How to upgrade/install programs in Linux

[Clocker]

I'm running Ubuntu for the first time. I'm happy to say it seems to be working great on my old laptop (even my 802.11g Netgear card). It came with Firefox 2.0 installed but I want to upgrade to 2.0.0.1. I downloaded the tar.gz file for the latest Firefox, but now how do I install it?

In general, how do you install and/or upgrade programs in Linux?

Thanks,
C

 

[RWIndiana]

The easiest way in a Debian based system is to log in as root and run "apt-get update" and "apt-get dist-upgrade", and that will upgrade your whole system. Pure debian, I've heard, updates more easily than Ubuntu (as things are less likely to break).

If you want the absolute latest firefox from the Mozilla site, just "apt-get --purge remove firefox" to remove the Ubuntu firefox and download Mozilla's. I installed mine in /usr/local/share/firefox, but in general it should probably stay in /usr/local somewhere just because that's what the /local folder is designated for.

I found out that I need to make some links in my local firefox directory for it to work with the sun java plugins and such.
First I renamed the original plugins directory:
mv /usr/local/share/firefox/plugins /usr/local/share/firefox/plugins2
Then link to the right plugins directory
ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins /usr/local/share/firefox/plugins

Maybe you know a better way to do this though.

 

[CityK]

It came with Firefox 2.0 installed but I want to upgrade to 2.0.0.1. I downloaded the tar.gz file for the latest Firefox, but now how do I install it?

In general, how do you install and/or upgrade programs in Linux?

Ususally with a package manager that handles the format the software packages are delivered in (rpm, deb etc...)

What you d/l'ed was a compressed archieve file. It could contain anything -- the software could be already placed in package format (in which case you could just extact the files and then use your regular package manager), or it could be the source which you would then have to build yourself (./configure, make, make install)

For something like Firefox, stick with the packages that are found/available in the various software repositories for your distrubution

With Ubuntu, if you don't want to use the cli, you can use the synaptic frontend to apt.

You should also look into Automatrx or EasyUbuntu to help bring your system up to speed really quick and easy .... i.e. installing support for proprietary codecs etc etc.

Also, I know Ubuntu has some pretty good Wiki documentation and user forum