[Novices] downloaded firefox

[Kevin Wixson]

Excellent answer Adam. I really appreciate the way you approached answering
this question. It's apparent that you are skilled at training and assisting new
users in an effective way; a rare quality.

So, say I have SuSe 9.1 Pro, with KDE, and I want to install Firefox and 
Thunderbird.
How do I identify the appropriate downloads, and once I have them what do I 
do with
them?


At 05:25 AM 12/30/2004, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:

> > I just downloaded firefox 1.0 to my desktop to try, but understand it is
> > some zipped file.  When I clicked on it I expected some kind of Wizard
> > (I know, bad word) to lead me through the install.  Not so.  I just got
> > a box with file names in it.  How do I turn this in to a Icon/working
> > program?
>
>What you probably downloaded is a 'tarball'.  This is only for those who
>for some sick-n-twisted reason either (a) want to build the thing
>themseleves because they need some bizarre option or (b) are masochistic
>enough to use a distribution that doesn't do package management.
>
>On Windows a software package is expected to install itself, but
>providing a setup.exe or whatnot that does *something*.  The 'something'
>is the problem and one of the reasons Windows is always mucked up.
>
>On a good Linux distribution (Fedora, SuSe, Debian, etc...) installation
>and removal of software is managed by a centralized package management
>system.  Called RPM or APT usually.
>
>What you want to find is an RPM (assuming Fedora or SuSe) appropriate
>for you system; this you will be able to install without incident and
>will 'just work'.
>
>Post what distribution you are using and I'll be able to tell you where
>to go look (or how to look using software already on your system).
>
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>
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Kevin C. Wixson
kevin at wixsonit.com
http://www.revolvingdesign.com
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