[rhn-users] firefox and yum

[Máirín Duffy]

Paula J. Lindsay wrote:
> Thank you Mairin and Herta for you response.  Here is the result from my
> up2date -i firefox, this was the first
> thing I tried:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> [paula at rocky paula]$ up2date -i firefox
> Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: rhel-x86_64-ws-3...
> Fetching rpm headers...
> Name                                    Version        Rel    
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> The following packages you requested were not found:
> firefox
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> This is why I wanted to use yum.
I don't understand
> why "packages requested were not found."  

I just checked and realized that Firefox is not part of RHEL 3. It was
first added to Enterprise Linux in RHEL 4.

So you have a couple of options:

1) Red Hat Supported Way

Don't install firefox, but instead install mozilla. This is a
fully-supported browser in RHEL 3 and is pretty similar to firefox. You
can do this by running:

up2date -i mozilla

2) Unsupported Way

You don't need to install yum to be able to use yum repos to install
firefox. If you look at /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources, that is where you
can add them. For example, RPMforge has a firefox rpm available for RHEL
3. There are some instructions on how to add RPMforge's yum repository
for RHEL 3 here:

http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/FAQ.php#B5

Basically you add the following line to /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources:

yum dag http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el3/en/$ARCH/dag

Please understand though, that if you run into problems with packages
from this repository, you'll be running bits on your RHEL system that
were not Red Hat provided thus they are not supported by Red Hat. Also
understand that if your system is already configured to receive packages
from other repositories that are not compatible with each other, it can
mess up your system pretty badly and will likely result in your having
to freshly reinstall the system in order to repair it.

> I got
> firefox from RHN, but it isn't an rpm.  It's a complete
> directory. 

Can you provide a link to where you obtained this from? Firefox isn't
actually a part of RHEL 3 so I am confused as to how you would have
gotten it from RHN? I'm also confused how you would get a version of
Firefox from RHN that is not an RPM? We only ship software in RHN via
RPM and on ISO images...

> In the directory I run ./firefox and get that
> gtk error.  

In what directory?

It appears that firefox has been installed by hand, outside of the RPM
database. Is this in a terminal you are running this?

> When I go to the console and run ./firefox,
> it takes me to google.... 

So firefox is popping up and bringing you to google? Doesn't that mean
it is working? I don't understand how you can be taken to google without
an installed and operational browser?

> I don't know why this is so hard.
> One of my colleagues said "welcome to the linux world."
> But I've been working with linux for over a year and
> have never encountered this. 

It could be you haven't had much experience installing software on Linux
yet? You could have a year or so of experience using Linux without
having to deal too much with this. Package management can be complicated
/ overwhelming at first but there are a lot of basic tools that make it
easy if you know about them.

If you'd like to read up and learn more about some of these things
you're running into, Red Hat provides the book 'Maximum RPM' by Edward
Bailey for free on our website:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/books/max-rpm/max-rpm-html/

I think the first chapter of that book would be pretty helpful for you
to understand what's going on. Another place that has some good
information is the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 System Administrator's Guide:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-3-Manual/sysadmin-guide/pt-pkg-management.html

Hope this helps,
~m