Tip - how to install FC3's Firefox 1.0 (final) RPM on FC2

[rkl]

It does appear that the Fedora Core team have abandoned building any of the 1.X releases of Firefox or Thunderbird for FC2, despite FC2 not being moved to Fedora Legacy until 11th April 2005 (and there being "official" working FC3 versions out there). Just re-building the binary RPMs on FC2 using the FC3 .src.rpm's doesn't work - the problem is that there are something like 8 other dependency packages that you have to either update to FC3 versions (again, the Fedora Core folks don't seem to want to upgrade those on FC2 either) or - in the case of libstc++34 - make sure you have at least the FC2 version installed. These are:

libstc++34 - just "yum install libstc++34" if you don't have this already installed - the FC2 version will do (I haven't tried the FC3 version in FC2).

The remaining 7 dependencies must be the FC3 versions (don't issue an rpm command yet, just download them):

desktop-file-utils 0.9.2
freetype 2.1.9
freetype-demos 2.1.9
freetype-devel 2.1.9
freetype-utils 2.1.9
pango 1.6.0
pango-devel 1.6.0

Now get the FC3 apps you're after (download only):

Mozilla 1.7.6 (download the mozilla*.rpm files - you don't need the -devel RPMs though)
firefox 1.0.2
Thunderbird 1.0.2
If you're running Mozilla, Firefox or Thunderbird, close them down and then install all the RPMs you downloaded in one go (as root):

rpm -Uvh *.rpm

You should then be able to run "mozilla", "firefox" and "thunderbird" OK on FC2. Of course, if you can upgrade to FC3 (we can't at work without a lot of upheaval), then go that route instead, but at least this way, FC2 users don't have to rot with pre-1.0 versions of Firefox and Thunderbird any more.

It should be noted that the pango/freetype updates seemed to bork my preferred terminal font (Lucida Typewriter 9), but I'd rather just choose another font than lag waaay behind on Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird releases. Also note that forthcoming FC3 RPM updates (and maybe even FC4 RPM updates!) of Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird may work out of the box on FC2 after doing the above upgrades, so FC2 might still have some life in the old warhorse yet...

[alandd]

This procedure did not work for me. I got a dependency error, as below.

# rpm -Uvh desktop-file-utils-0.9-2.i386.rpm firefox-1.0-2.fc3.i386.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
libstdc++.so.6 is needed by firefox-1.0-2.fc3
libstdc++.so.6(GLIBCXX_3.4) is needed by firefox-1.0-2.fc3
#

Looking around, I find:
# find /usr/lib -iname libstdc*
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.3.3/libstdc++.so
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.3.3/libstdc++.a
/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5
/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5.0.5
#

So, how do I get the above procedure to work on my FC2? Or, where do I go to get a Firefox 1.0 RPM for FC2?

[fryem720]

alandd: I had the same problem, but I discovered it trying to install the firefox rpm for fc2 from the fedora-redhat development tree. In any event, I just this minute found the solution. Install the desktop-file-utils rpm as mentioned by rkl. Then download the libstdc++34 rpm. You can find it on any of the mirrors listed here:

http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat....i386.rpm.html

Install the libstdc++34 rpm, THEN install the firefox fc3 rpm. When I did this, I saw some error messages at the end of the install, but the program works fine. I would guess the error messages resulted either from my computer's own quirky configuration OR the installation looking for non-critical fc3-specific resources to which it was reaching out.

I hope this helps!

[alandd]

As you mentioned, the procedure you describe produced some errors. Here is what I did and what was printed as a result (The '#' is the root user prompt.):

# rpm -Uvh libstdc++34-3.4.0-1.i386.rpm firefox-1.0-2.fc3.i386.rpm desktop-file-utils-0.9-2.i386.rpm
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:desktop-file-utils ########################################### [ 33%]
2:libstdc++34 ########################################### [ 67%]
3:firefox ########################################### [100%]
Could not parse file '/usr/share/applications/evolution.desktop': Failed to open file '/usr/share/applications/evolution.desktop': No such file or directory
[Invalid UTF-8] Could not parse file '/usr/share/applications/net-xfig.desktop': desktop entry contain line 'Comment[ja]=\xa5\xc9\xa5\xed\xa1\xbc\xa5\xc4\xa1\xbc\xa5\xebx fig' which is not UTF-8
File '/usr/share/applications/fedora-scribus.desktop' contains invalid MIME type 'scd,scd.gz,sla,sla.gz' that contains invalid characters
Could not parse file '/usr/share/applications/gnome-control-center.desktop': Failed to open file '/usr/share/applications/gnome-control-center.desktop': No such file or directory
#

I think we can safely assume that the errors at the end are from differences between the FC2 and FC3 desktop configuations. Also, I have never opened the gnome-control-center nor evolution (I use KDE and KMail) so that may also have something to do with it. But, all seems well with an updated Firefox on FC2.

Thanks all for the tips.

[imdeemvp]

If your repositories are setup all you have to do is:

yum install firefox

same applies for thunderbird.

[fryem720]

imdeemvp: that won't get you firefox 1.0 if you're set up to use fedora.us and livna.org instead of dag, freshrpms, etc. (While I LOVE the selection of packages at the latter repos, I unfortunately have had nothing but problems with dependencies from them even with a fresh install and not using fedora.us or livna .org repos).

alandd: If the fc3 rpm gives you problems, you can always create your own fc2 rpm by following Thomas Chung's excellent instructions here:

http://www.fedoranews.org/tchung/firefox/

Don't feel intimidated about it. I'm a relative newbie and it was MUCH easier to do than I ever would have thought (once I downloaded and installed the fedora-rpmdevtools rpm - easy instructions here: http://www.fedoranews.org/tchung/rpmbuild/ -- props again to Thomas Chung).

[rkl]

Just bumping up this thread because it's been substantially updated by me to include Mozilla 1.7.6, Firefox 1.0.2, Thunderbird 1.0.2 and some new RPM dependencies that are needed. BTW, Thomas Chung's method of building RPMs requires you to run the app once as root [with an X display present] after installing the binary RPM, which is no good for mass rollout to multiple desktops (which have to be completely non-interactive and not require X) - the "official" FC3 firefox/thunderbird RPMs don't need this step.