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Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives

331 points by mfsch 3y ago

rinze 3y ago
As a user of the PPA packages (https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa), now I'm confused. Are these the same packages? Should I switch? I'd have appreciated at least a mention in the article.
- mfsch 3y ago
  From what I can tell, the “Ubuntu Mozilla Team” does not consist of people from Mozilla but rather just people packaging Mozilla software for Ubuntu. The latest packages in that PPA have been uploaded by Rico Tzschichholz, who does not appear to be affiliated with Mozilla.
  - ghostpepper 3y ago
    This is confusing because it’s posted on Mozilla’s official site
    - cassianoleal 3y ago
      The thing posted on Mozilla's website (the OP) is official. The PPA posted at the root of this comment thread isn't.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - tamimio 3y ago
    > the “Ubuntu Mozilla Team” does not consist of people from Mozilla Kudos to open source maintainers, the hidden heroes who make your life easier while expecting nothing in return.
- EasyMark 3y ago
  Get rid of your PPA package and use the official repo, it's 99.9% better in almost all cases. More details on google/youtube on how to do that, it's too much to type on HN and should be on the first page of google/duckduckgo. I would guess the people supporting the PPA will stop updating it after a while due to there being an official repo to use.
rawfan 3y ago
Very welcome addition by Mozilla. Thanks!
ur-whale 3y ago
The missed the key 5th benefit: Allows you to sudo apt-get purge snapd without annoying unwanted consequences.
- ColonelBlimp 3y ago
  You didn’t have to wait for this new Firefox package to stop using snaps, did you?
  - arzig 3y ago
    The Firefox deb in the repos redirected and did a snap install or some weirdness at least at some point.
    - jlarocco 3y ago
      Must have been an Ubuntu problem. I install Firefox via Debian's package, and have never had 'snapd' installed.
      - arzig 3y ago
        Yes. Ubuntu maintained their own deb package that redirected to a snap install.
    - ColonelBlimp 3y ago
      Flatpaks are a perfectly functional option https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.firefox https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.firefox
- Osiris 3y ago
  I recently had a problem where snapd kept sigfaulting and the fix was to purge it completely. It turns out that everything I had in snap was available in flatpak, which I prefer anyway.
  - EasyMark 3y ago
account42 3y ago
[flagged]
- perihelions 3y ago
  What anti-features do Debian's maintainers remove from Firefox, in practice? (Meaning the one they've already been maintaining for a while, a firefox-esr package. There's also an upcoming one for the normal release cadence). edit: Answering my own question, https://wiki.debian.org/Firefox#Disabling_automatic_connections https://wiki.debian.org/Firefox#Disabling_automatic_connecti... ("Here is a table of the above parameters and how Debian diverges from the upstream default:") Looks to me like a fairly small, unimportant delta. edit #2: I didn't mean to criticize your comment overly strongly! I hope I wasn't the reason you got flagged—I tried to vouch you but I regret that wasn't enough.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    Huh, that's interesting - I've definitely used distro packages that disabled some(?) of the telemetry stuff. If Debian doesn't, I wonder what distro I'm remembering. Or maybe they used to and just don't now.
    - perihelions 3y ago
      It does disable telemetry! This is the list I linked—it's all different types of automatic network connections, from anonymized telemetry to update checks to speculative connections.
- yoavm 3y ago
  This seems harsh considering they're still making the only true user-agent in the world. Which maintainer are you trusting so much, and what anti-features are they removing?
- ok123456 3y ago
  The anti-features that I'm aware of are runtime configuration flags and profile settings. Having an official build from Mozilla makes a supply chain attack harder. Additionally, they claim to compile with PGO, which random builds may not have.
zilti 3y ago
[flagged]
lolinder 3y ago
> Getting the latest version with features and security fixes is key to having a good experience whenever you use Firefox. Now, our new APT repository is directly connected to the Firefox release process, so you will receive the latest updates whenever we make them available. Tip: you will still need to restart Firefox for the latest version. In the past when I've installed Firefox through a .deb, it has had this annoying habit of requiring me to restart my browser whenever it updates in the background. I'll be going about my day and all of the sudden every URL will redirect me to about:restartrequired [0] and I'll have to shut everything down to keep going. It's not clear from this announcement if they've fixed that or not. If they haven't, I'll probably just continue to install Firefox from the .tar.gz files they provide [1]. If you drop them in a directory you have write permissions to, Firefox can auto-update itself the same way it does on Windows, without any forced interruptions. [0] https://otechworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/restart-firefox-using-about-restartrequired-page.png https://otechworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/restart-fi... [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-from-mozilla-builds https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w...
- vetinari 3y ago
  The tar.gz build has exactly the same problem (it just doesn't complain about it): it needs to close the files from the old package and open the ones from the new package. Hence the restart. You can minimize the downtime by just restarting the browser and then using History | Restore previous session. The flatpak build avoids this problem by keeping both versions on the disk, up until you stop the app. Only at this time, the old version is removed, and the next start will be the new version.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    > it just doesn't complain about it This is the key point. I'm assuming that it downloads the update and then waits for me to agree to install it, but however it works it doesn't interrupt my browsing while I'm in the middle of something.
    - 3y ago
ghostpepper 3y ago
[flagged]
nequo 3y ago
They don't seem to be packaging the LTS version, Firefox ESR. Am I missing something? Is there a separate Mozilla repository for that?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- khobragade 3y ago
  They're already done by the Debian people.
  - mardifoufs 3y ago
    Yeah but that's not necessarily a good thing. Packaged browsers from a package repo don't have the best track record. I mean they are fine but there's a reason why some want their packages to come from the people who actually made the software especially in this case. Does the ESR Debian package support updates without asking for restarts? Granted it matters less for esr but if it avoids the issue , why not.
    - sylvestre 3y ago
      Feels like an excellent track record to me: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr ;) And Mike is also a prolific Firefox developer.
      - mardifoufs 3y ago
        Ahhh I wasn't familiar with this package in particular. I just have had a bunch of ... weird issues dues to some quirks in some packaged browsers. Basically it was never a standard install, and it sucked for ironing out issues. Glad to hear the Debian packages are doing great, not surprised either!
