Hi, just put RedHat back on my desktop Pc as windoze has been playing up and want to try again with Linux. Just a couple of questions though if anyone can help out?

Correct me if i'm wrong but i figured out that programs should be installed in the /etc directory however when i tried to install firefox in here i got an error saying "cannot create directory". Anything obvious that i could have missed?

Also, are there any programs i can use similar to VB as my computing coursework at school has to use VB so i will be needing it - how easy is it to use an emulator to simulate a windows environment?

Thanks,


Dan.

No No... programs don't go into the /etc directory. That's for configuration files. Programs go into the /usr directory. Usually you install self-compiled programs under /usr/local.

Are you installing as root??
Maybe you can describe your problem in greater detail.

or rather are you doing make install as root?

Ok, i've tried installing in /usr/local/firefox - asks me it i want to make the directory - Yes - Then the error which comes up is -

"Can't make destination directory. Please try another directory"

I'm not installing as root, can't seem to get my root logon to work.

Thanks for the replies.

P-S I'm not making an install file, i have a ready compiled installer.

If you are not root you probably do not have write permissions in /usr/local.
One way is to do a install in your home directory but this is usually done when the program is for a single user.
Then again what's your problem with root?

Thanks for the help Mirradric,

I've managed to sort it out now. I used the root account, i must have had the capslock on when i setup the password for the roor user - thats the problem i was having.

Have firefox working OK now but still keep getting dodgy fonts even after installing the whole font pack from an XP machine. Its strange as i can get them to work in OpenOffice Write but yet websites don't seem to use the same fonts as they do on my windows machine.

Does anyone have any ideas about the Visual Basic question?

As much as I like firefox, their linux installation seems like it got the priority of a club-foot redheaded stepchild.

There are some windows emulators (Wine is one) and there is VMWare which will run a windows machine under linux (if you have an abundance of memory and CPU).

Although there are many compilers available on linux (C being the favorite) I don't know how well supported VB is, if at all. Isn't that a Mickysoft baby?

Yeah, VB is microsoft - looks like i'll have to struggle with WINE to get it to work.

Cheers for the replies guys