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                    How to run Firefix 3.5 under CentOS 4.4
                                        
I finally received a Google Wave [1] Invite (via Smirk) and decided to give
it a try. I go to the link, sign in with my Google email [2] address, and get
the following:

[Sorry, your browser is not supported, but hey, do you feel lucky?] [3]


I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.20 [4]. Yes, it's an older version, but hey, it works
why fix it?

So I download the latest Firefox (3.5) and try the website again:

> [spc]lucy:~/bin/firefox>./firefox
> ./firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraries: 
> libpangocairo-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: 
> No such file or directory
> [spc]lucy:~/bin/firefox>
> 

Ah yes, that's what happend the last time I tried running Firefox 3.

I'm using CentOS 4.4 [5] as my desktop, and yes, I'm using an older
distribution of a distribution geared towards servers as a desktop. As for
the older distribution part, hey, it works, and I dislike upgrading if I
don't have to (I used RedHat [6] 5.2 (not to be confused for their latest 5.2
offering [7]) for about ten years prior to my upgrade to CentOS 4.4). As for
the server bit, well … I do a lot of server development, and we run CentOS at
The Office™ so it makes my life easier.

And I'm used to RedHat/CentOS.

So anyway, back to the current issue—Firefox 3.5.

The default repositories for CentOS 4.4 don't carry libpangocairo and after
some searching, I found that installing frysk [8] (ah, so that's what frysk
does) I get libpangocairo as part of the package, under /usr/lib/frysk. So,
all I need to do is tell Firefox 3.5 where to load that library and I'm good
to go.

> [spc]lucy:~/bin/firefox>LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/frysk/ ./firefox
> ./firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraries: 
> libdbus-glib-1.so.2: cannot open shared object file: 
> No such file or directory
> [spc]lucy:~/bin/firefox>
> 

Okay … hmm … I do have a libdbus-glib-1.so.0.0.0—what happens if I
symbolically link libdbus-glib-1.so.2 to it?

> [spc]lucy:~/bin/firefox>LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/frysk/ ./firefox
> ./firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraries: 
> libdbus-1.so.3: cannot open shared object file: 
> No such file or directory
> [spc]lucy:~/bin/firefox>
> 

Okay, let's symbolically link libdbus-1.so.3 to libdbus-1.so.0.0.0 and see
what happens—woot! Success! I'm running Firefox 3.5!

And now I can try out that Google Wave Thang everybody is so hyped about.

[1] http://wave.google.com/
[2] http://gmail.com/
[3] gopher://gopher.conman.org/gPhlog:2009/11/29/do-the-wave.gif
[4] http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
[5] http://www.centos.org/
[6] http://press.redhat.com/2008/05/21/red-hat-enterprise-linux-52/
[7] http://press.redhat.com/2008/05/21/red-hat-enterprise-linux-52/
[8] http://sources.redhat.com/frysk/

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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