    - khobragade 3y ago
      > there's a reason why some want their packages to come from the people who actually made the software Not necessarily either. Think of the Audacity fiasco. We were very comfortable using the Debain package but not their Flatpack and obviously not the snap. I realise I'm replying to a subtext but the context is the same.
aquova 3y ago
Is there more technical information than this article provides? Did Firefox not have a .deb package until now? It's been a few years since I used Ubuntu, but I find that really surprising. I'm not sure what this new package is or how it differs.
- tenebrisalietum 3y ago
  Mozilla is officially releasing a .deb for Firefox now. The one in the repos is not maintained by Mozilla.
- exitzer0 3y ago
  Depending on your distro, the Firefox package you see in the official repo is ... well packaged by the repo maintianers and some distros will include customizations like adding in bookmarks to the distro's welcome/docs/pages/etc. Sometimes even more things like feature settings are changed. It is usually not anything major and usually things that you might prefer like disabling pocket, etc. What Mozilla is calling out here is a seperate, Mozilla-direct repo. This means you skip the official repos. Everyone should think carefully about what this means.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    On Ubuntu, Firefox is packaged as a snap, not as a normal .deb. It is pretty bad.
- michaelt 3y ago
  * In the ancient past, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Ubuntu distributed Firefox as a .deb * Recently (well, in the last 2-4 years) to boost the uptake of Canonical's "snap" packaging system, Ubuntu switched to only distributing Firefox as a snap. * There are a lot of snap haters around. Not least because canonical fucked up the update mechanism in the first year or two, had a bunch of performance problems (now mostly solved?), and made a bunch of weird broken snaps for things like docker. * An unofficial firefox package for Ubuntu was then created, so people who didn't want to use the snap could avoid doing so. * By some accounts, Mozilla is keen on controlling the entire release channel, so security updates don't have to wait on volunteer maintainers. (IDK if this is true or not, but I've heard second-hand claims) * This new package lets Mozilla release to users directly, and lets snap haters avoid snap without using unofficial packages.
nairboon 3y ago
So, we have come full circle? There used to be a .deb repo, then there wasn't and now we have one again.
- WD-42 3y ago
  .deb packages, just like server side rendering, are the new hotness.
  - imp0cat 3y ago
    Nah, they never went out of style.
  - mminer237 3y ago
    .deb packages have been the primary method of distributing programs on Linux for well over a decade at this point.
  - EasyMark 3y ago
    don't forget jquery and anti frameworks becoming cool again.
- glandium 3y ago
  I don't remember Mozilla ever having a repo for Debian packages. Did I miss something?
m45t3r 3y ago
This is a welcome addition for Chromebooks, because now you can install latest Firefox (not ESR) in Crostini without using Flatpak. Sadly Mozilla still doesn't offer `aarch64-linux` builds for Firefox in their official channels, so for those that have a ARM64 Chromebook will still need to use something else to get Firefox running (I use Nix, but it needs some complicated setup to work with hardware acceleration, for example, using nixGL).
- a1o 3y ago
  Hey, do you know a good resource to learn how to compile a binary for Linux Arm64 that works in a Chromebook? I would like to port some C code I have that I produce builds for x86 and Amd64 debian using GCC 4.8 and an old debian, I am curious what has to be done to produce a binary that would run the same in Chromebook.
  - nolist_policy 3y ago
    Parent is probably refering to the dev linux environment, which is just Debian in a vm with seamless wayland/X11/file/usb passthrough. So just target Debian 11 and 12 arm64. If you compile on an older version of Debian it should work fine too.
  - ajross 3y ago
    You're not supposed to have to do anything at all. Crostini on an ARM Chromebook is literally just aarch64 Debian, pointed at the upstream apt repos for basically all of its binaries.
- mderazon 3y ago
  How's your experience with Firefox in ChromeOS compared to Chrome ? Doesn't it feel second class ?
  - m45t3r 3y ago
    Since my Chromebook is not really powerful, yes, Firefox feels like a second class citizen. But I imagine in a better Chromebook it should work better.
Aissen 3y ago
I have been using Mozilla builds of Firefox on Linux for years, and they tend to just be higher quality. They talk about the performance engineering that goes in the build process briefly, but IMHO stability is also improved. It's also updated on restart (see the About window), so you never get issues because changing the libs that can be dynamically loaded right from under a program is never a good idea. My only wish would be that they finally propose official Linux/aarch64 builds, for example for Asahi Linux.
- sfink 3y ago
  I see linux/aarch64 builds at https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=mozilla-release&searchStr=build%2Cshippable https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=mozilla-release&sea... so it seems like they exist. Maybe they aren't packaged for apt?
  - Aissen 3y ago
    They are packages by distros, but not considered a tier 1 platform by Mozilla. I didn't see those builds on your link, only android/windows/osx aarch64 builds, what am I missing ?
    - sfink 3y ago
      Oops, looks like you're right. I mixed up "Linux x64 Shippable" with AArch64.
chrsw 3y ago
This seems like great news. Managing software through one distro supported interface is less mental burden on me, the user. For developers, it's more work, I get that.
esaym 3y ago
Perhaps I'm missing something, but like 6 years ago, I downloaded firefox on linux from mozilla which came as a tar file that I extracted into my home directory and made shortcuts to. It has been working fine and auto updating ever since :shrug: I don't see what the point of this is.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  It's handy if multiple users use the same machine, or if you're on a managed system.
wkat4242 3y ago
Oh good!! Snap free <3
mobilemidget 3y ago
They write "advanced compiler-based optimizations"; I guess that doesn't fall under open source?
- asadotzler 3y ago
  Wrong https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/build/buildsystem/pgo.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/build/buildsystem/pg...
- sfink 3y ago
  Think of it more as "we compile with -O3". If you installed with the .tar.bz2, you'd get that already. If you use a 3rd party produced .deb, they might build with -O2. That's just an example; the blog is probably referring to PGO and/or LTO: profile-guided optimization and link time optimization, which require some fiddly setup that I believe third parties have traditionally not bothered with. And yes, it's all open source. You can see all of the bits that go into producing that .tar.bz2. You can even see the full build log if you like, eg by going to https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=mozilla-release&searchStr=build%2Cshippable https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=mozilla-release&sea... . Pick your platform, click on Bpgo, click on B, select the "log" link down in the lower left. There are plenty of Mozilla-related things to complain about, openness of the browser development process is not one of them.
