Win user needs Linux help bad

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: Win user needs Linux help bad
started by: morpurgo.nl

Posted by morpurgo.nl on July 13 2006,10:18

I don't know if this is the right place but I installed DSL on a the HD from an old Laptop and it's running. The boot is quite fast but surfing with the old Firefox within DSL has some problems.

For some reason the plug ins like flash will not install. Firefox pops up a window that it cant find the package to download. When downloading on my windows machine there is no problem.

How do I install and uninstall software on Linux (DSL) and most of all where? In Win there is a window installed software and by selecting U can uninstall. Is there something similar?

Firefox for Linux is a ...tar.gz how do I install this software? I downloaded it and ff told me on my desktop but there is no extra Icon on my desktop (like a exe in windows).

Posted by u2musicmike on July 13 2006,13:16

Linux is not windows so you have to do things a little different. I haven't downloaded this plug-in but to install new software to DSL you should use the myDSL applications or you risk having problems running DSL.

Posted by morpurgo.nl on July 13 2006,16:50

Quote (u2musicmike @ July 13 2006,09:16)

Thanks for the tip I will check this out

Posted by morpurgo.nl on July 13 2006,22:13

Quote (morpurgo.nl @ July 13 2006,12:50)

Quote (u2musicmike @ July 13 2006,09:16)

Thanks for the tip I will check this out

MyDSL has a lot of options I don't understand. How to proceed?

Posted by u2musicmike on July 13 2006,22:46

If you did a regular harddrive install stay with the .dsl or .tgz extensions in myDSL instead of .uci's. I thought I saw the flash extension and several versions of firefox in the download repository. I haven't used myDSL lately but it seemed easy to use but very different from any windows installers. Nowdays I've been using emelfm to load new software by highlighting my .dsl file and clicking the mydsl button. For uninstalling I don't know a good way unless the program installs into one directory. You can view the contents of a file by right - clicking and a sub menu has view contents. You can also use tar to view .dsl file contents in xterm.

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on July 13 2006,23:10

Flash can be autoinstalled by going to
Apps>Net>Browsers>Get Firefox Flash Plugin
if that hasn't changed.

Posted by brianw on July 14 2006,02:36

I went to addons.mozilla.org and downloaded the most recent flash today. Untarred it, ran the installer and worked fine.

Don't see the Get Firefox Flash Plugin anywhere now in the menu. I know I have installed it before automatically but didn't see that option anywhere today and going to the mozilla site didn't show any automated procedure but the download and install was quite painless.

Posted by morpurgo.nl on July 14 2006,13:26

Quote (^thehatsrule^ @ July 13 2006,19:10)

Flash can be autoinstalled by going to
Apps>Net>Browsers>Get Firefox Flash Plugin
if that hasn't changed.

This ia all: Apps>Net>Browsers>Get Firefox

there is no option: Get Firefox Flash Plugin

Posted by brianw on July 14 2006,19:08

Download the flash installer:

< http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get.....tar.gz >

open a terminal and cd to the location of the file (if you installed it in /home/dsl you should already be there). Type the following

tar -xzf install_flash_player_7_linux.tar.gz

then type

cd install_flash_player_7_linux
./flashplayer-installer

Follow the instructions and when you are done it should be installed. Open firefox and in the address window type:

about:plugins

and the installed plugins will be listed.

Posted by morpurgo.nl on July 14 2006,21:55

That did the trick brianw thanks for the great input.

Does anybody know where to get Macromedia Shockwave for linux or how to overcome web pages to tel me that I'm missing a plug in?

Posted by brianw on July 15 2006,01:30

Shockwave is not available for linux

A thread here

< http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=136897 >

states that the method is (this is an old thread and I have not tested it):

about:config -> plugin.default_plugin_disabled -> false, restart

Here is a page for a petition to sign to try to get shockwave for linux:

< http://www.petitiononline.com/linuxswp/petition.html >

Posted by brianw on July 15 2006,01:37

Performed the procedure but have not tested on a site yet. The steps are:

open firefox, in the address bar type about:config, press enter,

a list of all the configs appears and there is a filter bar. type plugin in the filter bar to narrow the list. double click the plugin.default_plugin_disabled line (which should say true at the end and change to false when you double click). close firefox and start it up again (you can check to see if the change is still there but it should be).

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on July 15 2006,01:44

CrossOver Office will allow you to install and use shockwave. (uses wine)

However, that product is commercial.

Posted by morpurgo.nl on July 16 2006,19:59

Quote (brianw @ July 14 2006,21:37)

Unfortunately this does nothing. Still missing the libgtk-x11-2.0 file to install firefox 1.5.0.4

Posted by mikshaw on July 16 2006,20:31

Quote (morpurgo.nl @ July 16 2006,15:59)

Still missing the libgtk-x11-2.0 file to install firefox 1.5.0.4

You will need to install Gtk2

Quote (u2musicmike @ July 13 2006,18:46)

If you did a regular harddrive install stay with the .dsl or .tgz extensions in myDSL instead of .uci's.

