Why won't ubuntu install Firefox 4?

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 10 at work, and Firefox. Even though I just did a sudo apt-get update and upgrade, I still have firefox 3.6.16.

How come ? Are there steps to do in order to install the lastest version ?

Answer 1

That's because Firefox 4 is not included in Ubuntu's packages - there's a special Mozilla "PPA" package source you'll have to add to your package sources. Here's a guide on how to do that: http://www.howtoforge.com/installing-firefox-4.0-deb-package-on-ubuntu-10.10

The reason you can't just go ahead and upgrade to Firefox 4 is Ubuntu's release policy - Ubuntu 10.10 includes Firefox 3.6. and only provides updates for that version.

Answer 2

In a terminal type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

(Or just grab the installer from the Mozilla website and you can run them side by side).

Answer 3

There are two versions of Ubuntu 10, perhaps you are using the older one (10.4) and need to upgrade to the new one (10.10)? Some new software doesn't get ported to older release trees.

Answer 4

I know when Firefox 3 came out I couldn't install (at least easily) firefox 3 till it was "approved" by Canonical. I bet the same thing is happening...

to my understanding you are truly not using the actual Firefox but a special Ubuntu build of firefox...