  - Jach 3y ago
    Gentoo users like me fiddle with such things, they're just flags you can turn on before compiling. It's been a while since I experimented though, I didn't notice any advantage, with a disadvantage being an increase in compile time. I haven't tried on my newer machine yet though... but I suspect I wouldn't notice any difference.
    - sfink 3y ago
      In this case, it's not just a flag. Unless you're going through the Mozilla build system, in which case it kind of is. But what's actually happening is that it compiles the browser once, then runs it against some very small examples while collecting profiling data, then recompiles it while using the profiling data to guide optimization. That part about running the browser in the middle is what makes it complicated. (It can't do that when cross-compiling, for example.)
bee_rider 3y ago
I wonder if they’ll keep this up permanently. Tempted to switch (maybe I can remove my system’s Snap infection), but redoing bookmarks and extensions (and getting my ublock config and OneTab bookmarks) is a pain. And I’ll have to figure out how to not lose my passwords this time. What a pain.
- MaKey 3y ago
  You can just use your old Firefox profile. Copy it from ~/snap/firefox/common/.mozilla/firefox to ~/.mozilla/firefox/
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Oh dang, nice. I ended up exporting everything and then re-importing. But it was not as annoying as I expected. I think I was mostly dreading it because I’d lost passwords in the past to this sort of thing, because I wasn’t expecting it, so I didn’t export beforehand. Just bad associations in my brain.
- Gabrys1 3y ago
  Why would you do that? Your firefox config should be kept in .mozilla/firefox (or is it .config/mozilla now?) and simply picked up by the new firefox binary. The only time this doesn't work is when you install an older version whose configuration "format" is not compatible with the newer version's one. Edit: a sibling commenter just made me aware of the config for the "snappy" version actually resides in another directory. That said you can manually copy the files to the standard place
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    I did that because I didn’t know where the snap files were stored, or that it was different from the normal spot.
p4bl0 3y ago
Is there really a point these days in having the very last release rather than the ESR version packaged by Debian? If so what are the benefits for end users?
- maxloh 3y ago
  If you are a web developer, you would better develop your app using the latest dev tools and targeting the latest web specifications only. Most companies don't prioritize legacy support, so there is no point in developing for Firefox ESR.
  - Karellen 3y ago
    > Most companies don't prioritize legacy support, On the other hand, the more legacy you support, the larger your potential customer base is. Also, if everyone else in the sector only supports the most recent release of only two browsers, you might have that extended customer base all to yourself. > you would better develop your app using the latest dev tools and targeting the latest web specifications only. That is one school of thought. Another is that you should regularly use the oldest platform (hardware, OS, browser) that you want to support. That way you won't get to two weeks before release, decide you ought to test on a dual-core 4Gb machine like you were planning on supporting, and realise that although it technically runs, it's so frustratingly slow that no-one would want to, but there's not enough time to make the changes you'd need to get it working "acceptably". OTOH, if you were using it on hardware where it ran like a dog for you from the 3rd sprint, you'd probably have got round to making the changes for it to be acceptable on that era platform.
    - maxloh 3y ago
      > On the other hand, the more legacy you support, the larger your potential customer base is. It is more a decision about the trade-off between costs and benefits. Supporting really old browsers like IE is a pain in the ass. > Another is that you should regularly use the oldest platform (hardware, OS, browser) that you want to support. It is possible to manually slowing down your browser with dev tools. https://imgur.com/a/99XbwN9 https://imgur.com/a/99XbwN9
Timber-6539 3y ago
Takes 7 steps to install Firefox this way as opposed to apt-get install.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  but you are on an older version of ffx
  - Timber-6539 3y ago
    *temporarily delayed version. This is a complicated nuance depending on the release cadence of your distro.
- hnarn 3y ago
  This comment doesn’t make any sense. Installing a deb file is done with apt, what are you actually referring to when you say “apt-get install”?
  - dsr_ 3y ago
    apt, apt-get, aptitude and synaptic are all front ends to the same package management system.
    - hnarn 3y ago
      I’m well aware of that. How is that in any way relevant to the question I was asking?
      - Timber-6539 3y ago
        apt-get install will automatically download and install the deb for you.
        hnarn 3y ago
        Are you insinuating that this would not happen with the instructions from Firefox?
diego_sandoval 3y ago
When I reinstall Linux Mint, I uninstall the apt package and install Firefox from the tarball using a custom script I made [1]. This way, I get the official Firefox package without Mint adding their own stuff on top of it, I get the official Firefox icon and not Mint's icon theme variation of it, I don't need to edit keyring files or import GPG keys, and it updates automatically without forcing me to restart the browser. [1] https://github.com/sandov/sc/blob/master/install_scripts/firefox_install.sh https://github.com/sandov/sc/blob/master/install_scripts/fir...
declan_roberts 3y ago
This is a great update from the Mozilla team! Please continue the hard work. The only thing missing is a continued commitment to privacy and liberty. What has changed since the infamous “We Need More Deplatforming (2021)”[1] article by CEO Mitchell Baker? I absolutely can not move past this and I think Mozilla needs to make a strong commitment to our civil rights. 1. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Why do you think it has changed?
- thejsa 3y ago
  > the infamous “We Need More Deplatforming (2021)”[1] article That seems a misquote; the title of the article you link is "We need more than deplatforming", and it isn't apparent to me that it advocates for deplatforming at all.
eduction 3y ago
Debian/Ubuntu is also the sole chosen distro for Spotify and Signal first-party native packages. I try to use Fedora whenever possible so have noticed that Debian tends to be the first choice, even for "client" type software, which makes sense considering the popularity and cross compatibility of Ubuntu+Debian. (You can generally still get stuff on Fedora - they do their own Firefox package of course, Signal is a flatpak, etc)
- KETHERCORTEX 3y ago
  > Debian/Ubuntu is also the sole chosen distro for Spotify and Signal first-party native packages. I don't know about present, but in the past their .deb packages were updated later than the snap ones.
b5n 3y ago