I would recommend the exact opposite. tar.gz and dsl extensions are extracted into the filesystem, and since there is no package management with myDSL any problems an extension may cause cannot be easily undone. On the other hand, uci extensions are mounted, so they can be easily unmounted if they happen to cause any trouble.

Posted by morpurgo.nl on July 16 2006,21:20

Quote (mikshaw @ July 16 2006,16:31)

Quote (morpurgo.nl @ July 16 2006,15:59)

Still missing the libgtk-x11-2.0 file to install firefox 1.5.0.4

You will need to install Gtk2

Quote (u2musicmike @ July 13 2006,18:46)

If you did a regular harddrive install stay with the .dsl or .tgz extensions in myDSL instead of .uci's.

GTK downloaded how to install? I unpacked the tar but the apt-get install gtk does nothing but asking me :are you root?"

Posted by brianw on July 16 2006,21:24

Quote (morpurgo.nl @ July 16 2006,15:59)

Quote (brianw @ July 14 2006,21:37)

Unfortunately this does nothing. Still missing the libgtk-x11-2.0 file to install firefox 1.5.0.4

Is there two things going on here? I was answering:

Quote

That did the trick brianw thanks for the great input.

Does anybody know where to get Macromedia Shockwave for linux or how to overcome web pages to tel me that I'm missing a plug in?

Is firefox installed or not? There is a difference between installing plugins and installing the GTK2 firefox version.

Posted by morpurgo.nl on July 16 2006,21:49

Ok let me explain what I'm doing...well try to..

I downloaded DSL and on this version there is a Firefox 1.06 with security issues and no auto update so...

I wanted to install ff1.5.0.4 but got errors. I opened a page www.chatcafe.nl and the page told me "no flash player" and so on.

so i need to install some software witch takes in Windows about 5 min. On DSl or Linux I'm almost a week on the road and still have nothing. The only thing installed is Java and that works.

Posted by brianw on July 16 2006,23:22

Quote (morpurgo.nl @ July 16 2006,17:49)

You say that you tried to install 1.5 but got errors then go on to say you went to a site and got the pluggin error. I am assuming 1.5 is not installed (but it is still not clear) and it was the older version you got the pluggin error from.

Did you download the firefox 1.5 from DSL or from mozilla?

Try downloading the ff1.5 uci

< http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub....1.5.uci >

When you have it saved (right)click on the desktop go to Net and select the MyDSL Browser. Select the load local and then choose the ff1.5uci to mount it
Right click on the desktop go to myDSL and select ff and see what happens.

You could use the MyDSL Browser to download the ff1.5uci as well but I have never done that so I am not sure of the exact steps

Quote

so i need to install some software witch takes in Windows about 5 min. On DSl or Linux I'm almost a week on the road and still have nothing. The only thing installed is Java and that works.

If you are experienced in windows. Many people do not find windows that easy (that is why windows support is such a lucrative business). When you choose to do something that is not familiar you do have to be patient and you were giving conflicting info before, mixing what you actually wanted to do.

I wouldn't say you have nothing. You have a free OS that is small and powerful that you can put on any CD and have a useable desktop in minutes (try that with windows).

Posted by morpurgo.nl on July 17 2006,11:12

No I do net get ff1.5 installed.

I downloaded the UCI but there is no "click on the desktop go to Net and select the MyDSL Browser"

I went to apps>Net>Browser>firefox but this loads the standard 1.0.6.

I went to MyDSL>firefox1.5 and clicked it but nothing happened.

Posted by kerry on July 17 2006,11:32

to run firefox 1.5 you need to install gtk2. click on mydsl then gtk scroll down till you see gtk2 click on it than on down load. after it downloads right click the desktop then mydsl then update to gtk2.

Posted by morpurgo.nl on July 17 2006,12:16

Quote (kerry @ July 17 2006,07:32)

That worked fine, great.

Question about desktop Icons like Firefox.ink.

I Installed firefox 1.5x but when activating the firefox desktop link ff1.0.6 starts so there are two ff on this system now.

1.How do I connect the firefox icon to the new firefox.
2. how do I delete the old firefox or other old software? I tried but constantly I get Access denied, are you root?

Posted by brianw on July 17 2006,14:36

Right click on the icon and select properties. You can edit the command that is run then save.

You will need to know where the command is that runs the new firefox and I am not exactly sure where it gets installed (propbably in /opt somewhere, when I tried with the older firefox 1.0.4 with gtk2 that is where it was put).

Just to let you know that if you are running from live CD or frugal you don't need to be worried as much about security issues. In those two modes a hacker would have to know to edit your file list for backups and run the backup feature and make sure the restore boot code is being used and they would have to put all their altered files in the list as well as change the files but files used at init time are not part of the restore feature so this would only take effect after most of the boot sequence has been performed. They still would not be able to change your base system. This is one of the main benefits and one of the reasons the developers recomened not doing a regular HD install.

Posted by muskrat on July 18 2006,01:59

Like u2musicmike said Linux isn't windows, But also plugins aren't programs ether. I've found that most plugins will install into the browser the same as windows browser. You just have to make sure you use the browser to do it.

But I've also found firefox to be some what of a thug in linux when it comes to updates and plugins, Yet Mozzile works great, Can't imagine why they're both made by the same people.