This tutorial covers the download, installation and setup of Netscape Communicator, RealPlayer G2, Adobe Acrobat Reader, XDIR (a graphical FTP application), asWedit (an HTML editor) and the Java Development Kit (IBM version for Linux). Before you start, I suggest you create a downloads directory in a user account (/home/user/downloads) to store the compressed and rpm packages as you download them.
The latest version of Netscape Communicator can be downloaded from RedHat as rpm. You will need to download two files (netscape-common and netscape-communicator), presently for version 4.8. You should download them to the downloads directory and install them as a rpm packages. Please note that in a workstation installation in RedHat 7.2, both Netscape and Mozilla are installed by default, and you do not need to download them. Setting up Netscape Communicator Or Mozilla in Linux is the same as setting it up in Windows (use Edit,Preferences and select the options you want). I suggest that you set up at least the following options:
To read PDF files download the binary files of the Acrobat Reader for Linux to the downloads directory . You will need to unzip and uncompress the file as follows (please note that versions can change and the example is showing version 4.05):
Then change into the new directory created in downloads (something like ILINXR.install), and type ./INSTALL Answer the questions about file placement and you will be done. I suggest you place the files in /home/user/bin/Acrobat4, where user is the user account name.
After the installation change to the /home/user/bin directory. Open Kedit, or any other text editor, type /home/user/bin/Acrobat4/bin/acroread and save the file as acroread. Make this file executable: chmod u+x acroread , and create a link, icon, in the desktop to acroread .
Finally, set Netscape, Mozilla to use the reader: Select Edit, Preferences, Navigator Applications, and look for the line with the Portable Document Format entry, then select edit, and in the dialog window select Application and type acroread %s and say OK twice.
To listen to audio streaming and watch video streaming materials download the rpm of the RealPlayer 8 for Linux 2.x (lib6i386) RPM to the downloads directory and install it as a rpm package. If you use KDE create a link in the desktop (righ-click and select new application) to realplay. Set Netscape to use the reader: Select Edit, Preferences, Navigator Applications, and look for the line with the RealAudio entry, then select edit, and in the dialog window select Application and type realplay %s and say OK twice.
The RedHat distribution installs a graphical FTP client -- gftp, very similar to WS_FTP in Windows. In the left side you see the contents of your PC and in the right side the contents of the remote machine, as shown in this image.You do not create profiles to login, but rather enter a remote machine FQDN and gFTP will remember it in the future. You also enter your username and password. gFTP will remember the usernames and let you select from the ones you have logged in before.
For Web page development you can use asWedit (download the rpm file) to the downloads directory install it as a rpm package. asWedit is text-based HTML Editor similar to Homesite in Windows, but is free.
Download the JDK for Linux from IBM. The IBM port for Linux includes it's Just-In-Time Compiler and execution modules. With this package you can develop and run Java programs and Applets. The file you download is compressed, not an rpm. You will need to uncompress and install it:
You can go to the Sun Applet page and download applets and see them running in your browser or in the appletviewer. The JDK installation has also created a /usr/java/demo directory, which containd java applets. Read the README file in the /usr/java directory for more information.
