Firefox install - urpmi vs web download

[linuxa]

Hi there.

As someone who's making the transition from windows to Linux (I can almost hear the applause :P).

Anyways, in an attempt to make my new Mandrake Linux 10.2 (official) feel as homey as possible, I've tried to install Firefox onto it.

The issue is that the one downloaded from getfirefox.com installs via a firefox install bash script and so doesn't register with the rpm manager (won't appear in the remove software listing). Therefore should I ever have the need to remove it, I'd have to do a manual "locate" + rm.

I've been told that the most common method of installing software on Mandrake is via the urpmi tool.

Aside from the fact that the download is somewhat larger (22mb vs 9mb from the website - I'm guessing it's the dependencies?). My biggest grips with it is that I'd usually like to backup the software that I use, and using urpmi doesn't seem to allow me to do that.

So my question are as follows:
1) For those that download firefox from their website, how did you get it to register with the rpm manager so that it could be uninstalled via the gui?
2) For those that downloaded firefox via urpmi. Are anyway to access what it downloaded for backup purposes?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[bigtomrodney]

Well certainly in the case of Firefox from its own installer there a re one or two blips. In mandrake you usually get an error or two anyway, plus it installs everything to one folder so you'll need to add that to your $PATH. I much prefer to install via rpm because of trackability and it's a nice clean management tool. To top this urpmi is second only probably to Debians apt-get in ease of use and pure strength, I'd set that up anyway to use for other things.

The downside is that the latest firefox I have on my repositories is 1.0.2, whereas 1.0.4 is out, and you can't even download plugins from the firefox website without having the latest version.

Back to urpmi though - It really is genius. I ran the update utility and it found 79 packages that were out of date. It took 35 minutes to run the complete update, which was great. As for backing up your own software, if you're running straight from the box most of your software would be on your install discs , right?

[psic]

I agree, I'd go with the package manager. Much simpler, also makes it easier to upgrade anything later on.

[finklewicz]

Run Mandrakelinux Update in the Package Manager tools, and you should be able to download the Mandriva Mozilla updates that will add the Firefox 1.0.4 updates to your 1.0.2 installation.

I tend to like the gui frontend of the Mandriva Package Manager, even if it is a tad slow on my machine.

As far as I know there is no official Mandriva rpm package for the full Firefox 1.0.4.

[linuxa]

Thanks for the reply guys.

bigtomrodney: I ran mandrake/mandriva from my box, but the install cd's doesn't have the latest software. Especially in firefox's case, which seem to update every 3 months or so

Guess I need a faster internet connection in order to stay abreast of the update for every new Mandriva install

I'm actually thinking about moving to Mandriva soon, but the rpm download is probably going to put me off for a while

finklewicz: I'm ran urpmi firefox 1 week ago, and it came back with firefox 1.0.4. Not sure if its because I'm still running Mandrake 10.1 official?

[greenpenguin]

urpmi is second only probably to Debians apt-get in ease of use and pure strength

I'm afraid I disagree here -what about yum and portage?

[bigtomrodney]

It's a good while since I've used yum, never used portage. Did forget about them. But you gotta love urpmi...

[marauder]

Hi,
asking linuxa's qn. again.. anyway to save the updates downloaded using urpmi, so that i can burn them to a cd and give it to my friend? He has only dialup... are they automatically deleted after installation?

[Flatline]

They should stick around in /var/cache/urpmi/rpms

[marauder]

Thanks. You saved a lot of my work.