I'm using an old version of slack, 10.2.0... I use it mainly for my local WWW development

Anyways, I have KDE on there and I wanted to use firefox to do some surfing and its still using 1.0.6 (ouch) so I figured I'd upgrade it and when I opened Kpackage, nothing is listed on any of the tabs.. clearing the cache does nothing nor does a reload...

It also appears I do not have apt/apt-get on here so I'm a bit stuck

Any help or advise would be appreciated... if you need any other info to help debug feel free to ask and I'll throw it up here...

Thanks

You can try download firefox from www.mozilla.com, unpack and execute. It should work.

I tried that as well but when i run ./firefox in the dir after i untar it and go to the about, it still says firefox 1.0.6

You must open a console and use cd command for place to new firefox directory, and then simply type $ firefox

yup I did that and no go

but this is only one of the issues... id rather just have the package manager working so I can update some other things as well

you're right, it does not work, sorry.

no problem.. better to try some stuff than try nothing at all

You have a Slackware system... and you're trying to manage packages using kpackage... or apt-get... If this is a real situation you're really really really lost. You need to learn the Slackware tools, you need to change your mindset to that of Slackware (package management is probably not what you're used to) and, still, I don't think you can use the package manager to upgrade to a much newer Firefox version if you're running Slackware 10.2.

A starting point could be the slackbook. There's a chapter on package management: http://www.slackbook.org/html/index.html

Well Slackware package management uses it's own tools removepkg/installpkg/upgradepkg and not apt/get. Kpackage should work with some versions but personally I wouldn't recomend it.

Slackware just packages Firefox binaries into it's own package format so you should be able to install Firefox 3.0.4 from Slackware 12.2. This should work - it first removes the installed package in case of problems. Run this as root :
This shows how Slackware package management tools work.

Edit: Just saw rg3's post - good advice. Read that Slackbook.

thanks for the install help there... looks like a bunch of my packages are up to date so I'm having to install them by hand... so far cairo and pango... now it looks like STDC++ as well (that one I cant seem to find on the package site reference above)

You might want to have a look at slackpkg for download and install of packages.

ok, all packages are updated... the only error i get now when I run firefox from the console is:

Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified


and when I run it from within KDE, the firefox icon just bounces for a while (the cursor) and in the task area the icon for FF is a busy hour glass... then it just dumps out with no on screen errors

Have you tried installing a new firefox from a newer version of slackware to see if it will run? Maybe you need some newer versions of other stuff to run the latest firefox (like certain libraries or graphical environment).

Slackware is NOT the distribution of choice for people that want a package management system to take care of all the details for them. It IS a good choice for people that like to be in total control even if it means things won't work because they want incompatible versions.

Maybe you'd be better off with Debian or Ubuntu. Those and many other distributions will do things like check for required dependency packages, and upgrade them with the dependency requires a newer version. Slackware works the other way, giving you precise control over exactly what runs on your system, with the tradeoff that you have to make the correct decisions about what to install and what versions.

Slackware is the best choice for me for computers I use and have physical access to. For computers I administer without physical access, I find Debian to be a better choice. And for computers I set up for other people to use I find Ubuntu to be a better choice.

I take it you have installed the new version of Firefox and it's giving you problems. I'm sorry if my advice has given you a non working version of Firefox - however it was a small and trivial procedure to install the package itself. Perhaps other updates have taken up your time. I must admit I didn't really check this out as I thought it would be a minor chore. Also I don't have a running version of Slackware 10.2 to try out the newer version of Foxpro on.

Besides all that - why don't you upgrade the Slackware system itself to a new version? This would give you new versions of all your packages - Firefox included. Again - apologies if FF3 has given you grief ! I have an old box (PIII) which will run 12.2 no problem. Good luck with whatever you decide.

@bgeddy: no problem at all... between my workstation and my palm pre I still have browsing options, it's just nice to use the screen on the KVM while im standing there ya know?

@ska: I agree completely... I have used ubuntu and it's much more user friendly... I've used everything from RH, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, centOS and of course slack... It just so happens that this is what I setup ages back when i was first toying around with nix at home and never moved my dev stuff onto another server (lacking another box to setup another nix server made that a PITA)...never the less your input is appreciated

this is just more motivation to migrate my stuff as I've been intending to for over 3 years now