I’m relatively new to linux and while I’ve managed to get around ok till now, I’m completely baffled by how to update FireFox. I’m running suse 11 and it came with FF 3.0beta5. I have downloaded and unpacked 3.0.1. Do I simply copy over the install in usr/lib? Or should I have ark unzip it over the existing install? I don’t want to lose bookmarks and all, so…How the heck do I do this??
Thanks much!!
Enable the mozilla repository, and upgrade through there, way safer and cleaner. Won’t lose your settings either.
Heeter
I also wanted to do the same thing at the first place.
And I want to do this manually. So, how do I upgrade to latest version of Firefox manually???
[Already downloaded “firefox-3.0.1.tar.bz2” file, and used tar on it. Running the file “firefox” from within the “firefox” folder created runs the new version of firefox. But selecting the “Firefox” Application from the Gnome menu brings up the old Firefox beta version.]
If you want to manually install Firefox then try this:
$> ln -s --force <firefox_dir>/firefox.sh /usr/bin/firefox
<firefox_dir> is the directory where you have downloaded the firefox (the directory where you have untarred it).
After this you can access the latest firefox from the GNOME menu. Hope this helps. Do reply back if it resolves your problem.
did this:
ln -sf <firefox_dir>/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
where, <firefox_dir> was “/usr/lib/firefox3”, directory where the latest version of firefox was untarred.
Now everything is working fine! 
thnkx mate!!
Have another question though…
Can I remove the directory /usr/lib/firefox now?
Any suggestions about how to remove other files/directories which may contain files for the older version of firefox? [to free up some unnecessary disk space currently being wasted]
Hey glad that helped.
Yes you can go ahead and delete /usr/lib/firefox. The only other folder where you can see firefox remnants are ~/.mozilla/firefox. This directory will have store firefox extensions, add-ons, browsing history, saved forms etc etc. If you dont need any of these then you can go ahead and delete the directory.
Unless there is a definite need for a manual install, using zypper/yast for installing softwares is the best way in openSUSE.
I just upgraded my firefox here 3 hours ago using yast to 3.0.1
It is the easiest way to go.
You shouldn’t delete /usr/lib/firefox by hand. That is installed by the package manager. You should use yast to delete it.