== Running a 32-bit Firefox on a 64-bit Fedora or Red Hat Enterprise

It turns out that it is pretty easy to run a 32-bit Firefox
on a modern 64-bit Fedora or Red Hat Enterprise system,
something that is periodically convenient. (For example,
the current Sun ILOM client needs the 32-bit version of
Java. Maybe you could run things with [[nspluginwrapper
http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwrapper/]], but I prefer
not to take chances with a machine's console.)

First, you need to make sure you have the 32 bit version of Firefox
installed. I don't know if this is the default, but '_yum install
firefox.i386_' will certainly make sure it's there.

If you are using a current version of Fedora, all you need to do is
start Firefox as '_linux32 firefox_' instead of just '_firefox_'. If you
keep the 32 bit version running, the magic of [[Firefox's remote control
../unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControl]] means that all of your browsing will
be in it, no matter what command programs use to invoke Firefox.

It takes some more work if you're using Red Hat Enterprise 5; you need
to create a modified version of the _firefox_ script, because the
script hard codes running the 64 bit version if it's available. Put
a copy of _/usr/bin/firefox_ somewhere under a different name, say
_firefox32_, and edit it to either take out the bit that checks
for _/usr/lib64/firefox-...._ or change the path it's looking for
something that doesn't exist, so it thinks that the 64 bit version isn't
installed.

One cautionary note: I believe that the personal plugins directory,
_$HOME/.mozilla/plugins_, is shared between the 32 bit and the 64
bit version. I don't know what happens if you have anything there.