I just use whatever is in debian testing or unstable, but it's trivial to download firefox _directly_ from mozilla which will then keep itself updated to the latest version. This just chucks firefox in /usr/local but its straightforward to edit and use ~/, opt, etc., just make sure the created symlink is somewhere in $PATH. Desktop integration will depend on your DE/WM, but should be pretty simple to figure out if not automatic. wget -O firefox-latest.tar.bz2 \ "https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest-ssl&os=linux64&lang=en-US" tar xjf firefox-latest.tar.bz2 sudo rm -rf firefox-latest.tar.bz2 /usr/local/bin/firefox /usr/local/firefox sudo mv firefox/ /usr/local/ sudo ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox
- blackle 3y ago
  This is what I do with Firefox developer edition. It doesn't have that problem where it refuses to work if it's been updated in the background, it just adds a little green dot to the hamburger menu that indicates that it wants to restart at your leisure.
amiga386 3y ago
I was already using the ~mozillateam PPA, because fuck Snap, but it'll be great to have an offical Firefox repository. Ubuntu, if you're listening: fuck Snap. I'm never going to use it. I stripped from all my Ubuntu machines. If you try and force it upon me, I'm moving to Debian, no matter how much hurt that causes me.
- fransje26 3y ago
  You could also switch to Linux Mint, they have a very definitive anti-snap position. I would really like them to bring back an official KDE spin though..
  - butz 3y ago
    With KDE Plasma 6 release just around the corner, it would be great to see more distributions providing KDE desktop environment as equal to GNOME, instead of "spin".
- blitz_skull 3y ago
  As someone who is quite new to Ubuntu, and recently just ran an install. I've seen this "snap" word thrown around and for better or worse I consider the opinion of random HN users to be better than the average opinion elsewhere on the internet. What do you dislike so much about snap? Also any tips on how one goes about purging it from their machine if they too also decide they don't like it?
  - joecot 3y ago
    Snaps are self contained packages of software. They are mounted as a separate isolated file system when they start. The good: Snap packages run on almost any Linux distribution, so they're an easier target. Distribution specific packaging can be tedious, and often involves a distro having to maintain packages themselves by repackaging the "upstream" package or software. With software that updates frequently, snaps theoretically mean a lot less work for distro package maintainers, because one package works on every distro. Snap packages are also sandboxed and have less access to the host system. The bad: In practice, they don't work very well. Snap programs are slow to start up. Because of their sandboxing and universal nature, their integration into the distribution can be lacking. For example, when I upgraded to Ubuntu 22.04, I was automatically moved to Firefox snap. It is painfully slow to start. Instead of the normal Ubuntu file browser when I went to upload or save a file, it uses a jarringly different file browser. I switched back to using the firefox PPA, and now this new package directly from firefox. I also moved to the Slack snap, which also works terribly. I apparently can't upload and download files from it reliably, so I have to open it in my browser to do so. There appears to still be an official deb package, but they've hidden it on their site because they want you to use the snap. Snap started as a method of packaging applications for servers, and that's still where they're most useful. Slow startup time and issues with desktop integration are not concerns for server side snap packages. For desktop graphical applications, Flatpak will likely be a much more useful universal package system.
cricalix 3y ago
Huh. I just migrated off of the Flatpak to the .tar.bz2 version because I ran into the fact that the Flatpak version has no functioning mDNS resolution. The impact of that is all the stuff that expects .local to work.. doesn't. Can ping etc from shell, but Firefox just goes "Nope, no idea, doesn't exist, give up now". Lots of discussion on multi-year old bugs, but no fix that I could find. I generally solved it by doing everything on .home.arpa (and run step-ca to have TLS), but there are some things that just default to mDNS announcements and produce URLs referring to .local.
- figomore 3y ago
  I did a testing here and it’s working now.
mahgnous 3y ago
[dead]
morsch 3y ago
PSA if you want to upgrade to these from snap (and I would encourage you to do so), do your research: Ubuntu likes to replace installed debs with snaps without consulting the user and you need to configure it not to do so. And the profile folder for the snap is in a different place than for the deb, so make a copy of it etc. I'm not going into full detail as these things are easily found via Google as long as you're aware of them.
- EasyMark 3y ago
  If you uninstall the snap, it's not going to overwrite your firefox installed from this deb. Never had it do anything like that unless you are upgrading to a major new release and then it disables ppas, so I suppose it might happen at that point, but most people don't do major upgrades that often, if you do then it's on you to keep track of them because that's just the way that Ubuntu handles it
  - morsch 3y ago
    https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04 https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-d... Step 5: Set the Firefox package priority to ensure Mozilla’s Deb version is always preferred. If you don’t do this the Ubuntu transition package could replace it, reinstalling the Firefox Snap: This happened to me and it wasn't as part of a dist upgrade.
- vanni 3y ago
  It's documented: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_data-migration https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hysan 3y ago
Does FF still not use KDE’s native file picker without installing a (not readily available) package to modify it? I stopped trying to use FF on Linux a long time ago, but seeing a headline with Linux in it made me perk up.
- IYasha 3y ago
  This bothers me too, very much. GTK and especially Firefox UI is so awkward and out-of-place in KDE (and in general, IMO). I even tried switching to Falkon.
botanical 3y ago
Why do people have such strong opinions against snaps? I've been using it for the better part of a year and don't mind it at all. I don't understand why linux people are so strongly opinionated on things like this, it's a packaging system not a sports team. This aversion is really weird to see. Snaps allow for the base system to be stable while having the latest version of an application in a sandbox.
- qalmakka 3y ago
  In my case it's because Canonical is once again going against the flow by adopting yet another in-house Ubuntu-specific solution that fragments community efforts and makes Linux less attractive to packagers. It's hard enough to get people to do builds for Linux, and it's clear to me and that nobody has the time and resources to package both for Flatpak and Snap.
lazyweb 3y ago
Has anyone tried mirroring their apt repo yet? Using apt-mirror on Debian stable, I'm seeing errors: Processing indexes: [PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPapt-mirror: can't open index packages.mozilla.org/apt//dists/mozilla/main/binary-amd64/Packages in process_index at /usr/bin/apt-mirror line 891. Config section in /etc/apt/mirror.list: deb https://packages.mozilla.org/apt mozilla main clean https://packages.mozilla.org Edit - probably apt-mirror showing its age and adding a second forward slash. I'll look into it soon-ish.

