Hi everyone

I guess my first mistake was to download the firefox installer in tar.gz via the firefox website, and installed the program from there. Instead of search for an rpm and using that.

So far I've yet to find a way to uninstall it (not that it's bad, only that I wanted to find out how).

Since I didn't install it through rpmdrake, I can't seem to find it there.

Any help on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

p.s. I currently run the official distro of Mandrake Linux 10.1.

Thanks in advance all.

Use locate firefox to see where it is. Perhaps you'll have to slocate -u as root before. Then erase the folder manually.

Thanks a lot for your reply Linux.tar.gz. I did a slocate -u and got a listing of all the places that firefox is located. My concern is after deleting those files, there might still be quite a few "loose ends" lying around.

Having come from a Windows background, deleting files in windows without doing a proper uninstall (included as part of the program) will leave behind registry settings & unused dlls (worse yet, dlls that overwrote other dlls which were suppose to be restored during the uninstall process).

I had hoped that there would be an uninstaller of somekind, any ideas?

Usually, you have main apps in /usr/lib and every user got his own ".config" or ".nameoftheapp/config" in his /home/user folder.

Hey Linux.tar.gz, sorry for the late reply. Haven't used my computer for a while.

I ended up manually removing the directory that firefox was in. It seem to have only installed to whatever directory that I specified in the installation process, with a hidden .mozilla folder in the same directory which I also removed.

Thanks for the help.

I'm playing around with setting up urpmi right now from tips that I got out of another thread on this forum...

Hopefully, I won't have to make the mistake of installing software via an installer from now on.

Cheers

ok I've been reading several posts on here and have come to the conclusion that there is a fatal error with trying to upgrade my firefox 0.8 to 1.0.4 So what command do I use to remove the 1.0.4? I have found several directories but most of them are in the same basic directory except for the downloads that I downloaded to my desktop. but if I know what comman to use to delete these files I will also get rid of them. I just wanted to upgrade my firefox so I can download new themes and extensions for it because I can't do it with 0.8. any help will be GREATLY appreciated!

joemill

The only thing better than linux is sex with a beautiful woman!

Hey joemill, use:

rm -rf <directory name>

Make sure its really what you want to delete, the above command will delete the directory you give it and ALL directories beneath it. You will not get a confirmation, you will not be able to undelete.

So be very careful!

Hope that helps

well, snow bound I've tried to remove the dir file by using rm. At first, when I'm logged in as usr I get an error that reads access denied. you don't have access to this file (or something to this means) so I log in as root. now the error reads that the file or directory does not exist.so I exit out of root but am logged in to the Konsole as <username>@comcast. When I do a search for this comcast file or folder I still get zip. No file or directory exists. So now what? I'm still searching and trying!

Before you delete, you need to log in as superuser/admin.

Type:

su

then enter your superuser password.

That should give you access to delete the folder.

To help you in your task I will use rpm to show everything that is installed with the mozilla-firefox package in my computer:

[felipe@Lapa TesteUC]$ rpm -qil mozilla-firefox
/usr/bin/mozffremote
/usr/bin/mozilla-firefox
/usr/lib/menu/mozilla-firefox
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2/TestGtkEmbed
....Thousands of files under mozilla-firefox-1.0.2
/usr/share/doc/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2
/usr/share/doc/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2/LEGAL
/usr/share/doc/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2/LICENSE
/usr/share/doc/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2/README.txt
/usr/share/icons/large/mozilla-firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/mini/mozilla-firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/mozilla-firefox.png
/usr/share/man/man1/mozilla-firefox.1.bz2

As you can see there is nothing like .so object outside the mozilla-firefox directory and there should be none. All those unused "dlls" that would be in Windows/System does not exist under linux due to the packaging system. Firefox even if compiled from a tar.gz2 file will expect that you have the Librarys packages installed and those are the ones that put shared libraries in the lib folder.

Also note that there are very few things under usr/share/ folder.

Hey sekelsenmat, thanks for the reply.

I certainly has helped me to understand a lot more about the way Linux keeps track of its software (regular files in place of Windows Registry). The issue still comes down to the fact that with Firefox, the rpm will only be applicable if you actually installed via the rpm.

The last time I checked firefox 1.0.4 isn't yet a part of the rpm listing (latest at 1.0.2?).

So if I were to download from the getfirefox website, it still isn't visible to the rpm manager, so at the end of the day, I'm still forced to use the rm command to rid myself of the install.

Actually, this is applicable to the installation via tar.bz2 also . There should be minor diferences, like their main directory may change it´s name, but remain in the same location. The rpm is directly correspondent to a tar.bz2 file (some tar.bz2 installation files may correspond to more then 1 package). In fact, inside the rpm packege there is a .tar.bz2 file (in it´s structure). Those minor differences are caused mostly by version difference.

Did you try updating your system? My Mandrake 10.2 Limited Edition came with firefox 1.0.2, but then I updated my system and 1.0.4 was installed.

But then, you may just grab a package on the internet: http://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2htm...&system=&arch=

Just download a mandrake x86 package

This is from my own limited experience working with Linux.

When installing via the package install, the package you select doesn't allow you to customize any install options, but the package is listed when querying package uninstall.

This differs a lot from installing via the tar ball of firefox that I downloaded from getfirefox. The install here involves me running a install bash script, from then on, the install procedure is exactly the same as for Windows (i.e. with all of the install customization as you'd expect; install path, component to install etc). Unforunately, after I install via this method, the package uninstall facility in Mandrake doesn't pick up on the fact that I've even got Firefox installed.

I seriously don't know what I'm doing wrong...

Also I did set up my rpm media after 1.0.4 was released. But when I did an rpm install from commandline, it asked me if I wanted to install Mozilla-firefox, v0.99.

I not sure if it's because I'm on Mandrake 10.1 Official...

What am I suppose to do with the package that you mentioned?

Thanks

well, I got mine fixed thanks to a young Canadian friend of mine. Thanks Colin! Seems that somehow, the gui at startup was unchecked. So I went into system-->configuration-->configure your computer-->boot-->autologin and checked the box to launch the graphical environment at startup. then I rebooted and I'm is fine and dandy Missuh Bowssman! Now my only problem is that I don't have firefox icon I can just double click on to start the browser. I have to continually open each folder until I get into the firefox folder and then launch it. I've tried dragging and dropping the shell file onto my desktop but then it doesn't work. But oh well, least I got my Pimpzilla back, albeit hard to get to at each startup. Thanks for the help anyways guys



Joe

The only thing better than linux is sex!

It will never do so, you are not doing anything wrong. In order to be able to uninstall it using the standard method (Menu > System > Configure > Software > Remove Software) you *must* install the program via rpm package. Either using urpmi or installing with rpm directly.

Correctly using rpm system you should never need to any install scrips. The linux way of installing stuff is diferrent then the Window one. The configurations are not set up upon install ... they are made the first time you run the program and can be altered at any time.

1 - Open a terminal window (similar to the MS DOS console from Windows)

2 - Type "su" without the "

3 - Type your root password when asked

4 - Use the commands "ls" and "cd" to go to the directory where the package you downloaded is

5 - type "rpm -Uvh <package file name>"

6 - Type "Exit"

7 - Type "mozilla-firefox"

It may complain saying that it need package x or package y.

In this case, still as root on the console, type: "urpmi <package name>"

The first topic in this forum ( News: Installing .rpm and .tar.gz) is about software installating under Mandrake. You should read it.