HowTo Install the Latest Firefox in Ubuntu (Ultimate HowTo)

[Onos]

I am really starting to pull my hair out on this, almost ready to give up and use FF 1.07 until Dapper Drake.

Most likely it is a PBKAC (Problem Between Keyboard And Chair) and I simply lack the experience to know where I messed it up.

I followed the HOWTO up til the step where it says to test it by entering firefox in the terminal... and it only loaded version 1.07.

I am using Xubuntu (Xfce4) on i686 machine.

I do not have gnome installed as a desktop environment, nor do I have KDE... my machine is a slow as tar Celeron, 1100 MHz.

I use uim / uim-anthy since I need Japanese input. I read how scim tends to break under FF 1.5, so I made sure any and all instances of it were scrubbed from the machine.

Per the wiki, I have installed:

libstdc++5

When I tried to do this step:

cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default
 mkdir ~/Desktop/ffsettings
 cp bookmarks.html cert8.db cookies.txt formhistory.dat key3.db signons.txt history.dat  mimeTypes.rdf ~/Desktop/ffsettings

it will not allow me to create this ffsettings subdirectory, even when I use sudo -.

Since I figured this is only for settings that I can reset later in the would be install of FF 1.5, I passed this step after trying it a few times without any results.


This seems to have worked, but I did not have libtotem_mozilla.* installed.

 cd /opt/firefox/plugins/
 sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/* .
 sudo rm libtotem_mozilla.*

This seems to have worked (it did not throw any errors) :

 sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/firefox.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/firefox
 sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

And so, when did this in terminal:

firefox

FF 1.07 came up, with the default ubuntu home page (instead of my normal homepage that I had set to Google.

What am I missing?

Since I do not have gnome or KDE installed, is it safe for me to completely remove FF 1.07 and try to install FF 1.5 ?

[Onos]

やった！

Looks like removing FF 1.07 in its entirety has worked... the only thing that unnerves me a tad was when synaptic removed xubuntu-desktop, but apparently that is not needed.

[Yleeyas]

Being a newbie, I followed the wiki instructions "blindly" , and everything worked as advertised. Thanx for this excellent doc.

What I'd like to do is reverse the line;
#

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


#

and use the Moz Firefox icon. Can I just reverse the copy, or will I step on something?

Also, (and this might be a FF thing) in my ******* version of FF1.5 the 'options' settings are at the bottom of the 'Tools' menu, while this version has the 'preferences' settings (same as options) at the bottom of the 'Edit' menu. I've got all the same extensions in both, so I don't think it's a function of one of those. Can someone confirm, deny or clarify the difference?

Yleeyas (newbie)

[Onos]

やった！

Looks like removing FF 1.07 in its entirety has worked... the only thing that unnerves me a tad was when synaptic removed xubuntu-desktop, but apparently that is not needed.

Ack. I found out that FF 1.5 will work without xubuntu-desktop package... but removing it hoses any desktop background, and the right-click context sensitive menus in the desktop area.

I tried re-installing the xubuntu-desktop package + mozilla (package for FF 1.07) but to no avail.... I now have a brown, icky screen.

I guess my best bet will be either to tough it out for another six months until Dapper Drake, or suffer the wrath of bloat-age from KDE or gnome.

[Onos]

Found a fix for this, courtesy of Sapo ... pressing ALT + F2 and then typing xfdesktop seems to have brought my background and context back to life.

[ariel]

I just wanted to bring this back up. Both this blinking menu problem and the long delay when opening a save dialog the first time are fixed in the nightlies. These were really driving me crazy, so I just downloaded the 12-21-2005 Linux nightly build from here: http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/.

Since I had used the FirefoxNewVersion wiki page to upgrade to 1.5, all I needed to do was backup my Firefox folder (the one in /opt/) and untar+unzip the new version (1.6a1) into /opt/. I then copied my plugins over.

Also, be sure to make a backup of your profile just in case. Some extensions may say they are out of date so I just manually bumped up the version to 1.6 in the install.rdf files, but those Nightly Tester Tools may work (I haven't used them). I also recommend turning off automatic updates since all I really needed was these two bugs fixed and I don't want to deal with future breakage. Everything seems to be going fine now, and if you can live with Firefox still being called Deer Park Alpha 2 for some reason, then you may want to try it.

I fixed this one in another way.
First I tried with with Deer Alpha2 and it made such a mess with my extensions and stuff, that i rolled back.
I downloaded the latest 1.5 branch official build, which i found in:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.o...st-mozilla1.8/

I think they integrated the patch for the bug in it, because all my problems vanished. Also you can simply download the binary and extract it directly over /opt/firefox, it keeps your profile, extensions etc. This did the trick for me.
Ariel

[fishfork]

Couple of minor nits:

etc.

tripleee, you seem to have lots of good ideas for the page. Why not register for the Wiki and make the changes yourself? I will add them myself when I get time, but I'm a little busy at the moment. Please do feel free to edit the page; this goes for anyone with something to contribute.

If you look around, there are some useful Wiki pages with tips on getting started with editing that might help you. Good luck!

[Tosa]

Thanks for the script. Everything went like charm.

I did have the issue with left lock file, but that is due to FF not the script.

I really admire the time and effort you must be putting in the whole thing...

[Paool]

Hi

In KDE my Firefox 1.5 is running fine, but in fvwm when i run 'firefox' command, version 1.0.7 starts :/

how to make 1.5 default in fvwm?

[Frank Golden]

Hi Guys,
Was looking for way to update my version of Breezy Badger to FF 1.5 when I stumbled on you site. Got more than I bargained for, very cool!!!. Just what this newbie needed. Got Ubuntu set up on a 80 GB HD in my notebook (dual boot with XP Pro) almost everything works great now. Again thanks.