Peter Van Lone wrote:
On 10/24/06, Basil Chupin <blchupin@tpg.com.au> wrote:
You know, it's dead simple to "install" v2.0--or any other version--without waiting for a rpm from SUSE. You can "install" it without touching your existing installation of FF which comes with SUSE.
Let me know if you want to know how and I'll repeat what I posted here a few years ago about how to do it.
please, do
I hope that I haven't missed too much. If I have or something is not clear then let me know. BEGIN This assumes that you are the only user of the computer and that a copy of Firefox was already installed during the installation of OpenSUSE 10.1. It also assumes that you have at least a rudimentary knowledge of how to use Midnight Comander (mc) - one of the most essentials tools in SUSE (but not available in distros like kubuntu 6.10!). All operations are performed as <user> and not as root. Go to- http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/2.0/linux-i686/... and download the tar.gz file. (If you want to use the very latest, bleeding edge version which is work-in-progress but still more than usable then go to- http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla1.8/fir... and download the nightly build (which is what I normally do every day).) Open a terminal window (click on the TV icon bottom, left in the quick-launch tray) and launch Midnight Commander by typing mc . In your /home/<user>/ directory create a directory called /temp0. (You can call it whatever you want but this is what I call mine.) Copy the downloaded tar.gz file into this /temp0 directory. Highlight this file (click on it) and press the F2 key; select the 'z' option and either press <RETURN> or double click on the 'z'. This will untar the file and put everything into another directory. Go into this newly created directory - for example, firefox-2.0 - under /temp0 and there will be a directory called /firefox. /firefox contains all the executables for firefox. (All settings/themes/extensions are stored in /.mozilla.) You should now have under /temp0 a directory /firefox-2.0/firefox after you have un-tared the downloaded file. This /firefox directory (and its contents) you will move shortly to your main /home/<user> directory using the F6 key, but before doing this you need, for safety's sake, to backup your /.mozilla directory just in case something goes wrong. If you have another HD installed which has a partition formatted in a Linux format then copy the whole of /.mozilla there. Use the F5 key in mc to do this. Otherwise create, say, another temporary directory in /home/<user>--eg, temp1-- and copy /.mozilla into it. Remember, this backup is only a precautionary measure because normally nothing goes wrong with the installation of the new version of Firefox. But "Assumption is the mother of all cockups". Once you have done the backup of /.mozilla directory, MOVE the /firefox directory (/firefox-2.0/firefox) into /home/<user> using the F6 key in mc. NOTE: If you already have a /firefox directory from an earlier installation (eg, from the daily nightlies) then either DELETE this old /firefox directory or MOVE it to wherever you backed-up the /.mozilla directory a few minutes ago--again this is only a precautionary measure. Alright, now you have moved the /firefox-2.0/firefox directory to /home/<user> and because you are doing this installation for the first time you now need to set things up so that you can run Firefox from the desktop. Either exit mc and the terminal window to get back to your desktop or go to another desktop (click on another desktop icon in the system tray). Right-click on an empty part of the desktop and in the dropdown menu select Create New->Link to Application. Name the application Firefox and click on the icon; in the menu which appears select Other Icons then Browse and browse to /home/<user>/firefox/icons and select mozilla128.png. Click on the Application tab and in the Command box Browse to /home/<user>/firefox and select 'firefox' (the file has a black square inside the page icon next to it). Click OK, and you will be back on the desktop with the new Firefox icon showing somewhere around the middle of the screen. This is icon you will now use to start (the new version of) Firefox. DO NOT CLICK ON THIS ICON TO START (THE NEW) FIREFOX UNLESS YOU HAVE MADE A BACKUP OF /HOME/<USER>/.MOZILLA as mentioned above; starting the new Firefox if it is a version/generation-jump may alter your current settings in the current /.mozilla directory. There is on last thing to be done before starting Firefox. Open again a terminal window and start mc (Midnight Commander). In /.mozilla there should be a a directory called /plugins. If there isn't one then create one (press F7 and type in plugins ). Enter this directory in the lefthand panel of mc. TAB across to the righthand panel of mc and navigate to /usr/lib/browser-plugins directory. COPY all the plugins shown there to the /home/<user>/.mozilla/plugins directory. Do this by pressing CTRL and the + key, all the plugins will be highlighted in yellow; press F5 and they will be copied to the plugins directory under /.mozilla. You are now ready to run the new version of Firefox. Exit mc (F10) and exit terminal window. (To save typing etc you can simply click on the X (top, righthand), the 'normal' way to exit an application.) Click on the (new) Firefox icon on the desktop and Firefox will start up. Usually, but not always--this depends on how much of a difference there is between the original installed version of Firefox and the new one--when the new Firefox starts it will check to see if the extensions and themes you are using are compatible with the version of Firefox you just installed, and--if you are already connected to the Internet--it will also check and download from mozilla.org any upgrades to the extensions/themes. If everything was installed correctly, the new Firefox will work without problems. I install daily the nightly releases and over the years that I have been doing this I have only had 2 or 3 'bummers' and had to revert back to the previous night's version. (This is where doing a backup of the /.mozilla and /firefox directories in /home/<user> come in handy.) To check that all the plugins are in place, when Firefox starts, type "about:plugins" [without the quotes] in the URL box. This will bring up on the screen all the plugins which are currently installed. If you think there are something wrong here then you need to check the contents of the /.mozilla/plugins directory and possibly adjust any symlinks, for example. That's all there is to installing a tar.gz copy of Firefox from mozilla.org rather than wait for an rpm to be produced. However, now we have a slight 'blotch' on the desktop: we have 2 icons for Firefox- the 'old' and the 'new' Firefox, and more than likely both have the same icon picture. The obvious thing to do is to simply delete (send to the Wastebin) the old icon and retain the new one. I suggest doing this otherwise you may get confused and start the 'wrong' version of Firefox which may affect/reset the settings stored in /.mozilla. NOTE: deleting the old icon for Firefox does not remove the original version of Firefox (which is still installed in /usr/lib/firefox) and if you want to fallback to this old version then all you have to do is to alter the link (command line) in the desktop icon for Firefox to point to /usr/lib/firefox. NOTE: if you decide to completely delete the old Firefox (installed during the installation of SUSE) then you have to do it in the normal way, for example through YOU/smart/zmd/or-whatever. But do NOT do this until you install the new Firefox as described above otherwise you will/may lose the data in the /usr/lib/browser-plugins directory which needs to be copied to /.mozilla/plugins! --------------------------------------- The above steps are also applicable to installing Thunderbird--except that you do not have a plugins directory to worry about in Thunderbird. Also, Thunderbird is not installed as part of the installation of SUSE so you can simply install the latest version of Thunderbird from mozilla.org as described above and once you actually start Thunderbird from the desktop it will create the /.thunderbird directory in your /home/<user> directory with a brand new profile ready to be populated. I also install everyday the latest nightly build of Thunderbird. Installing both Firefox and Thunderbird takes less than 1 1/2 minutes once both have been downloaded from mozilla.org. END Cheers. -- I'm dangerous when I know what I'm doing.