Hi - I'm finally getting around to updating Mozilla from 1.2.1-26 (which came with my RedHat 9.0 distribution last year) to the current version, 1.7.5. The instructions for the new release specify to uninstall any older versions of the software before installing the new version. The steps to uninstall look fairly simple, though (just deleting some directories here and there) and don't seem to me to be complete if I wanted to remove the old version entirely.

Since my version of Mozilla came bundled and installed with my RedHat distribution, I checked the RPM's that are associated with Mozilla:

"rpm -qa | grep mozilla"

mozilla-nspr-1.2.1-26
mozilla-nss-devel-1.2.1-26
mozilla-dom-inspector-1.2.1-26
mozilla-mail-1.2.1-26
mozilla-js-debugger-1.2.1-26
mozilla-nss-1.2.1-26
mozilla-chat-1.2.1-26
mozilla-nspr-devel-1.2.1-26
mozilla-psm-1.2.1-26
mozilla-devel-1.2.1-26
mozilla-1.2.1-26

Since I'd like to be confident that all traces of the current Mozilla version are removed, I have two questions:
1. Would it be better to remove each of the above RPM's (using rpm -e <rpm-name>) and then install the latest Mozilla?
2. Would removing each of the RPM's remove all traces (source code too) of the old version?

I'm also finding that as I get more into the maintenance of my Linux system that installing RPM's leaves me somewhat in the dark as to where everything resides and how it's weaved into my environment. Way back when I used to know every file on my Windows machine and why it was there (I'm talking about way back: Windows 3.0 and earlier) and I liked that feeling. Even with OS/2, I could figure out where things were and what they did. Since Linux offers that type of control for those willing to shoulder the responsibility or who are simply curious, I'd like to not be at the mercy of a black box software installation.

So, with that said, I have one last question:
1. Is there any drawback to downloading source when available, uncompressing it, compiling and linking it yourself, and installing it over using the available RPM?

Thanks in advance for all the help,

Scott

I think (but others may disagree) that rpm files are easier
to deal with. But why not install firefox? Then you wouldn't
have to worry about mozilla. Plus firefox is more "flexible"
(extension, etc).

Sheng-Chieh

Thanks - I'll give Firefox a try.

Thanks again - Firefox is very nice. I do like it better than Mozilla (especially the google command line up at the top - very handy!).

Scott