Trouble installing Firefox 1.5
 

I just downloaded and installed the stable version of Firefox 1.5. Using a launcher won't start Firefox, so when I used the terminal to start it, it said:

Sounds like you may have a stale link somewhere.

- Make sure that you're attempting to run the same version of Firefox that you just installed. Cd the the correct (just installed) directory, then run

Thanks, that file set every thing up. I can run firefox fine now.

I have a similar issue.

I have Firefox 1.0.7 installed in /usr/lib/firefox-1.0.7, and I just grabbed 1.5 today -- gunzipped/untarred it to /usr/lib/firefox.

When I type "firefox" on the command line, it starts up 1.0.7... but I want it to fire up 1.5 instead (and also want Firefox 1.5 to look at my ~/.mozilla/.../bookmarks). If I cd to /usr/lib/firefox/ and run ./firefox, the new version fires up just fine.

I've used Linux on and off for years, but never quite understood how the system "decides" to use one version or another when something like plain old "firefox" is typed at the command line (or through a launcher on a GNOME toolbar). Could someone clear this up for me?

It depends mostly on the order that locations of binaries are listed in your 'path'. To find out what your shell currently searches through, type (assuming a Bash-type shell) echo $PATH into a terminal. You will get something back along the lines of "/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games" -- indicating that binaries (etc.) will be searched for first in /usr/local/bin, followed by /usr/bin, followed by /bin, and so on. If you type whereis firefox into a shell, you should be able to place this into the above search path.

Unless you truly need both versions of firefox, the easiest thing to do would be to remove the old installation -- though it is also possible (likely ?) that there is a link in /usr/local/bin/firefox pointing to the old version, which you may want to delete or re-point to the new version.

Hope this helps,

Michael.