The firefox developers, in their reciprocally infinite wisdom,
are pushing Firefox 4, which requires libstdc++.so.6 with
GLIBCXX_3.4.9 .  The available libstdc++.i386 0:4.1.2-50.el5
RPM contains only GLIBCXX_3.4.8 .  You can read more about it
here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2075033

The mozillazine moderator helpfully reminds us that our
distribution, though upgraded late last year, is out of date. 
The moderator needs an attitude adjustment.

The hack mentioned (installing a newer version of libstdc++ in
the firefox4 directory) doesn't seem very upgradable.  It is
also not complete - in the binary directory (I've put mine at
/opt/firefox) you not only need to add the libstdc++.so.6.0.10,
you also must softlink it to libstdc++.so.6 so firefox can see
it.  Firefox 4 also can't find my firefox 3.6x passwords,
customizations, etc.  Back to 3.6.16 for now.

3.6.15 currently launches a security nag box to upgrade to 3.6.16,
but that gets redirected to 4.0 at the firefox website.

3.6.16 is hidden here:
   /pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.6.16/linux-i686/en-US/

Given the way they've structured things, there may not be a
3.6.17 and subsequent security upgrades.

So ... what to do?  Perhaps SL4x and SL5x need a mildly hacked
version of Firefox 4 with the included library.  Adding to the
maintenance effort for SL, sigh.  Perhaps T.U.V. will do this.

Or perhaps the firefox developers should be encouraged (with
red hot encouragement irons) to support the older library,
and proper upgrades.  Abandoning millions of Linux users
who want long term support is ... Microsoft-ish.

Grump, growl.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          [log in to unmask]         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs