Installing Firefox from Soruce

[NemVitzh]

Ok, I made a working build of Firefox from source code! I have it working when I run it from a terminal using "./firefox" in the dir .../mozilla-1.9.2/obj-i686-pc-linux-gnu/dist/bin.

I've been following the instructions from Mozilla found here (developer.mozilla.org/en/Build_and_Install) and I am down to the "Installing Your Build" section.

For trunk builds, you can simply run make package in your object directory to create a packaged build. This will create a zip or tar.bz2 file in objdir/dist which you can then unpack anywhere. To build a Windows installer, simply use make installer in your object directory.

I can't figure out what the heck they want me to do here. I run the make in the object directory (seemingly successfully), but I don't get a zip or bz2 in the dist directory. Anyone done this before?

btw, if it matters, i'm running Debian 5.04 and xfce

[GNU-Fan]

I think you must run "make dist".
But this is nothing you should need. It is only for distributors who want to make binary packages that they can distribute.

[NemVitzh]

I think you must run "make dist".
But this is nothing you should need. It is only for distributors who want to make binary packages that they can distribute.

Firstly, thanks for the reply!

Ok, I guess i don't need to run make then.

What/where should I move files to get them in the default program directories? I'm not sure exactly what i can move without breaking it. And is there a way I can add the program to my Xfce menus?

[GNU-Fan]

What/where should I move files to get them in the default program directories? I'm not sure exactly what i can move without breaking it.

There are no default program directories per se. Instead, you tell the "program starter" where to look for executables. For example, type "echo $PATH" in the shell. You will get a list of directories that are looked into whenever you type e.g. "firefox".

What I did was to install firefox with all it's files in a directory under my HOME directory. $HOME/firefox

This is sufficent if you are the only user on the system.
If you put it in the system directories, like /usr/bin or /opt/firefox, then you
have more maintenance work. (You must remember to remove old version whenever you update etc.)

And is there a way I can add the program to my Xfce menus?

Yes.
howto:customize-menu [Xfce wiki]

[NemVitzh]

There are no default program directories per se. Instead, you tell the "program starter" where to look for executables. For example, type "echo $PATH" in the shell. You will get a list of directories that are looked into whenever you type e.g. "firefox".

What I did was to install firefox with all it's files in a directory under my HOME directory. $HOME/firefox

This is sufficent if you are the only user on the system.
If you put it in the system directories, like /usr/bin or /opt/firefox, then you
have more maintenance work. (You must remember to remove old version whenever you update etc.)

ok ... so what group of files do I need to copy over to my home $HOME/.firefox? ../dist/bin?

And how can I put the "firefox" files in one of the "echo $PATH" directories and make it link back to ~/firefox for the files it needs to run?