Installing New Firefox on Ubuntu
This post contain help document on step by step installing new Firefox (2.X+ version) on Ubuntu (Breezy Badger [5.10] and dapper Drake [6.06]).
Note on Ubuntu versions:
This guide is for installing Firefox 2.x on Ubuntu 5.10 (codename Breezy Badger) and 6.06
LTS (codename Dapper Drake). Firefox 2 is included in the default
Ubuntu 6.10 (codename Edgy Eft) release, if you are using 6.10 you can
install it in the standard manner described in InstallingSoftware and do not need this guide.
Warning:
If you use this guide, do not remove the Ubuntu version of Firefox.
Doing so will break the following packages: Yelp (help viewer),
Epiphany, Gnome-app-install (Add Applications), Liferea, Blam and any
application requiring the gecko rendering engine.
Installing Firefox from Mozilla.com
For some reason, the build of Firefox from Mozilla is significantly faster than the default Ubuntu one.
Notes
→ You will no longer get automatic updates for Firefox through
the repositories (but Firefox itself has a built into auto-updater, see
below for how that works).
→ The Totem video plugin doesn't seem to work with Firefox 2.x. You may want to install package mozilla-mplayer instead before you start.
→ You need the package libstdc++5 installed.
→ This is for i386. If you are on amd64, there are some specific tips in Firefox AMD64 Flash Java
→ If you are using scim-1.0.2 as your input method platform,
Firefox will crash on startup. You may manually build Firefox to make
both of them work. See SCIM and Compile Firefox New Version
for more information. If you don't know what SCIM is, you probably
aren't using it - it is used for some non-English character sets only.
→ To get the Flash plugin working properly, you may have to add
"export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1" to the Firefox launching script or
see the Restricted Formats page.
→ Middle clicks on tabs work differently on the Linux builds due
to the middle click button being used as a paste text shortcut. Type about:config in the address bar and set the middlemouse.contentLoadURL value to False. This fixes the issue and is the default for Firefox 2 Linux builds.
Automated Install
→ There is a shell script that automates these installation instructions for the newest Firefox, available Firefox installer script.
Manual Install
→ First, back up your bookmarks and settings:
→ Download Firefox from the Firefox website, and change to the directory you downloaded it to.
→ Install it to /opt/firefox:
→ Link to your plugins and remove totem-mozilla as it doesn't seem to work with Firefox 1.5.x or 2.x:
→ Change to your home directory, and rename your old profile,
leaving it as a backup (using the existing profile may cause problems
with Firefox 2.x):
→ To ensure it is used as the default version, modify the symbolic link in /usr/bin:
/usr/bin/firefox to a new name. The ln command will place a symlink to
the newly installed Firefox in /usr/bin.
→ Try it out:
→ Running Firefox in terminal may cause errors to show but don't
worry about that, it will still work once Firefox is restarted. The
reason for these errors is because Firefox 2 is checking for updates,
which is not abnormal activity. Also, running this command make take a
some time to execute, please be patient.
→ Restore your old data:
→ Restore your search plugins:
Some users are having a problem with the --reply=no flag, if you get output saying the --reply option is deprecated; use -i or -f instead remove the --reply=no flag and type no in the terminal for each plug-in.
→ If you want to keep the original Ubuntu icon for Firefox, enter this command:
Some users may find the icon with a different extension, they should use this command:
→
→ To ensure that other programs use version 2 of
Firefox and not the old 1.x version, go to Preferences » Preferred
Applications in the System menu. For the "Web Browser" tab, choose
"Custom" and then enter the command:
→ Firefox 2 should now be installed and working
properly. If for whatever reason you become unhappy with Firefox 2 and
would like to remove it, see the "Removing" section below for
directions.
Restoring Extensions and ThemesIn addition to restoring your settings, you can also restore your
themes and extensions. As indicated above, this should only be done
after running Firefox at least once and fully closing it.
Backup the new profile (just in case):
Restore your previous profile:
→ Start Firefox and try it out.
A dialog may appear indicating that one or more extensions and/or
themes are not compatible. This is normal and Firefox may be able to
find the updates for you.
Updating from 2 to a later version
Backup your profile with:
users on the system as they will be affected by the upgrade too).
There are two ways you can update Firefox to the newest version:
The first way is to close Firefox and give your user (yourself) file ownership: sudo chown -R ${USER}:${USER} /opt/firefox Start Firefox normally and update (Help -> Check for updates...) Once the update is completed, close Firefox and then restore ownership to root: sudo chown -R root:root /opt/firefox Do NOT
browse other sites while firefox has these elevated permissions, that
is without changing back the ownership of /opt/firefox over to root.
