Currently i have the old Red Hat version 6.1 and wanted to update my netscape browser and also install the new Firefox browser... i have netscape version 4.7.

when i tried to install the Firefox browser, i'm getting the following error message:
"error in loading shared libraries: libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file"

when i tried to update the Netscape browser, i'm getting the following error message:
"version: 'GLIBC_2.2.4' not found (required by /netscape-installer"

i'm thinking this has to do with my old X11 and that i need to update it. so i will try to go to XFree86 and see if i could get some info from this site. any advise would be appreciated. i have not used linux for a couple years so i'm forgetting most of the command lines... if you could instruct me accordlingly, i will be thankful.

Oh man - RH6 uwill be massively outdated (not to mention unsupported). Practically all the routine things you are used to will be different. You could update all your libraries ... you may be well advised to try installing yum, or similar since up2date won't work for you and second guessing the updates and new libraries will be a lot of work.

I guess you'd start with upgrading the kernel, gcc and all your libraries. You get to choose between Xfree86 or Xorg86 - more reading. [edit: These bits will (may) cure those error messages.]

Of course, you've considered just installing an up to date distro as the quick and easy method?

Yeah, this will involve a lot of hard work and you could be better of grabbing a copy of Fedora or another Redhat based distro like CentOS.

Appreciate the insights and advice... this will be troublesome on my part as i need to get build another computer to install a new distro... there are files on my old RH 6.1 that i need.

is there any other way to just update the X11... i'm still reading the docs.

The problem with running such an old distro is that most new packages won't work properly because they will depend on other new packages , so the effort that you will spend tracking down these packages and installing them will probably be more than just installing a newer distro. If you have important data, you can back it up to another hard drive, cdrom, dvd or whatever suitable media you have.

If you really need those files - then back them up. If backup not feasable (uses too many floppies?) Then you could try sticking them in a non-standard partition. When you install a new system, your files will be untouched (provided you select to keep existing partitions and do not touch the partition your files are in.)

Mind you, when I installed Red Hat - I guessed I'd upgrade at some point and put mu root partition on a separate HDD. When I installed Fedora, I also installed a new (much much larger) HDD for the new root partition while keeping the original drive for boot and swap. This meant I could keep all my old files on the old HDD, installed it as a secondary slave and mounted it to transfer my vital files over.

If you cannot back up, you can always install an upgrade on a seperate HDD - newer drives are very cheap, and you can always pick up someone's old HDD for next to nothing.

As for the upgrades - if you really want to go that way ... and you've noticed by now that you are being strongly advised not to ... then, as I said, you should start with gcc and gnu make so you can get a new kernel and build that. This will give you up to date drivers and programming libraries.

Then you'll want ot visit the Xfree86 web page for advise upgrading from an old version. Read for the libraries and use, say, rpmfind to locate the missing libraries. (rpmfind often has versions for old distributions). If you cannot find the dependant library for RH6- then you are stuffed and you will have to upgrade.