{"id":1978,"date":"2009-08-04T03:41:07","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T11:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=1978"},"modified":"2010-03-29T01:33:42","modified_gmt":"2010-03-29T09:33:42","slug":"installing-firefox-3-5-under-red-hat-enterprise-linux-5-x","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=1978","title":{"rendered":"Installing Firefox 3.5 under Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you're actually trying to install another version of Firefox, then click on the Firefox<\/q> tag<\/a>, as there may be an entry on that other version.<\/p>

Firefox<\/a> 3.5.2 has been released. I imagine that someone will soon provide an .rpm<\/code>; but, for now, Red Hat users will have to install things from a tarball. Since a fair number of the hits to this 'blog are from searches as to how to install Firefox 3.0 under RHEL<\/abbr> 5.x<\/a>, I'm going to infer that people are and will be surfing the WW<\/abbr>Web for instructions on how to install Firefox<\/a> 3.5 under RHEL<\/abbr> 5.x.<\/p>

My first piece of advice is that one not<\/em> install Firefox<\/a> 3.5.1<\/em>. When I tried using it, it would do something that caused the Linux user account to be logged-out. However, I've being trying version 3.5.2<\/em>, and so far I've not had that problem with it. [Up-Date<\/span><\/span> (2009:08\/17):<\/span> Unfortunately, I have since had some problems with version 3.5.2<\/em> logging me out of the system, and on one occasion it screw-up the display resolution. But these problems have not been so frequent as to move me to stop using this version.]<\/span> That said, here are the steps that I recommend:<\/p>

  1. Download the archive, firefox-3.5.n<\/var>.tar.bz2<\/a>.<\/li>
  2. The tarball contains a directory, firefox<\/code>, which should be dropped-in as a sub-directory of something<\/em>. If you want to ponder<\/em> where, then study the FHS<\/abbr><\/a>. As for me, as root<\/em>, I put it in \/opt<\/code>:
    tar -xjvf firefox-3.5.n<\/var><\/u>.tar.bz2 -C \/opt\/<\/code><\/blockquote> (Replace that n<\/var><\/q> with the actual number from the archive that you downloaded.)<\/li>
  3. Make sure that you have compat-libstdc++-33<\/code> (a Gnome C++ compatibility library):
    rpm -qa | grep compat-libstdc++-33<\/code><\/blockquote> If not, then as root<\/em> install it:
    yum install compat-libstdc++-33<\/code><\/blockquote><\/li>
  4. To avoid conflicts with SE<\/abbr>Linux<\/a>, as root<\/em> run
    chcon<\/a> -t textrel_shlib_t \/opt\/firefox\/libxul.so<\/code><\/blockquote> (If you didn't install the directory in \/opt<\/code>, or renamed the firefox<\/code> directory, then you'll need to modify the above final argument to chcon<\/code><\/a> accordingly.)<\/li>
  5. You'll need a .desktop<\/code> file<\/a> for Firefox<\/a> (though you may already have one). As root<\/em>, edit\/create \/usr\/share\/applications\/firefox.desktop<\/code>, ensuring that it reads
    [Desktop Entry]\r\nCategories=Application;Network;X-Red-Hat-Base;\r\nType=Application\r\nEncoding=UTF-8\r\nName=Firefox\r\nComment='WWW browser'\r\nExec='\/opt\/firefox\/firefox'\r\nIcon='\/opt\/firefox\/icons\/mozicon128.png'\r\nTerminal=false<\/pre><\/blockquote> (Again, if you didn't install in \/opt<\/code>, or changed the name of the firefox<\/code> directory, then you'll need to change the above accordingly.)<\/li>
  6. Log out and back in or restart the system (to up-date the GUI<\/abbr>).<\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you're actually trying to install another version of Firefox, then click on the Firefox tag, as there may be an entry on that other version. Firefox 3.5.2 has been released. I imagine that someone will soon provide an .rpm; but, for now, Red Hat users will have to install things from a tarball. Since […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,104,4],"tags":[253,72,140,143,142,141],"class_list":["post-1978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information-technology","category-news","category-public","tag-firefox","tag-linux","tag-red-hat","tag-redhat","tag-rhel","tag-selinux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}