I installed the FF3 on my new Debian, and part of the installation guidance is to save a file named firefox.desktop on the desktop, which should act like a shortcut to the FF. The file content is:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Mozilla Firefox Browser
Comment=lightweight browser based on mozilla
Exec=firefox
Icon=firefox.png
Terminal=0
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Categories=Application;Network;X-Red-Hat-Base;X-Red-Hat-Base-Only;
I have done all of this.
My questions are:
1) what kind of file is this? is it a script?
2) do I have to change the file mode attributes before running it?
if this is a system wide install, did you create a symlink to your firefox installation?
create one with the following command:
ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox
/opt/firefox/ is a default choice of directory to install firefox into for system wide installations, if you chose another directory amend that part accordingly.
if you did a personal install, the directory should be something like /home/userid/*/firefox/ which you need to include into the Exec= option.
is this about firefox.terminal or firefox.desktop???
1 - a .desktop file is like a windoze shortcut, so not really a script
2 - if this is a system wide install, you may have to change permissions. if this is a personal install, this should not be an issue.
if this is an issue in Debian, this is the correct sub-forum
if you want a quick way to create shortcuts, try drag and drop from the main menu to the desktop.
And I mean that the Linux machine is for one user only. hope you meant this.
About the file name, my mistake, sorry, the name is as in the original post "firefox.desktop".
Thank you for the clarification, now I know what is a *.desktop is.
But still when I am double clicking on it, I'm getting a nice small window saying "Do you want to run"Firefox.desktop", or display its contents?"
and asking me to select between:
1) Run in Terminal
2) Display
3) Cancel
4) Run
Non of the above works (only 'cancel' works of course)
filepermissions are ok for launching the shortcut.
1 = execute, 2 = write, 4 = read, these are summed up.
so 775 means read, write and execute permissions for the owner and the group that the file is owned by and read and execute permissions for others.
have you tried to drag and drop the shortcut from the main menu to your desktop?
this might give you some insight in what info you are missing or is incorrect in your current shortcut.
The symlink done was:
ln -s /usr/lib/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
Do you mean to drag and drop any other SW application to learn from it, because the FF is not shown in the menus, which BTW I will be happy to solve as well.
the reason why your firefox doesn't start up is because you created the wrong symlink.
you created a symlink to /usr/lib/firefox/firefox (which most likely does not exist) in the directory /usr/bin/firefox (the directory where you installed firefox).
you need to check the /usr/bin/ directory for the symlink you created before.
if you do a ls command in that folder, you should get something like:
that should be the old symlink, which is not really of any use.
what you need to do is remove the old symlink (verify that what you are about to delete is a symlink and not the actual application):
The fault was found.
I wrongly forgot the line "Exec=firefox" in the firefox.desktop file.
The symlink is correct since I downloaded and installed the Firefox under /usr/lib/firefox/ according to the orders I read somewhere. Also I can activate the Firefox anywhere in the directory tree.
Thank you very much Leppie, without you nothing would have been solved.
please be more careful when providing the information. when people are trying to help you, it's difficult to find the solution if you provide the wrong info.
you first wrote:
you then posted:
these statements clearly contradict each other. then you also you the instructions for the firefox.desktop file as the actual firefox.desktop file you were using. obviously things don't work out if people post the instructions they were supposed to follow instead of posting the actions they performed.
when trying to obtain help, post your own configurations, findings, output, etc. as we all can get the instructions of the internet.
you're welcome
well, we all learn (at least, most of us do) from our mistakes. there's plenty to study and learn in Debian.
why did you not use apt-get to install firefox? that's the Debian-way and much easier for newbies and it would've taken care of the main menu shortcut missing issue. about that, what desktop environment are you using?
Was not aware about this option. I am learning it from you just now.
BTW, have any idea about how to complete the FF instillation by adding it to the Gnome desktop menu?
right click your applications menu and hit �Edit Menus�
select the "Internet" section
check the Firefox entry, otherwise click "New Item" and use "application" for "Type", "Firefox" for "Name", "firefox" for "Command" and "Web browser" for "Comment" then click ok.
close the menu editor and check that the new firefox shortcut is under the "Internet" section
