Lost in the $PATH maze.

[onederer]

Hi,

 

Well, I did find an OS that works in my wife's computer. It's called Toorox, and originated from Germany. It is based on GENTOO.

 

After having trouble with the latest version of Kubuntu (the system was dragging in this 32-bit DELL), I decided to take the time to change out the current OS. After trying different OS's and all turned to be failures in this box, I ran a hard drive checker in both HD"s. They tested OK, but they failed to accept any OS installation. I had a brand "new" PATA" 2005 vintage 500GB hard drive that I could try. I finally labeled the two hard drives, as "JUNK", and set them aside.

After installing the new hard drive in the box, I found that TOOROX, gave me no resistance. I'm already familiar with Gentoo commands, so this OS offers no problem.

 

What I'm up against now, is the $PATH command(s). Originally, Firefox that came with the OS was of a 9.x version. I wanted a newer version, and wanted to place it where anyone can use it. So I installed it in the same directory as the original /opt/firefox. However, it did not overwrite the prior version, an now, I had two "firefoxes's to deal with. And the second newer one, was giving me trouble, with an error message that it couldn't access the firefox server to maintain my settings. I thought that this was a bad download, and finally decided to download BETA version 11 of firefox. So now, I have 3 versions of Firefox to deal with. I only want the last one to be selected for usage. I tried different ways of using $PATH without any success, so only one version would be selected.

 

Here's the setup. the FF's are in: /opt/firefox/firefox/firefox. The first 2 ff's are directories. The last one is the ff that activates ff.bin. And in a terminal all I need to call out is cd /opt and then /firefox/firefox/firefox. And voila, the browser has started.

 

Can any one of you show me how to get this going by simply pointing the mouse to the ff icon, clicking on it, and the browser with start like normally it should? I tried to show the wife the way I was doing it, and it simply doesn't sink in! All she knows is how to click on an icon to activate an application. Yeah! I really need help on this one!

 

Cheers!

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Looks like they're using Gnome 3.x as a default desktop manager. Is that correct? Also, how is FF getting installed in /opt. It all of the distros I use or have tested, FF's executable is always in /usr/bin and is accessible by any user. My FF icon on my panels or in my programs menu is just a link to /usr/bin/firefox.

 

Are you installing from repo? Or compiling FF from downloads at Moz's site?

[onederer]

Looks like they're using Gnome 3.x as a default desktop manager. Is that correct? Also, how is FF getting installed in /opt. It all of the distros I use or have tested, FF's executable is always in /usr/bin and is accessible by any user. My FF icon on my panels or in my programs menu is just a link to /usr/bin/firefox.

 

Are you installing from repo? Or compiling FF from downloads at Moz's site?

 

Hi,

 

The first version came with Tooox, was a 9.x version. I had FF #2 compiled from the Gentoo Repo. That was also a 9.x version. So I went to the Firefox web page and downloaded the latest stable version. The problem is that the download goes into the "Downloads" folder. That's where I get confused, when it comes to unraveling it, and which folder that I should put it in to do that. When I download something like that, I never get the results that I need. So I parked it in /opt/firefox, and un-tar-red it. The FF icon never relinked to the unraveled new Firefox. When un-tar-'d, FF is executable in text form only. No further process is knowingly available that I know of to complete the entire process. And that is why I'm here to complete what I started. Where and how do I link the icon to FF? Where should I park the tar version before untarring it? This drives me crazy! In Windows, an *.exe file does the job completely, no fuss, no muss. One never knows what the final results will be with tarballs. There used to be a script file for FF that did the entire job, but I don't find that anymore with the latest downloads. If the updates aren't done with the OS itself

, it can be quite frustrating. To run FF right now, I have to use a console, and type: "

/opt/firefox/firefox/firefox"

. The last one is the executable file. This totally confuses the wife, of having to use a console and typing those commands.

 

When I untarred the 1st dowloaded version, and ran it from the xterm, it was giving me errors that it was unable to reach the server to install my attachments and setups. I though that the FF download was probably tainted, so I decided to provide the wife with the FF ver.11 beta. That beta version did the same thing.

 

All the versions now live in /opt/firefox/.... One FF file into the another FF file. I tried to use $PATH to set things up so the pointer would work, but that failed. So now I leave it up to you to pls. straighten this out. I'm lost on this one.

 

I think that Gentoo is not keeping up to date. There was an error warning that the "world" update application was broken. And I was surprised to find out that the FF 9.x was offered when I downloaded it. I thought that Gentoo was supposed to be on the bleeding edge, and was supposed to be a rolling distro.

 

Cheers!

[V.T. Eric Layton]

You can leave the FF download in your user's download folder. Untar it there as your regular user. Once you have the untar'd file sitting there in your downloads directory, just become root in the terminal, and then copy the new FF directory to /opt, if that's where you want it. You can also put it in /usr/lib, or /usr/share, etc. If it's easier for you to do it graphically, just type nautilus into the command line as root. Once the file manager starts up as root, just navigate, R-click, Copy/Paste to destination directory, as you normally would as a regular user.

 

If you're using Gnome, just RIGHT click on the FF icon that is in your panel already (the one that pointed to the original FF) and choose Properties or whatever it's called in Gnome. It might be "Edit" or something like that. A little window will come up with the command needed to start FF. It's probably /usr/bin/firefox or just firefox (/usr/bin is assumed automatically when no path is given). If so, just edit it to /opt/firefox/firefox... that is if /opt is where you copied your untar'd FF directory to.

 

Clear as tapioca pudding, eh?

[onederer]

You can leave the FF download in your user's download folder. Untar it there as your regular user. Once you have the untar'd file sitting there in your downloads directory, just become root in the terminal, and then copy the new FF directory to /opt, if that's where you want it. You can also put it in /usr/lib, or /usr/share, etc. If it's easier for you to do it graphically, just type nautilus into the command line as root. Once the file manager starts up as root, just navigate, R-click, Copy/Paste to destination directory, as you normally would as a regular user.

 

If you're using Gnome, just RIGHT click on the FF icon that is in your panel already (the one that pointed to the original FF) and choose Properties or whatever it's called in Gnome. It might be "Edit" or something like that. A little window will come up with the command needed to start FF. It's probably /usr/bin/firefox or just firefox (/usr/bin is assumed automatically when no path is given). If so, just edit it to /opt/firefox/firefox... that is if /opt is where you copied your untar'd FF directory to.

 

Clear as tapioca pudding, eh?

 

Thanks! I'll let you know how the tapioca tasted, when I'm finished.

It's supposed to be Gnome, but I saw no trademarks that it really is in the active OS. I think that they used a different boot manager this time. It looks like GRUB, and is very plain, but it works!