Newbie Question: Installing Firefox

[Moz]

Hello,

First of all may I say how very impressed I am by the depth and
thoroughness of the replies in this group. It is heartening to one
who wishes to enter - and stay in - the world of open source to see
that there is a place to go for help. I promise to try not to take
advantage. I have only had Linux installed for about 2 hours, but
it's staying. Right now I'm using my old laptop as I haven't been
able to configure a newsgroup reader yet. That being said, I do have
a question.

I installed Mandrake 10.1 on a Dell computer (pretty standard parts)
with a Pentium III and 192 MB of ram. Using Konquerer I went to the
Mozilla site and downloaded both Firefox and Thunderbird. I intend
to use the former as my web browser and the latter for email and
newsgroups (comments on these choices are welcome). I can not find
instructions on their site as to how I install these things. As soon
as it's open I will go to Barnes and Noble to pick up a book to
assist me with this sort of thing, but I thought perhaps someone here
might point me in the right direction.

Thank you!

[Bit Twister]

Post by Moz
I can not find
instructions on their site as to how I install these things.

Things like that are called frequently asked questions (FAQ)
So looking at http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
we see a section labeled Resources and Links there you find FAQ

For Firefox on http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
you will find Firefox Help under the same section which will take you
to a page with

Have a Specific Question?

Basic instructions for installing Firefox can be found in the
release notes.

If you will notice release notes is a link.

[Moz]

Post by Bit Twister

Post by Moz
I can not find
instructions on their site as to how I install these things.

Things like that are called frequently asked questions (FAQ)
So looking at http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
we see a section labeled Resources and Links there you find FAQ
For Firefox on http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
you will find Firefox Help under the same section which will take you
to a page with
Have a Specific Question?
Basic instructions for installing Firefox can be found in the
release notes.
If you will notice release notes is a link.

Wow! Thank you for the remarkably quick reply. You are quite right
that the answer for Firefox was in the release notes, I incorrectly
assumed that they were like a traditional 'readme' file that is
displayed after installing a program under Windows. I was wrong and I
thank you for setting me straight.

Unfortunately the Thunderbird release notes only say:

<<<
Other Platforms
Extract the compressed archive and run thunderbird
This is not terribly helpful to those of use who have no idea (yet!)
of how to extract the archive.

Thanks again...

[Bit Twister]

Post by Moz
<<<
Other Platforms
Extract the compressed archive and run thunderbird
This is not terribly helpful to those of use who have no idea (yet!)
of how to extract the archive.

Then you use the command
tar zxvf name_of_archive.tar.gz

[Matt Barnes]

Post by Moz

Post by Bit Twister

Post by Moz
I can not find
instructions on their site as to how I install these things.

Things like that are called frequently asked questions (FAQ)
So looking at http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
we see a section labeled Resources and Links there you find FAQ
For Firefox on http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
you will find Firefox Help under the same section which will take

you

Post by Bit Twister
to a page with
Have a Specific Question?
Basic instructions for installing Firefox can be found in the
release notes.
If you will notice release notes is a link.

Wow! Thank you for the remarkably quick reply. You are quite right
that the answer for Firefox was in the release notes, I incorrectly
assumed that they were like a traditional 'readme' file that is
displayed after installing a program under Windows. I was wrong and I
thank you for setting me straight.
<<<
Other Platforms
Extract the compressed archive and run thunderbird
This is not terribly helpful to those of use who have no idea (yet!)
of how to extract the archive.
Thanks again...

gzip nameoffile.tar.gz
tar -xf nameoffile.tar

then open the folder and run the program by typeing ./firefox (for
firefox) and ./thunderbird

[Morten Juhl Johansen]

Den Sun, 31 Oct 2004 09:26:12 -0600. skrev Moz:
<snippety>

Post by Moz
<<<
Other Platforms
Extract the compressed archive and run thunderbird
This is not terribly helpful to those of use who have no idea (yet!)
of how to extract the archive.
Thanks again...

The ThunderBird FAQ actually does not make sense for a multi-platform mail
client. The FAQ features the question: "How do I install Mozilla
Thunderbird?" with the answer "For Windows, unzip the file into a folder
of your choosing. Launch thunderbird.exe." Thank you, immensely useful...
if you are one. Usually mozilla.org detects one's system type, but I
picked this info up using Firefox on Linux.

Anyway,
if you download the latest 1.0 version, you get a tar.gz file.
You should hit the terminal/command line - I believe it is Konsole in
Mandrake - and untar (=>unpack) the file with the command:
tar -zxvf thunderbird-1.0.tar.gz
This will create a thunderbird folder in the folder you unpack the file.
And, well, that's pretty much it. you can then run the ThunderBird executable
with the command:
./thunderbird
from within the folder. If you want to create a keyboard or toolbar
shortcut to it, it should simply point to this executable.
There is no installation into the system as such.

What you have now is basically a folder you can put anywhere. Example:
I downloaded it - I have a folder called /home/morten/downloads/ which is
my default FireFox download folder - and untarred it and came up with the
folder /home/morten/downloads/thunderbird/. In this case, if I wanted to
create a desktop/toolbar shortcut to it, I should link to the executable
"thunderbird", meaning the shortcut should point to
/home/morten/downloads/thunderbird/thunderbird. Also, in the untarred
thunderbird folder, there is a folder called icons, so you can get the
correct icon for your shortcut there. Now, I didn't really want it there.
One's e-mail client in the Download folder doesn't make sense... so I put
it in the /opt folder, which is the tradional folder for programs
not installed by default. I moved it as root (administrator/superuser), as
the normal user doesn't have permission to do this. Of course, you could
just create a /home/your_name/programs/ folder and put the thunderbird
folder in that. Where you put the program folder is not very important,
since it will look for or create a mail file in your Home directory. So if
the path is right, there is no problem.
The path to the mail file can be seen in ThunderBird at edit > account
settings > Local Folders.

Best of luck!

[Mark Hobley]

Post by Moz
I installed Mandrake 10.1 on a Dell computer (pretty standard parts)

I am sure that Firefox and Thunderbird are part of Mandrake.

I used Mandrake before I switched to Debian. I know my friend has firefox on
his Mandrake machine, and he is a Windows user, so he definately wouldn't have
known how to compile and install a program from source on Linux.

There is a package manangement program with Mandrake.

Choose this, then search for mozilla in the package name.

The option to install firefox and thunderbird will be provided.

Regards,

Mark.
--
Mark Hobley
393 Quinton Road West
QUINTON
Birmingham
B32 1QE

Reply to: markhobley at hotpop dot do_not_type_this_bit com

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