59865 - Running mozilla via symbolic link is broken (patch)

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 57866

(Core Graveyard :: Cmd-line Features, defect, P3)

Description

[Tobias Burnus]

Hi,

if you make a symbolic link to $MOZILLA/package/mozilla, e.g. like this:
ln -s /usr/local/mozilla/package/mozilla /usr/local/bin/mozilla

This will fail since you use:
 dist_bin=`dirname $0`
this point in this cas to /usr/local/bin/ which is wrong

I replaced this line with:

 FILE=$0
 if test -L $0; then
 FILE=`ls -l mozilla|cut -d '>' -f 2`
 fi

 dist_bin=`dirname $FILE`

A test on Linux and OFS1/Alpha showed that this works ok.

Comment 1

[Tobias Burnus]

Attachment: Proposed patch using test -L, ls and cut

Comment 2

[Tobias Burnus]

I'm seemingly a bit sleepy, the bugreport is a mess (the patch is not). I retry
to make the problem clear:
One starts Mozilla with ..../package/mozilla. This file is a shell script, which
sets some variables concerning the path and tries to execute some files which
are located in same directory.

This will fail, if I don't execute this script directly, but execute a symbolic
link to it. Then it sets the variable to the place where the link is localed --
and since this is usually not the same directory (but /usr/local/bin/ or
$HOME/bin) it fails.

The proposed patch fixes this by getting the location of the real file.

I tested it successfully under Linux and made some tests with an older DEC Alpha
(OSF1) so it should work with all Unixes (but VMS, but that is not Unix ;-)

NB:
(a) I hope that I fixed the right file, I have "sometimes" problems with my 
    orientation on the CVS server
(b) I would rank this quite high: Two persons I know installed Mozilla that way 
    and it didn't work. The workaround is not that clear. And the fix should be
    rather trival. (It may fail with very (!) old unices, but I doubt that 
    anyone runs Mozilla on them.)

Comment 3

[Viswanath Ramachandran]

Since Don has left, Vishy is taking his bugs in bulk, pending reassignment.
thanks,
	Vishy

Comment 4

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

Netscape Nav triage team: this is not a Netscape beta stopper.

Comment 5

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

would someone pls review the patch and see if it should be checked in? thx!

Comment 6

[Paul Chen]

Marking nsbeta1- bugs as future to get off the radar.

Comment 7

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

->mcafee and clearing resolution. unless the patch has bit-rotted, could this
pls be reviewed?

Comment 8

[Chris McAfee]

alecf

Comment 9

[Alec Flett]

Don't know if this patch even applies anymore. if someone is willing to go try
it out I'll take a look again... otherwise, just moving to FUTURE

Comment 10

[Marco Franzen]

Isn't this a duplicate of bug 57866?

Comment 11

[hacker formerly known as [e-mail]]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 57866 ***

Comment 12

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

marking verified as a duplicate.

if you decide to reopen this bug, please clarify why.

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