331 points by mfsch 3y ago

As a user of the PPA packages (https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa), now I'm confused. Are these the same packages? Should I switch? I'd have appreciated at least a mention in the article.

mfsch 3y ago
From what I can tell, the “Ubuntu Mozilla Team” does not consist of people from Mozilla but rather just people packaging Mozilla software for Ubuntu. The latest packages in that PPA have been uploaded by Rico Tzschichholz, who does not appear to be affiliated with Mozilla.
- ghostpepper 3y ago
  This is confusing because it’s posted on Mozilla’s official site
  - cassianoleal 3y ago
    The thing posted on Mozilla's website (the OP) is official. The PPA posted at the root of this comment thread isn't.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- tamimio 3y ago
  > the “Ubuntu Mozilla Team” does not consist of people from Mozilla Kudos to open source maintainers, the hidden heroes who make your life easier while expecting nothing in return.
EasyMark 3y ago
Get rid of your PPA package and use the official repo, it's 99.9% better in almost all cases. More details on google/youtube on how to do that, it's too much to type on HN and should be on the first page of google/duckduckgo. I would guess the people supporting the PPA will stop updating it after a while due to there being an official repo to use.

rawfan 3y ago

Very welcome addition by Mozilla. Thanks!

ur-whale 3y ago

The missed the key 5th benefit: Allows you to sudo apt-get purge snapd without annoying unwanted consequences.

ColonelBlimp 3y ago
You didn’t have to wait for this new Firefox package to stop using snaps, did you?
- arzig 3y ago
  The Firefox deb in the repos redirected and did a snap install or some weirdness at least at some point.
  - jlarocco 3y ago
    Must have been an Ubuntu problem. I install Firefox via Debian's package, and have never had 'snapd' installed.
    - arzig 3y ago
      Yes. Ubuntu maintained their own deb package that redirected to a snap install.
  - ColonelBlimp 3y ago
    Flatpaks are a perfectly functional option https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.firefox https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.firefox
Osiris 3y ago
I recently had a problem where snapd kept sigfaulting and the fix was to purge it completely. It turns out that everything I had in snap was available in flatpak, which I prefer anyway.
- EasyMark 3y ago

account42 3y ago

[flagged]

perihelions 3y ago
What anti-features do Debian's maintainers remove from Firefox, in practice? (Meaning the one they've already been maintaining for a while, a firefox-esr package. There's also an upcoming one for the normal release cadence). edit: Answering my own question, https://wiki.debian.org/Firefox#Disabling_automatic_connections https://wiki.debian.org/Firefox#Disabling_automatic_connecti... ("Here is a table of the above parameters and how Debian diverges from the upstream default:") Looks to me like a fairly small, unimportant delta. edit #2: I didn't mean to criticize your comment overly strongly! I hope I wasn't the reason you got flagged—I tried to vouch you but I regret that wasn't enough.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  Huh, that's interesting - I've definitely used distro packages that disabled some(?) of the telemetry stuff. If Debian doesn't, I wonder what distro I'm remembering. Or maybe they used to and just don't now.
  - perihelions 3y ago
    It does disable telemetry! This is the list I linked—it's all different types of automatic network connections, from anonymized telemetry to update checks to speculative connections.
yoavm 3y ago
This seems harsh considering they're still making the only true user-agent in the world. Which maintainer are you trusting so much, and what anti-features are they removing?
ok123456 3y ago
The anti-features that I'm aware of are runtime configuration flags and profile settings. Having an official build from Mozilla makes a supply chain attack harder. Additionally, they claim to compile with PGO, which random builds may not have.

zilti 3y ago

[flagged]

lolinder 3y ago

> Getting the latest version with features and security fixes is key to having a good experience whenever you use Firefox. Now, our new APT repository is directly connected to the Firefox release process, so you will receive the latest updates whenever we make them available. Tip: you will still need to restart Firefox for the latest version. In the past when I've installed Firefox through a .deb, it has had this annoying habit of requiring me to restart my browser whenever it updates in the background. I'll be going about my day and all of the sudden every URL will redirect me to about:restartrequired [0] and I'll have to shut everything down to keep going. It's not clear from this announcement if they've fixed that or not. If they haven't, I'll probably just continue to install Firefox from the .tar.gz files they provide [1]. If you drop them in a directory you have write permissions to, Firefox can auto-update itself the same way it does on Windows, without any forced interruptions. [0] https://otechworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/restart-firefox-using-about-restartrequired-page.png https://otechworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/restart-fi... [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-from-mozilla-builds https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w...

vetinari 3y ago
The tar.gz build has exactly the same problem (it just doesn't complain about it): it needs to close the files from the old package and open the ones from the new package. Hence the restart. You can minimize the downtime by just restarting the browser and then using History | Restore previous session. The flatpak build avoids this problem by keeping both versions on the disk, up until you stop the app. Only at this time, the old version is removed, and the next start will be the new version.
- lolinder 3y ago
  > it just doesn't complain about it This is the key point. I'm assuming that it downloads the update and then waits for me to agree to install it, but however it works it doesn't interrupt my browsing while I'm in the middle of something.
  - 3y ago

ghostpepper 3y ago

[flagged]

nequo 3y ago

They don't seem to be packaging the LTS version, Firefox ESR. Am I missing something? Is there a separate Mozilla repository for that?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
khobragade 3y ago
They're already done by the Debian people.
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  Yeah but that's not necessarily a good thing. Packaged browsers from a package repo don't have the best track record. I mean they are fine but there's a reason why some want their packages to come from the people who actually made the software especially in this case. Does the ESR Debian package support updates without asking for restarts? Granted it matters less for esr but if it avoids the issue , why not.
  - sylvestre 3y ago
    Feels like an excellent track record to me: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr ;) And Mike is also a prolific Firefox developer.
    - mardifoufs 3y ago
      Ahhh I wasn't familiar with this package in particular. I just have had a bunch of ... weird issues dues to some quirks in some packaged browsers. Basically it was never a standard install, and it sucked for ironing out issues. Glad to hear the Debian packages are doing great, not surprised either!
  - khobragade 3y ago
    > there's a reason why some want their packages to come from the people who actually made the software Not necessarily either. Think of the Audacity fiasco. We were very comfortable using the Debain package but not their Flatpack and obviously not the snap. I realise I'm replying to a subtext but the context is the same.

