Installing software?

Ok, forgive me for my ignorance, but I'm a very (VERY) new Mac user. Been using Windows for around 15 years and Linux for 10, so I'm fairly familiar with general computer usage, but not Mac-specifics .

Anyways, I'm trying to figure out how to install software like Firefox (or rather, how to do it more easily).

When I visited Mozilla's site in Safari, it prompted me to download a .dmg file for Firefox. I started download, but then after it finished it stuck at "Preparing to Extract Archive" (or something similar to that - not at home right now). Eventually I just closed Safari. The file seemed intact, but when I double click on it, I get a bouncing icon in the dock for a sec, then it just goes away. The default application for handling .dmg files seems to be "Disk Copier", which just doesn't sound right, but that's a hunch . After reading a bit, I was able to open it with the hdiutil command line utility, then drag it over to my applications folder. I now have the program installed, but it seems like somewhere I took the long way around . Any easier way to handle these?

Thanks very much.

When you click a download on the web, it should simply download, and place the .dmg file on your desktop... Then what you did was correct... Open the .dmg... drag the Application icon over to the Applications folder, and drop it in... all set. Drag the .dmg to the trash.... open the Application from the application folder.


If you are downloading a compressed file (.rar, .sit, .sitx, etc.) When you double-click it (usually looks like a box on the desktop) it will open up "Stuffit Expander" (if you have it installed)... you will then see the folder in a list view on the Stuffit window... Click/highlight the File Folder within the Stuffit window, then click "Extract" on the Stuffit menubar... You'll briefly see a small "Progress" window... the File Folder will be extracted/placed on the desktop... open that... drag the application icon to the Application folder... all set.

Trash everything that is left on the destop (at least that's what I do)

what you did was definetely not whats meant to happen...

whats meant to happen is the dmg will mount itself into Finder, right under 'Macintosh HD' in the sidebar. Then you go into the dmg and drag Firefox into the Applications folder. Then click the little eject button next to the firefox DMG to delete it and you're all done.

Sounds to me like a computer error. You could try downloading Firefox again, just to see if it mounts itself this time around. If it does, who knows what caused the error? If it doesn't, I'd try contacting Apple Support.

Skype has a good guide on how ti install their software. You can apply the same technique to almost all Mac software.

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/macosx/downloading.html