Upgrading to Netscape
4.51 without RPMs
An actual account of a successful
transition.
By Robert J. Colbert (rjcolbert@home.com)
I've often wondered why Red
Hat doesn't seem to push the manufacture of RPM files
for the latest version of Netscape. Perhaps there
are security issues. Perhaps they just don't have
the spare time. Perhaps it's all a gigantic conspiracy
where Bill Gates is holding back innovation of Netscape
software on Linux by promising the latest 5.x version
of Internet Explorer on Linux? Okay, I think we can
just ignore my last theory...but the question still
remains, "How do I install Netscape 4.51 on Red Hat
Linux?" Even more importantly, Why?
I can answer Why? quickly:
Because you get the latest features (like three-pane
email and news), and if you're using KDE, it even
recognizes your color settings from KDE! Answering
the How? question will take more time. While I can't
guarantee that this is going to work for everyone
(read: Backup the important stuff, don't lose your
Red Hat CD, and be careful...it's your computer!)
the easiest solution I have found so far is the following
cookbook of steps:
To do this, visit www.netscape.com
and follow thier download links. Make sure you navigate
to the 4.51 latest download, and choose Red Hat Linux
as the OS when the time comes. You will be presented
with a Unix tape archive (tar.gz or .tgz) file that
is approximately 13MB in size. That's the one you want.
Download it to your home directory or somewhere you
have write access and will remember. We'll call this
the "Download Location." Remember this location! [It
is suggested to exit X windows at this point and continue
from the console, but that is an option.]
- Uninstall your current
Netscape software.
This will leave all of your preferences
intact and will only remove the actual executables that
were installed with your RPM of Netscape from the Red
Hat CDs or however you got them. To do this, you need
to remove the common program data and binaries, Navigator
and Communicator.
To remove your present setup,
just type the following three lines at the command
console as root:
rpm -e netscape-communicator
rpm -e netscape-navigator
rpm -e netscape-common
And watch as your present installation
is abruptly removed from your setup. If you get any
warning or error messages, you may not have Netscape
presently installed, which is okay! You can (and probably
should) install 4.51 without a current install. In fact,
doing the above three commands will get your computer
nearly into a state of never having Netscape installed
in the first place!
- Unarchive the downloaded
file
Remember the Download Location?
Well, get to the console command line (no X Windows
at this point) and cd to the Download Location. From
there, type mc to run Midnight Commander. This will
bring up a text window full of files in the present
folder. Find the file you downloaded from Netscape,
put the cursor line on that file, and press Enter. This
will automagically unarchive the file and appear to
change directories "into" the archive. Select the only
directory/folder in there (has a HUGE name beginning
with "netscape-"), and press the F5 key.
You are now looking at the
Copy dialog. Select OK or press Enter. This will "copy"
the contents of the Netscape archive into the current
directory. When this operation finishes, exit Midnight
Commander by pressing F10 and agreeing to exit the
program. You should now be back at the command prompt,
and if you do a dir or vdir, you should see a new
netscape-something-or-another folder (I use that as
SHORTHAND for the name of the folder actually created!
Wait until you see the length of that folder's real
name!). We'll call this the "UnarchivedFolder." And,
now that you've seen the length of it, you know why
I used shorthand!
- Run Netscape's install
script
Type cd UnarchivedFolder and press
Enter. You are now in the installation folder. From
here, you may type ./ns-install. Just follow the prompts.
You will be asked for the name of the folder into which
Netscape 4.51 will be installed. Write down the folder
name you enter (the default is /opt/netscape). We will
call this the "InstallFolder." Do NOT forget this folder...you
need it in the next step, and it is critically important
that you remember it verbatim since you will not receive
confirmation on the required actions.
- Add Netscape to your search
path
Now that you have the binaries
installed, you're almost done. The only remaining step
is to tell Linux where to search when Netscape asks
for files (actually, you're telling Netscape directly,
but who cares?). Following the suggestions in the Netscape
readme file will not work on most default Red Hat installations
because they do not default to the shell program that
Netscape assumes the world is using when they install
their software. You're probably using bash (Bourne Again
SHell), and are probably not all that familiar with
it...so I'm going to be very detailed with adding Netscape
to your environment:
- If you are not currently
logged on as root, sign off and log back on as root
or use the su command.
- Type "cd /etc" without
the quotes.
- Type "pico .bashrc" without
the quotes. This will call up your system-global
init script into a very simple text editor on Linux,
kind of like DOS's Edit.com editor.
At the very end of the file, add
the following line of text:
set MOZILLA_HOME="InstallFolder"
Be sure to use any leading forward
slashes ("/") that are part of the path. For example,
I have installed Netscape into the default folder of
"/opt/netscape/", so my .bashrc has the following line
of text as the very last line:
set MOZILLA_HOME="/opt/netscape/"
To exit the text editor, press
Ctrl+X and then confirm that you want to save your changes.
If you are not 100% comfortable with these instructions,
type the following line of text before you start editing
.bashrc:
cp .bashrc .backup.bashrc
That will make a "copy" of .bashrc
into a file named .backup.bashrc so you have a contingency
plan in place in case you REALLY mess up your .bashrc
file. Also, if you are 100% uncomfortable with your
edits to .bashrc, you can press Ctrl+X at any time and
answer No when asked if you want to save your changes
from within pico. pico will not write the file back
to disk, and you can start again with the editing of
.bashrc. Since you'd already have a backup, you won't
need to create another.
- Launching Netscape 4.51
for the first time!
When you get through the above
instructions with no major error messages, etc., (such
as running out of hard disk space or whatever), then
you are ready to rock-n-roll!
- Start X Windows (type "startx"
without the quotes). [optional step depending on
if you closed X windows earlier.]
- Open up a terminal window
(KDE users can simply press Alt+F2, GNOME users
can use the Foot menu's Run Program... command).
- Type "InstallFolder/netscape"
to start Netscape. In my case, since I've installed
to /opt/netscape, I would type, "/opt/netscape/netscape"
to launch Netscape.
- Enjoy the program!
As an exercise for the reader,
I leave it up to you to discover how to add Netscape
back to your menus. When you uninstall the RPM packaged
version(s) of Netscape from your machine, the menu entries
in your window manager go promptly with it! So, adding
it back really isn't all that hard...but is beyond the
scope of this document. I may write a seperate tutorial
for adding a program to a menu for the popular window
managers out there...or someone else may beat me to
it!
-Rob Colbert
rjcolbert@home.com
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