aquova 3y ago

Is there more technical information than this article provides? Did Firefox not have a .deb package until now? It's been a few years since I used Ubuntu, but I find that really surprising. I'm not sure what this new package is or how it differs.

tenebrisalietum 3y ago
Mozilla is officially releasing a .deb for Firefox now. The one in the repos is not maintained by Mozilla.
exitzer0 3y ago
Depending on your distro, the Firefox package you see in the official repo is ... well packaged by the repo maintianers and some distros will include customizations like adding in bookmarks to the distro's welcome/docs/pages/etc. Sometimes even more things like feature settings are changed. It is usually not anything major and usually things that you might prefer like disabling pocket, etc. What Mozilla is calling out here is a seperate, Mozilla-direct repo. This means you skip the official repos. Everyone should think carefully about what this means.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  On Ubuntu, Firefox is packaged as a snap, not as a normal .deb. It is pretty bad.
michaelt 3y ago
* In the ancient past, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Ubuntu distributed Firefox as a .deb * Recently (well, in the last 2-4 years) to boost the uptake of Canonical's "snap" packaging system, Ubuntu switched to only distributing Firefox as a snap. * There are a lot of snap haters around. Not least because canonical fucked up the update mechanism in the first year or two, had a bunch of performance problems (now mostly solved?), and made a bunch of weird broken snaps for things like docker. * An unofficial firefox package for Ubuntu was then created, so people who didn't want to use the snap could avoid doing so. * By some accounts, Mozilla is keen on controlling the entire release channel, so security updates don't have to wait on volunteer maintainers. (IDK if this is true or not, but I've heard second-hand claims) * This new package lets Mozilla release to users directly, and lets snap haters avoid snap without using unofficial packages.

nairboon 3y ago

So, we have come full circle? There used to be a .deb repo, then there wasn't and now we have one again.

WD-42 3y ago
.deb packages, just like server side rendering, are the new hotness.
- imp0cat 3y ago
  Nah, they never went out of style.
- mminer237 3y ago
  .deb packages have been the primary method of distributing programs on Linux for well over a decade at this point.
- EasyMark 3y ago
  don't forget jquery and anti frameworks becoming cool again.
glandium 3y ago
I don't remember Mozilla ever having a repo for Debian packages. Did I miss something?

m45t3r 3y ago

This is a welcome addition for Chromebooks, because now you can install latest Firefox (not ESR) in Crostini without using Flatpak. Sadly Mozilla still doesn't offer `aarch64-linux` builds for Firefox in their official channels, so for those that have a ARM64 Chromebook will still need to use something else to get Firefox running (I use Nix, but it needs some complicated setup to work with hardware acceleration, for example, using nixGL).

a1o 3y ago
Hey, do you know a good resource to learn how to compile a binary for Linux Arm64 that works in a Chromebook? I would like to port some C code I have that I produce builds for x86 and Amd64 debian using GCC 4.8 and an old debian, I am curious what has to be done to produce a binary that would run the same in Chromebook.
- nolist_policy 3y ago
  Parent is probably refering to the dev linux environment, which is just Debian in a vm with seamless wayland/X11/file/usb passthrough. So just target Debian 11 and 12 arm64. If you compile on an older version of Debian it should work fine too.
- ajross 3y ago
  You're not supposed to have to do anything at all. Crostini on an ARM Chromebook is literally just aarch64 Debian, pointed at the upstream apt repos for basically all of its binaries.
mderazon 3y ago
How's your experience with Firefox in ChromeOS compared to Chrome ? Doesn't it feel second class ?
- m45t3r 3y ago
  Since my Chromebook is not really powerful, yes, Firefox feels like a second class citizen. But I imagine in a better Chromebook it should work better.

Aissen 3y ago

I have been using Mozilla builds of Firefox on Linux for years, and they tend to just be higher quality. They talk about the performance engineering that goes in the build process briefly, but IMHO stability is also improved. It's also updated on restart (see the About window), so you never get issues because changing the libs that can be dynamically loaded right from under a program is never a good idea. My only wish would be that they finally propose official Linux/aarch64 builds, for example for Asahi Linux.

sfink 3y ago
I see linux/aarch64 builds at https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=mozilla-release&searchStr=build%2Cshippable https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=mozilla-release&sea... so it seems like they exist. Maybe they aren't packaged for apt?
- Aissen 3y ago
  They are packages by distros, but not considered a tier 1 platform by Mozilla. I didn't see those builds on your link, only android/windows/osx aarch64 builds, what am I missing ?
  - sfink 3y ago
    Oops, looks like you're right. I mixed up "Linux x64 Shippable" with AArch64.

chrsw 3y ago

This seems like great news. Managing software through one distro supported interface is less mental burden on me, the user. For developers, it's more work, I get that.

esaym 3y ago

Perhaps I'm missing something, but like 6 years ago, I downloaded firefox on linux from mozilla which came as a tar file that I extracted into my home directory and made shortcuts to. It has been working fine and auto updating ever since :shrug: I don't see what the point of this is.

mrweasel 3y ago
It's handy if multiple users use the same machine, or if you're on a managed system.

wkat4242 3y ago

Oh good!! Snap free <3

mobilemidget 3y ago

They write "advanced compiler-based optimizations"; I guess that doesn't fall under open source?

