo to allow the user that is created during install to run all administrative commands.

This means that in the terminal you can use sudo for commands that require root privileges. All programs in the menu will use a graphical sudo to prompt for a password. When sudo asks for a password, it needs YOUR password, this means that a root password is not needed."
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RootSudo?act...rect=UsingSudo

First, it is easy to fix the Ubuntu_no_root_user nonsense:
sudo passwd root
enter your USER password
enter the new password for root at the prompt
su
Voila---you are now root
su username to get back

In the GUI, to enable root login, go to System-->Administration-->Login screen setup Security tab--allow root to login...

If you don't want to enable the root account, then use sudo---eg
sudo tar xvf filename.tar.gz (or whatever)