February 15th, 2005
In the true style of *nix, I like to focus on achieving one task with one solution. So here it is.
So some of you might be thinking that this is a non-task. Just emerge this or apt-get that, but this solution, unlike the aforementioned, is cross distro. In addition some people are getting error messages using Slackware and other like distros when they shouldn’t be, like:
Could not locate xpistub
Assuming you are using an i686 machine the main problem is with the installer. Now hidden away in the depths of the Mozilla ftp server there will be a plain vanilla version of Firefox that works out of the tin. Just point your non-Firefox browser at the ftp Firefox folder and select your desired language. Now don’t download the tarball with “installer” slapped on the front of it, download firefox-1.0.tar.gz.
Of course this post wont always keep up to date with the latest releases, so just poke around in the “releases” section of the ftp server to make sure you’re getting the newest version, then repeat the steps as outlined in the paragraph above.
After downloading the Firefox tarball (if you’re really lost, type “man wget”) move it into your /usr/local directory (or wherever you store your programs):
mv firefox-1.0.tar.gz /usr/local
And untar and unzip as usual:
tar -xvzf firefox-1.0.tar.gz
You can clean up the tarball if you like by
rm firefox-1.0.tar.gz
Then delve into the directory, and execute the file!
cd firefox
./firefox
Another handy thing to do would be to make a symbolic link in your /usr/local/bin directory, so that you can start Firefox with just a firefox at the Bash prompt (assuming your $PATH variable is set to include that):
cd /usr/local/bin
ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox
So maybe this post is overkill, but with all the newbies (me!) getting into Linux, I feel the need to add some coherent, simple-to-follow guides to the documentation effort. So enjoy! And if the above doesn’t work, stfn!
I think a guide to customising Bash and various environmental variables like $PATH would be a prudent decision for a further post…
Well I’m off to London tomorrow, so see you all in a few days! As usual, leave a comment if you found this post helpful or annoying (it sure beats reading online casino spam)
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:52 pm
Update:
Obviously this post has dated, and Firefox has a higher version number, to make sure you have the very latest version when clicking on the “ftp” server link, go to “A Higher Level Directory” to “releases”. Then choose the appropriate up-to-date version of Firefox, making sure you don’t select the installer tar file.