Such a practice is not safe.
Note that the following alternative method may give some files in
your home directory root ownership and cause problems. The first method
above is safer. To update firefox you can run Firefox from the terminal
with gksudo firefox .
Be sure to close any
running version of Firefox first. Enter your password where prompted.
Then check update (Help » Check for updates...). If updates are
found, apply the update and when it asks to restart, use the "Later"
option. If "Restart" is chosen, it can result in Firefox launching
again with non-root privileges, causing the update to fail. After
choosing "Later", close Firefox normally and relaunch with gksudo firefox .
When Firefox starts you should see a Mozilla page confirming that
you're using the latest version. Close Firefox and open it as a normal
user (the way you usually open it). Firefox should now be updated to
the newest version for all users. This way you don't have to change any
file permissions and you won't forget to not change them back.
Removing
If for some reason you want to undo the installation and revert back to the standard Firefox 1.0.7, here's how:
→ Restore the symbolic links:
→ Restore your old profile:
→ (optional) Delete the firefox directory:
Adapted from: Firefox New Version.
Read Installing New Firefox on Ubuntu...
Note on Ubuntu versions:
This guide is for installing Firefox 2.x on Ubuntu 5.10 (codename Breezy Badger) and 6.06
LTS (codename Dapper Drake). Firefox 2 is included in the default
Ubuntu 6.10 (codename Edgy Eft) release, if you are using 6.10 you can
install it in the standard manner described in InstallingSoftware and do not need this guide.
Warning:
If you use this guide, do not remove the Ubuntu version of Firefox.
Doing so will break the following packages: Yelp (help viewer),
Epiphany, Gnome-app-install (Add Applications), Liferea, Blam and any
application requiring the gecko rendering engine.
Installing Firefox from Mozilla.com
For some reason, the build of Firefox from Mozilla is significantly faster than the default Ubuntu one.
Notes
→ You will no longer get automatic updates for Firefox through
the repositories (but Firefox itself has a built into auto-updater, see
below for how that works).
→ The Totem video plugin doesn't seem to work with Firefox 2.x. You may want to install package mozilla-mplayer instead before you start.
→ You need the package libstdc++5 installed.
→ This is for i386. If you are on amd64, there are some specific tips in Firefox AMD64 Flash Java
→ If you are using scim-1.0.2 as your input method platform,
Firefox will crash on startup. You may manually build Firefox to make
both of them work. See SCIM and Compile Firefox New Version
for more information. If you don't know what SCIM is, you probably
aren't using it - it is used for some non-English character sets only.
→ To get the Flash plugin working properly, you may have to add
"export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1" to the Firefox launching script or
see the Restricted Formats page.
→ Middle clicks on tabs work differently on the Linux builds due
to the middle click button being used as a paste text shortcut. Type about:config in the address bar and set the middlemouse.contentLoadURL value to False. This fixes the issue and is the default for Firefox 2 Linux builds.
Automated Install
→ There is a shell script that automates these installation instructions for the newest Firefox, available Firefox installer script.
Manual Install
→ First, back up your bookmarks and settings:
cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default
mkdir ~/Desktop/ffsettings
cp bookmarks.html cert8.db cookies.txt formhistory.dat hostperm.1 key3.db signons.txt
history.dat mimeTypes.rdf ~/Desktop/ffsettings
→ Download Firefox from the Firefox website, and change to the directory you downloaded it to.
→ Install it to /opt/firefox:
# extract tar into /opt (you should make sure /opt already exists)
sudo tar xzvf firefox-2.0.0.1.tar.gz -C /opt
# remove the package if you no longer require it
rm firefox-2.0.0.1.tar.gz
→ Link to your plugins and remove totem-mozilla as it doesn't seem to work with Firefox 1.5.x or 2.x:
sudo mv /opt/firefox/plugins /opt/firefox/plugins.bak
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/firefox/plugins /opt/firefox/plugins
sudo rm /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/libtotem_mozilla.*
→ Change to your home directory, and rename your old profile,
leaving it as a backup (using the existing profile may cause problems
with Firefox 2.x):
cd
mv ~/.mozilla/firefox ~/.mozilla/firefox1.x.ubuntu
→ To ensure it is used as the default version, modify the symbolic link in /usr/bin:
# First, /usr/bin/firefoxThe dpkg-divert command will move the original system-wide
sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/firefox.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/firefox
sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
# Then, /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox, used as the default gnome browser
sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox
sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox
/usr/bin/firefox to a new name. The ln command will place a symlink to
the newly installed Firefox in /usr/bin.
