Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu 9.04

Well today the much anticipated speedy Firefox 3.5 arrived. Ubuntu probably won't push this one out as an update and I am not sure when Firefox's own auto-update would provide this upgrade, so if you're impatient as I, this is how to install it manually. Do read the whole thing through before deciding whether to do this, as there are some potential plugin issues involved!

Installation procedure
First you need to download and extract in an appropriate place. I'm extracting to /opt/firefox-3.5 such as to avoid collisions later when an official Ubuntu version is available:


casper@workstation/$ cd /opt/
casper@workstation/opt/$ sudo wget http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.5/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-3.5.tar.bz2
casper@workstation/opt/$ sudo tar -xjf firefox-3.5.tar.bz2
casper@workstation/opt/$ sudo mv firefox firefox-3.5
casper@workstation/opt/$ sudo rm firefox-3.5.tar.bz2 -f


Perhaps you notice that the download is a i686/32bit Linux release, this is because Mozilla do not presently build amd64/64bit versions. For this, we will have to wait for a version from our distribution. Now, lets check Ubuntu's browser settings:

casper@workstation:/opt$ sudo update-alternatives --display x-www-browser 
x-www-browser - status is auto.
 link currently points to /usr/bin/firefox-3.0
/usr/bin/firefox-3.0 - priority 40
Current `best' version is /usr/bin/firefox-3.0.


As you can see on my machine, only Firefox 3.0 is installed. We can add the newly downloaded version as an alternative and give it precedence on the system by issuing:

casper@workstation/opt/$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/firefox-3.5 x-www-browser /opt/firefox-3.5/firefox 50


Also, we can make it default:

casper@workstation/opt/$ sudo update-alternatives --set x-www-browser /opt/firefox-3.5/firefox
Using '/opt/firefox-3.5/firefox' to provide 'x-www-browser'.


However, it's still not default on the path. To make it so, Ubuntu needs to update its symlink from /usr/bin/firefox to /opt/firefox-3.5/firefox:

casper@workstation/opt/$ sudo rm /usr/bin/firefox
casper@workstation/opt/$ sudo ln -s /opt/firefox-3.5/firefox /usr/bin/firefox



Voila. Issuing "firefox" on the command-line should now start Firefox 3.5 just as Ubuntu's shortcuts should now also point to the new version. On initial launch, Firefox 3.5 will check your extensions and plugins, as well as use your existing bookmarks etc. from your users home as usual on Linux.

Caveats
Note that if you previously had the amd64/64bit version of Firefox and plugins, your plugins will no longer work! It is of course very easy to just use 32bit plugins instead. In my case, I just lifted the two plugins I am interested in (libflashplayer.so and libjavaplugin.so) from another 32bit installation, but you can simply use Synaptic package manager to install 32bit plugins if you do not have these already.

If you don't wish to have multiple versions and perhaps have already uninstalled the old 64bit 3.0 version, then you may simply place the files in ~/.mozilla/plugins/. However, if you wish to have both versions on your system, you should keep the 64bit stuff around and instead add the 32bit plugins locally to your 32bit Firefox 3.5 installation in /opt/firefox-3.5/plugins/.

It's annoying to be back to 32bit for the time being but I do love the speed of this new version, and I'm sure you will too.


Update: Turns out there's an easier way, explained in this blog entry: http://talkingincircles.net/2009/07/01/firefox-3-5-in-ubuntu-9-04-64-bit/


Comments

Dimitrios Menounos said…
May I suggest somewhat better approach?

Instead of messing around with update-alternatives which is complicated and platform specific, there is another simpler and platform agnostic solution.

sudo echo "export PATH=/opt/firefox-3.5:\$PATH" > /etc/profile.d/firefox

That is it, you are done. I use this method for all the software I manually install and works beautifully.
July 1, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Casper Bang said…
Sure you may, that's an interesting alternative I haven't thought of - taking advantage of environment path overrides.

I'll try that next time I install something manually. Thanks. :)
July 1, 2009 at 1:35 PM
hanum said…
still has many bugs but Firefox 3.6 has just launched recently ;))
December 21, 2009 at 9:07 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Oracle SQLDeveloper 4 on Debian/Ubuntu/Mint

Image
Oracle SQLDeveloper is one of those tools you just kind of need around, but with its slew of bugs around so once its setup, you try not to touch it. Occasionally, Oracle releases a new version (or an early preview) with some of the bugs fixed and this appears to be the case with version 4 Early Preview . Unfortunately, these early previews are no longer distributed as general gzip archives to work on any Linux/Mac distro, there's only a RedHat RPM installer for the Linux platform. Thankfully, this is easy to fix using the utility we known and love as Alien. Conversion of RPM to DEB Start by ensuring you have the Alien utility installed. ~$ sudo apt-get install alien Then after downloading the RPM package from Oracle, run it through the alien utility. ~$ sudo alien sqldeveloper-4.0.0.12.84-1.noarch.rpm Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package sqldeveloper: postinst Warning: Use the --scripts parameter to include the scripts. sqldeveloper_4.0.0.12.84
Read more

@SuppressWarnings values

Image
Meta-data and how to associate it has always been a bit of a confusing topic in Java. For instance, the transient modifier is really a kind of marker annotation, as is the @deprecated javadoc tag compilers are also required to process, as is the marker interface Serializable. Then in JDK 1.5, a dedicated annotation facility was added, probably in light of the success of C#'s attributes. One of the first practical uses of annotations appears to be as a way to suppress compiler warnings. @SuppressWarnings This build-in annotation allows the developer to signal a respecting compiler that it should forgo a particular warning. It can be applied in front of a type, a field, a method, a parameter, a constructor as well as a local variable. It is up to the compiler to make sense of whatever you put inside the String, the only value mandated by the JLS is the "unchecked". Compilers as well as IDE's will typically implement each their own set of warning types, the Eclipse IDE d
Read more

Rejsekort Scanner

Image
Unusual to this blog, the following entry is in danish due to the topic being the national transit ticketing system in Denmark, also known as Rejsekort . Læs også nyere indlæg om emnet i form af   Opfølgning op launch samt Rejsekort Scanner i samarbejde med Rejsekort A/S . Rejsekort Scanner Som det eneste program af sin art, lader Rejsekort Scanner dig aflæse dit Rejsekort direkte og øjeblikkeligt blive informeret omkring check-in status, saldo, rejsehistorik mm. Der er altså hverken behov for data-forbindelse eller kompliceret opsætning! App'en er fungerer med Rejsekort Personligt, Anonymt samt Flex. Man skal bare have en smartphone med NFC der understøtter Mifare Classic smartcards. Rejsekort Scanner er en uofficiel app uden adgang til Rejskort A/S' officielle systemer, og programmet kender derfor heller ikke alle placeringen for begivenheder udover dem der er fundet manuelt. Hvis du ønsker at opdatere denne liste kan du slå "Download placeringer&quo
Read more