[Discuss] Firefox with RedHat Fedora

[Murray Strome]

Alan W. Irwin wrote:
>
> Of course, none of this smooth install dependency functionality works
> properly if you are buggering your system by installing packages from
> another distro or a different version of your existing distro.  Don't use
> Ford parts to attempt to fix a Toyota!  In fact, don't use Toyota 1983 
> parts
> to attempt to fix a 2007 Toyota!
>
> Alan
This is all great if what you want is simply available and ready-made 
for your distribution.  However, what if you want an application that is 
NOT available on the repositories for your (or perhaps ANY) distro -- 
e.g. Koha (library package)? There sure was nothing like a simple 
apt-get or rpm that would install it a year ago when I wanted it.  The 
only distribution that I could find that had a hope of working was plain 
Debian.  For that, someone had written out a detailed, very lengthy 
(several pages) set of instructions on how to download and install all 
the MANY prerequisites and in what order, and how to get it working. I 
did succeed, but it took several days to go through everything. 
Sometimes I had to go back and almost start over because I had 
accidentally missed a step, mistyped something or had done something out 
of order.

I tried following and adapting these instructions to both Mandriva and 
Kubuntu, but never succeeded.  I should also mention, with thanks,  that 
I did get a lot of help from VLUG members in dealing with all the 
Python, SQL, Apache and other issues involved. I would also like to 
point out that I had NO interest in learning the vagaries of any of 
those, but had to learn a little (which I have long since forgotten) in 
order to get it working. To be fair, I also tried to get it working on 
Windows and that was even more hopeless.

Regarding the automobile analogy -- for those old codgers like me, 
wasn't it nice when cars were so simple that almost anyone could easily 
fix most problems, and you could even use Ford parts for a GM quite 
often?  I especially remember a very old lawn tractor I bought in 
Petawawa (I think it was a White). It was at least 30 years old, and the 
company had been sold over and over again.  When something complex on it 
broke, much to my delight, I was able to buy a part for their latest 
successor model which was a perfect match for the ancient one, and was 
in stock at the local dealer! If only cars were made that way today.

I will also say that Mandriva 2007 is MUCH better at dealing with the 
dependency issues than were previous versions (as I have noticed when 
doing updates using the packaging tools). 

So I have a question for you Alan.  Let's use some simple, frequently 
used applications like GIMP, Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice.  From 
what I have seen, most distributions do not have the latest versions. 
Now consider Firefox.  In Windows, if you want the latest version, you 
just click on "Help" and "Check for Updates", and it will update to the 
latest version, deleting whatever is necessary and giving you a clean 
install of the latest version and also checking all the 
extensions/plugins for compatibility.  This option is not available for 
LINUX, at least not up to 1.5.0.9.  If you look for updates on the 
repositories, the latest version is rarely there. In the case of 
Mandriva (and Red Hat), 1.5.0.9 is the latest, but if you want 2.0, 
unless I am missing something,  you have to download it from the Mozilla 
website, and it is not in either rpm or deb format. If you install it 
from the Mozilla website, you are supposed to first delete the old 
Firefox and all its files and directories (except the ones with your 
personal settings), then download and install the new version. Then the 
package manager doesn't know that you installed it. Plus at that point, 
you have to remember to fix the  usr.js script so that Thunderbird will 
open Firefox (or a new tab if it is already running).  This all means 
that you have to remember where all the files are in the first place, 
including where the installer put things like the plugins which usually 
is somewhere different than where the executable file is located.

I know that in Debian (and presumably Ubuntu/Kubuntu) there ARE 
repositories that contain more up to date applications. There may be 
similar things for Mandriva -- but unless someone tells you about them, 
how are you supposed to know what and where they are? Also, for example, 
if you include the"Universe" for apt-get in Debian where some of the 
later stuff resides, there are lots of warnings about dangers involved 
in downloading from there, if I remember correctly from my Koha experience.

Sometimes people also ask the same question simply because they cannot 
remember the answer they got two or three years ago (or even if they 
asked it in the first place) and cannot find it in the archives or 
through the search engines or where they wrote it down or recorded it on 
their own computer.  You may even find that happening to you some day as 
you get older.

I do thank you, Alan, for your patience and for the many times you have 
helped me in the past. That goes for all the other very helpful VLUG 
people.

There was a time when I was quite expert with UNIX, but can no longer 
remember most of what I once knew (I cannot even remember how to change 
the command line prompt in a terminal to look like what I would prefer, 
how to use SED and AWK,  and I even have to look up how to tar and gzip 
things then extract them again from the command line as I cannot usually 
cannot remember it from the last time I used it a few months before).

Murray