Installing Firefox from tar.gz

[peckinpah]

Hi everyone!

 

I am a Suse user for the past several months. I have upgraded Firefox several times in that distro without problems. My usual procedure is to download the tar.gz file from the Mozilla site, and unpack it using Ark to my Home directory. When I navigate to the folder I open the folder and click the file named "firefox" and the updated version starts up and I'm done.

 

Here in Mandriva, if I follow the same procedure, nothing happens when I click the file named "firefox" in the extracted folder. And I mean nothing, no error messages or any clue as to what went wrong. I also logged in as root, and extracted the file into /root/home and tried executing it and nothing happens there either.

 

I tried following the instructions on the Mozilla site, and they did not work either.

 

I should mention that I'm unfortunate enough to be on a dial-up connection, so updating through a package manger is not a realistic option, and since I already have the tar file I should not need to. Thanks in advance!

 

 

[moved from Software by spinynorman]

[ffi]

hi pekinpah welcome to mub, from a terminal navigate to the unpacked firefox folder and start it with:

 

./firefox

 

and post any error messages you get in the terminal here.

Edited March 19, 2007 by ffi

[peckinpah]

hi pekinpah welcome to mub, from a terminal navigate to the unpacked firefox folder and start it with:

 

./firefox

 

and post any error messages you get in the terminal here.

 

Thanks! I did the above and here's what I got:

 

./firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

[ffi]

you need to install the package libstdc++5, use easy-urpmi* to set up your sources, if you haven't already, and then from a terminal as root:

 

urpmi libstdc++5

 

*use the synthesis list if you are on dial-up as they are much smaller (~300kB compared to ~40MB)

Edited March 19, 2007 by ffi

[peckinpah]

Thanks! That did the trick. I was beginning to think it was impossible to modify the original software configuration of this distro. However, I'd still like to get a copy of libstdc++5 so I don't have to use the package manager at all when I reinstall.

 

This is because it seems a little unwise to be opening up my system to dozens and dozens of repos in different countries. I'm sure they are operated by very nice people, but if you trust enough of them, I think it's inevitable that one of them will try to install something "un-kosher" on someone's machine. It's just my nature I guess, to try to minimize my exposure to potential harm by keeping the number of trusted people to an absolute minimum.

[Jimtim]

I don't know how things are in Suse, but with Mandriva it's not usually a good idea to compile software. I'm a newbie myself, and I've made the mistake a couple of times now - and got myself into a bit of water because of it! The MCC is a very useful resource (isn't the equivalent YaST in Suse?) For Firefox, for instance, look under networking and www. Then scroll down the list to Mozilla-firefox 2.0.0.2.3 and click apply. MCC (or rather URPMI) will then download and install Firefox and it's dependencies. It's wonderful! (when the software you want is on it of course!)

[peckinpah]

In Suse they have Zen Updater which caused me tons of stress and almost made me lose my mind. So I switched to "Smart" which over my dial-up connection took 3 hours to get a list of available updates. Then downloading them took me a week of downloading all night to get 2/3rd's of the way done before I finally just gave up.

 

So what I do now is just send away by snail mail for the new distros as they are released, and hope my system is reasonably secure unpatched.

 

I am reinstalling right now on the machine from the original post. After I got Firefox 2 and urpmi libstdc++5 installed, my modem would not disconnect, and would continue downloading something at full speed long after I closed my browser.

[zibi1981]

I don't know how things are in Suse, but with Mandriva it's not usually a good idea to compile software.

 

I don't agree. I'm also a Linux neewbie (using it since November 2006), but since then I went through several successful compilations (including kernel). You can always encounter some issues (if so, why no to ask on this forum?), but mostly everything ended without problems. Of course using urpmi base is the easiest way, but I usually don't prefer going the easiest way :P

[neddie]

However, I'd still like to get a copy of libstdc++5 so I don't have to use the package manager at all when I reinstall.

If you want a local copy of the rpm, just look in /var/cache/urpmi or download a new copy from any of the public mirrors.

 

This is because it seems a little unwise to be opening up my system to dozens and dozens of repos in different countries.

Well I don't really think it's "opening up your system", you're still under control about which software to install and which not. And it's not really dozens of servers, you just need main and contrib (from a single well-known server) and the updates. Plus the plf stuff if you want it.

[AussieJohn]

I think what you are mistakenly referring to dozens of repos in different countries are in reality Mirrors synched to the original Mandriva website so they are to all intents and purposes carrying EXACTLY the same Mandriva rpm data.

Please forget your windows world and the paranoia it creates... this is not windows.

 

Cheers. John.

Edited March 20, 2007 by AussieJohn

[Guest hockeycop]

Okay, I found the forum, found the thread I needed, followed the instructions to get Firefox 2.0 up and running, but now I can only get 2.0 to start when I ./firefox from a terminal. How do I get the program to run from the icon in the top bar? Whenever I try that, it just reverts back to 1.5. Thanks.

[zibi1981]

You have to create a link to the newer version of Your Firefox browser, or change the path in Your old link, so that it could point to the binary file of FF 2.0, instead of 1.5.