asadotzler 3y ago
Wrong https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/build/buildsystem/pgo.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/build/buildsystem/pg...
sfink 3y ago
Think of it more as "we compile with -O3". If you installed with the .tar.bz2, you'd get that already. If you use a 3rd party produced .deb, they might build with -O2. That's just an example; the blog is probably referring to PGO and/or LTO: profile-guided optimization and link time optimization, which require some fiddly setup that I believe third parties have traditionally not bothered with. And yes, it's all open source. You can see all of the bits that go into producing that .tar.bz2. You can even see the full build log if you like, eg by going to https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=mozilla-release&searchStr=build%2Cshippable https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=mozilla-release&sea... . Pick your platform, click on Bpgo, click on B, select the "log" link down in the lower left. There are plenty of Mozilla-related things to complain about, openness of the browser development process is not one of them.
- Jach 3y ago
  Gentoo users like me fiddle with such things, they're just flags you can turn on before compiling. It's been a while since I experimented though, I didn't notice any advantage, with a disadvantage being an increase in compile time. I haven't tried on my newer machine yet though... but I suspect I wouldn't notice any difference.
  - sfink 3y ago
    In this case, it's not just a flag. Unless you're going through the Mozilla build system, in which case it kind of is. But what's actually happening is that it compiles the browser once, then runs it against some very small examples while collecting profiling data, then recompiles it while using the profiling data to guide optimization. That part about running the browser in the middle is what makes it complicated. (It can't do that when cross-compiling, for example.)

bee_rider 3y ago

I wonder if they’ll keep this up permanently. Tempted to switch (maybe I can remove my system’s Snap infection), but redoing bookmarks and extensions (and getting my ublock config and OneTab bookmarks) is a pain. And I’ll have to figure out how to not lose my passwords this time. What a pain.

MaKey 3y ago
You can just use your old Firefox profile. Copy it from ~/snap/firefox/common/.mozilla/firefox to ~/.mozilla/firefox/
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Oh dang, nice. I ended up exporting everything and then re-importing. But it was not as annoying as I expected. I think I was mostly dreading it because I’d lost passwords in the past to this sort of thing, because I wasn’t expecting it, so I didn’t export beforehand. Just bad associations in my brain.
Gabrys1 3y ago
Why would you do that? Your firefox config should be kept in .mozilla/firefox (or is it .config/mozilla now?) and simply picked up by the new firefox binary. The only time this doesn't work is when you install an older version whose configuration "format" is not compatible with the newer version's one. Edit: a sibling commenter just made me aware of the config for the "snappy" version actually resides in another directory. That said you can manually copy the files to the standard place
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I did that because I didn’t know where the snap files were stored, or that it was different from the normal spot.

p4bl0 3y ago

Is there really a point these days in having the very last release rather than the ESR version packaged by Debian? If so what are the benefits for end users?

maxloh 3y ago
If you are a web developer, you would better develop your app using the latest dev tools and targeting the latest web specifications only. Most companies don't prioritize legacy support, so there is no point in developing for Firefox ESR.
- Karellen 3y ago
  > Most companies don't prioritize legacy support, On the other hand, the more legacy you support, the larger your potential customer base is. Also, if everyone else in the sector only supports the most recent release of only two browsers, you might have that extended customer base all to yourself. > you would better develop your app using the latest dev tools and targeting the latest web specifications only. That is one school of thought. Another is that you should regularly use the oldest platform (hardware, OS, browser) that you want to support. That way you won't get to two weeks before release, decide you ought to test on a dual-core 4Gb machine like you were planning on supporting, and realise that although it technically runs, it's so frustratingly slow that no-one would want to, but there's not enough time to make the changes you'd need to get it working "acceptably". OTOH, if you were using it on hardware where it ran like a dog for you from the 3rd sprint, you'd probably have got round to making the changes for it to be acceptable on that era platform.
  - maxloh 3y ago
    > On the other hand, the more legacy you support, the larger your potential customer base is. It is more a decision about the trade-off between costs and benefits. Supporting really old browsers like IE is a pain in the ass. > Another is that you should regularly use the oldest platform (hardware, OS, browser) that you want to support. It is possible to manually slowing down your browser with dev tools. https://imgur.com/a/99XbwN9 https://imgur.com/a/99XbwN9

Timber-6539 3y ago

Takes 7 steps to install Firefox this way as opposed to apt-get install.

whalesalad 3y ago
but you are on an older version of ffx
- Timber-6539 3y ago
  *temporarily delayed version. This is a complicated nuance depending on the release cadence of your distro.
hnarn 3y ago
This comment doesn’t make any sense. Installing a deb file is done with apt, what are you actually referring to when you say “apt-get install”?
- dsr_ 3y ago
  apt, apt-get, aptitude and synaptic are all front ends to the same package management system.
  - hnarn 3y ago
    I’m well aware of that. How is that in any way relevant to the question I was asking?
    - Timber-6539 3y ago
      apt-get install will automatically download and install the deb for you.
      - hnarn 3y ago
        Are you insinuating that this would not happen with the instructions from Firefox?

diego_sandoval 3y ago

When I reinstall Linux Mint, I uninstall the apt package and install Firefox from the tarball using a custom script I made [1]. This way, I get the official Firefox package without Mint adding their own stuff on top of it, I get the official Firefox icon and not Mint's icon theme variation of it, I don't need to edit keyring files or import GPG keys, and it updates automatically without forcing me to restart the browser. [1] https://github.com/sandov/sc/blob/master/install_scripts/firefox_install.sh https://github.com/sandov/sc/blob/master/install_scripts/fir...

declan_roberts 3y ago

This is a great update from the Mozilla team! Please continue the hard work. The only thing missing is a continued commitment to privacy and liberty. What has changed since the infamous “We Need More Deplatforming (2021)”[1] article by CEO Mitchell Baker? I absolutely can not move past this and I think Mozilla needs to make a strong commitment to our civil rights. 1. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...

wolverine876 3y ago
Why do you think it has changed?
thejsa 3y ago
> the infamous “We Need More Deplatforming (2021)”[1] article That seems a misquote; the title of the article you link is "We need more than deplatforming", and it isn't apparent to me that it advocates for deplatforming at all.

eduction 3y ago

Debian/Ubuntu is also the sole chosen distro for Spotify and Signal first-party native packages. I try to use Fedora whenever possible so have noticed that Debian tends to be the first choice, even for "client" type software, which makes sense considering the popularity and cross compatibility of Ubuntu+Debian. (You can generally still get stuff on Fedora - they do their own Firefox package of course, Signal is a flatpak, etc)

KETHERCORTEX 3y ago
> Debian/Ubuntu is also the sole chosen distro for Spotify and Signal first-party native packages. I don't know about present, but in the past their .deb packages were updated later than the snap ones.

