[Discuss] Firefox with RedHat Fedora

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2007-01-18 10:02-0800 pw wrote:

> We all need to take a 'Patience Pill' occasionally and try not
> to pounce on people who may have or retain a few gaps.

I don't mind people asking newbie questions about Linux installation even
when those people have lots of Linux experience.  I agree that people can
sometimes have unexpected gaps in their knowledge, and various parts of
Linux are learned at different rates.  However, I do mind when the requested
advice is repeatedly ignored, and then those people go on to pontificate
about how difficult Linux applications are to install and how they are
running into package dependency issues.  Package dependency issues were
solved many years ago in Linux, and if you continue to have them it is often
a sign you are doing something completely ill advised.

Note, apt-get has been around for years to completely take care of Debian
(and now Ubuntu) package dependency issues, and other distributions have
similar tools to take care of their equivalent rpm dependency issues (in
fact, there is also an apt-get variant that works for rpm's).  So with such
powerful meta-install tools like this, installation of packages on Linux
boils down to (a) searching for the package name that you want, and (b)
installing it AND all its dependencies (which takes one command on the
command line or one click in the GUI front-ends for apt-get).  It really
cannot get simpler than that.

Of course, none of this smooth install dependency functionality works
properly if you are buggering your system by installing packages from
another distro or a different version of your existing distro.  Don't use
Ford parts to attempt to fix a Toyota!  In fact, don't use Toyota 1983 parts
to attempt to fix a 2007 Toyota!

Alan
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Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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