→ Try it out:
firefox
→ Running Firefox in terminal may cause errors to show but don't
worry about that, it will still work once Firefox is restarted. The
reason for these errors is because Firefox 2 is checking for updates,
which is not abnormal activity. Also, running this command make take a
some time to execute, please be patient.
→ Restore your old data:
cd ~/Desktop/ffsettings
mv * ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default
→ Restore your search plugins:
sudo cp -i --reply=no /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/searchplugins/* /opt/firefox/searchplugins/
sudo cp -i --reply=no ~/.mozilla/firefox1.x.ubuntu/*.default/search/* /opt/firefox/searchplugins/
Some users are having a problem with the --reply=no flag, if you get output saying the --reply option is deprecated; use -i or -f instead remove the --reply=no flag and type no in the terminal for each plug-in.
→ If you want to keep the original Ubuntu icon for Firefox, enter this command:
sudo cp /usr/share/pixmaps/firefox.xpm /opt/firefox/chrome/icons/default/default.xpm
Some users may find the icon with a different extension, they should use this command:
→
sudo cp /usr/share/pixmaps/firefox.png /opt/firefox/chrome/icons/default/default.xpm
→ To ensure that other programs use version 2 of
Firefox and not the old 1.x version, go to Preferences » Preferred
Applications in the System menu. For the "Web Browser" tab, choose
"Custom" and then enter the command:
firefox %s
→ Firefox 2 should now be installed and working
properly. If for whatever reason you become unhappy with Firefox 2 and
would like to remove it, see the "Removing" section below for
directions.
Restoring Extensions and ThemesIn addition to restoring your settings, you can also restore your
themes and extensions. As indicated above, this should only be done
after running Firefox at least once and fully closing it.
Backup the new profile (just in case):
cd ~/.mozilla/firefox
mkdir ff2
mv profiles.ini *.default ff2/
Restore your previous profile:
# Shutdown firefox
cp ~/.mozilla/firefox1.x.ubuntu/profiles.ini .
cp -r ~/.mozilla/firefox1.x.ubuntu/*.default .
→ Start Firefox and try it out.
A dialog may appear indicating that one or more extensions and/or
themes are not compatible. This is normal and Firefox may be able to
find the updates for you.
Updating from 2 to a later version
Backup your profile with:
cp -R ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla.backup.20x(You may also want to consider backing up the profiles of other
users on the system as they will be affected by the upgrade too).
There are two ways you can update Firefox to the newest version:
The first way is to close Firefox and give your user (yourself) file ownership: sudo chown -R ${USER}:${USER} /opt/firefox Start Firefox normally and update (Help -> Check for updates...) Once the update is completed, close Firefox and then restore ownership to root: sudo chown -R root:root /opt/firefox Do NOT
browse other sites while firefox has these elevated permissions, that
is without changing back the ownership of /opt/firefox over to root.
Such a practice is not safe.
Note that the following alternative method may give some files in
your home directory root ownership and cause problems. The first method
above is safer. To update firefox you can run Firefox from the terminal
with gksudo firefox .
Be sure to close any
running version of Firefox first. Enter your password where prompted.
Then check update (Help » Check for updates...). If updates are
found, apply the update and when it asks to restart, use the "Later"
option. If "Restart" is chosen, it can result in Firefox launching
again with non-root privileges, causing the update to fail. After
choosing "Later", close Firefox normally and relaunch with gksudo firefox .
When Firefox starts you should see a Mozilla page confirming that
you're using the latest version. Close Firefox and open it as a normal
user (the way you usually open it). Firefox should now be updated to
the newest version for all users. This way you don't have to change any
file permissions and you won't forget to not change them back.
Removing
If for some reason you want to undo the installation and revert back to the standard Firefox 1.0.7, here's how:
→ Restore the symbolic links:
# First, /usr/bin/firefox
sudo rm /usr/bin/firefox
sudo dpkg-divert --rename --remove /usr/bin/firefox
# Then, /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox, used as the default gnome browser
sudo rm /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox
sudo dpkg-divert --rename --remove /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox
→ Restore your old profile:
cd
mv .mozilla .mozilla-20
mv .mozilla.ubuntu .mozilla
→ (optional) Delete the firefox directory:
sudo rm -r /opt/firefox
Adapted from: Firefox New Version.
Labels: firefox tips, ubuntu tips
Read Installing New Firefox on Ubuntu...