b5n 3y ago

I just use whatever is in debian testing or unstable, but it's trivial to download firefox _directly_ from mozilla which will then keep itself updated to the latest version. This just chucks firefox in /usr/local but its straightforward to edit and use ~/, opt, etc., just make sure the created symlink is somewhere in $PATH. Desktop integration will depend on your DE/WM, but should be pretty simple to figure out if not automatic. wget -O firefox-latest.tar.bz2 \ "https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest-ssl&os=linux64&lang=en-US" tar xjf firefox-latest.tar.bz2 sudo rm -rf firefox-latest.tar.bz2 /usr/local/bin/firefox /usr/local/firefox sudo mv firefox/ /usr/local/ sudo ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox

blackle 3y ago
This is what I do with Firefox developer edition. It doesn't have that problem where it refuses to work if it's been updated in the background, it just adds a little green dot to the hamburger menu that indicates that it wants to restart at your leisure.

amiga386 3y ago

I was already using the ~mozillateam PPA, because fuck Snap, but it'll be great to have an offical Firefox repository. Ubuntu, if you're listening: fuck Snap. I'm never going to use it. I stripped from all my Ubuntu machines. If you try and force it upon me, I'm moving to Debian, no matter how much hurt that causes me.

fransje26 3y ago
You could also switch to Linux Mint, they have a very definitive anti-snap position. I would really like them to bring back an official KDE spin though..
- butz 3y ago
  With KDE Plasma 6 release just around the corner, it would be great to see more distributions providing KDE desktop environment as equal to GNOME, instead of "spin".
blitz_skull 3y ago
As someone who is quite new to Ubuntu, and recently just ran an install. I've seen this "snap" word thrown around and for better or worse I consider the opinion of random HN users to be better than the average opinion elsewhere on the internet. What do you dislike so much about snap? Also any tips on how one goes about purging it from their machine if they too also decide they don't like it?
- joecot 3y ago
  Snaps are self contained packages of software. They are mounted as a separate isolated file system when they start. The good: Snap packages run on almost any Linux distribution, so they're an easier target. Distribution specific packaging can be tedious, and often involves a distro having to maintain packages themselves by repackaging the "upstream" package or software. With software that updates frequently, snaps theoretically mean a lot less work for distro package maintainers, because one package works on every distro. Snap packages are also sandboxed and have less access to the host system. The bad: In practice, they don't work very well. Snap programs are slow to start up. Because of their sandboxing and universal nature, their integration into the distribution can be lacking. For example, when I upgraded to Ubuntu 22.04, I was automatically moved to Firefox snap. It is painfully slow to start. Instead of the normal Ubuntu file browser when I went to upload or save a file, it uses a jarringly different file browser. I switched back to using the firefox PPA, and now this new package directly from firefox. I also moved to the Slack snap, which also works terribly. I apparently can't upload and download files from it reliably, so I have to open it in my browser to do so. There appears to still be an official deb package, but they've hidden it on their site because they want you to use the snap. Snap started as a method of packaging applications for servers, and that's still where they're most useful. Slow startup time and issues with desktop integration are not concerns for server side snap packages. For desktop graphical applications, Flatpak will likely be a much more useful universal package system.

cricalix 3y ago

Huh. I just migrated off of the Flatpak to the .tar.bz2 version because I ran into the fact that the Flatpak version has no functioning mDNS resolution. The impact of that is all the stuff that expects .local to work.. doesn't. Can ping etc from shell, but Firefox just goes "Nope, no idea, doesn't exist, give up now". Lots of discussion on multi-year old bugs, but no fix that I could find. I generally solved it by doing everything on .home.arpa (and run step-ca to have TLS), but there are some things that just default to mDNS announcements and produce URLs referring to .local.

figomore 3y ago
I did a testing here and it’s working now.

mahgnous 3y ago

[dead]

morsch 3y ago

PSA if you want to upgrade to these from snap (and I would encourage you to do so), do your research: Ubuntu likes to replace installed debs with snaps without consulting the user and you need to configure it not to do so. And the profile folder for the snap is in a different place than for the deb, so make a copy of it etc. I'm not going into full detail as these things are easily found via Google as long as you're aware of them.

EasyMark 3y ago
If you uninstall the snap, it's not going to overwrite your firefox installed from this deb. Never had it do anything like that unless you are upgrading to a major new release and then it disables ppas, so I suppose it might happen at that point, but most people don't do major upgrades that often, if you do then it's on you to keep track of them because that's just the way that Ubuntu handles it
- morsch 3y ago
  https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04 https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-d... Step 5: Set the Firefox package priority to ensure Mozilla’s Deb version is always preferred. If you don’t do this the Ubuntu transition package could replace it, reinstalling the Firefox Snap: This happened to me and it wasn't as part of a dist upgrade.
vanni 3y ago
It's documented: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_data-migration https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hysan 3y ago

Does FF still not use KDE’s native file picker without installing a (not readily available) package to modify it? I stopped trying to use FF on Linux a long time ago, but seeing a headline with Linux in it made me perk up.

IYasha 3y ago
This bothers me too, very much. GTK and especially Firefox UI is so awkward and out-of-place in KDE (and in general, IMO). I even tried switching to Falkon.

botanical 3y ago

Why do people have such strong opinions against snaps? I've been using it for the better part of a year and don't mind it at all. I don't understand why linux people are so strongly opinionated on things like this, it's a packaging system not a sports team. This aversion is really weird to see. Snaps allow for the base system to be stable while having the latest version of an application in a sandbox.

qalmakka 3y ago
In my case it's because Canonical is once again going against the flow by adopting yet another in-house Ubuntu-specific solution that fragments community efforts and makes Linux less attractive to packagers. It's hard enough to get people to do builds for Linux, and it's clear to me and that nobody has the time and resources to package both for Flatpak and Snap.

lazyweb 3y ago

Has anyone tried mirroring their apt repo yet? Using apt-mirror on Debian stable, I'm seeing errors: Processing indexes: [PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPapt-mirror: can't open index packages.mozilla.org/apt//dists/mozilla/main/binary-amd64/Packages in process_index at /usr/bin/apt-mirror line 891. Config section in /etc/apt/mirror.list: deb https://packages.mozilla.org/apt mozilla main clean https://packages.mozilla.org Edit - probably apt-mirror showing its age and adding a second forward slash. I'll look into it soon-ish.