Hey folks, i'm a total newbie at linux (only installed it yesterday) so don't be mad at me for querying this. I downloaded firefox, and unpacked the library files and binaries into /usr/lib/firefox. Now, am I correct in thinking that to run it, I need to enter the 'sh /usr/lib/firefox' command into the terminal? (cos it's working right now)

If so, is there any way that I can add a command to my shell profile so that I don't need to enter it every time I want to start a program.

If i'm way off here, could someone enlighten me with the correct procedure for installing and running programs in linux.

(i'm running RedHat 9 by the way and would rather learn how to do it properly instead of taking the rpm route)

thanks,
Shep.

You mentioned that you unpacked the whole thing into /usr/lib/firefox

I guess you must have done an rpm install. If not, what did you do ?


You dont need to do sh /usr/lib/firefox to run firefox. Issuing a firefox is more than enough. Provided, you have /usr/lib in your path. It is the same as issuing a mozilla. It (usually) picks up /usr/bin/mozilla and runs the script and later invokes another executable. Same should be the case with the firefox as well.

I unzipped with tar -zxvf <filename> to the directory /usr/lib, checked that /usr/lib was in PATH with echo $PATH, and issued a 'firefox' command in terminal.
It runs, but I was just wondering if the terminal is supposed to 'hang', that is, should i be able to use the same terminal for other commands as it doesn't give me a new user prompt - I have to open a new terminal tab to do anything else.

Do this:

Thanks, folks.
I think i'm getting the hang of this Linux business...