How to install real Firefox on Debian 6?

Question

Debian 6 ("Squeeze") uses a rebranded version of Firefox called Iceweasel. It however lacks plugin support, most of my favorites don't work.

So what is best way to install the "real" Firefox on Debian?

Answer 1

First, you need to remove the existing Iceweasel package (I think you can use aptitude as well):

apt-get remove iceweasel

Then, download the latest Linux build of Firefox. Extract the files, and navigate to that folder, and run it. If you want, make an icon on your desktop. You can also make a link to the binary in /usr/bin/firefox to make it easier to launch.

If you want a package-based one, you can use Linux Mint's Debian package repo. To do this, add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com debian import

Then, just run:

apt-get update
apt-get install firefox

And you should be good to go. At the time of writing this, the latest release from that repository is Firefox v5.0.1.

Answer 2

This post on the Debian User forums suggests the following:

• Download latest Firefox from: http://www.mozilla.com
• Copy the downloaded file to /opt

• Extract it using:

  $ tar -jxvf firefox-x.x.xx.tar.bz2
  

• Change the permissions of the file:

  $ chown -R root:users /opt/firefox
  
  $ chmod 750 /opt/firefox
  

  Note that the user should be a group member of "users"

  $ usermod -a -G users username
  

• Create a symbolic link

  $ ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
  

• Delete firefox-x.x.xx.tar.bz2 from /opt

To install new versions, you are supposed to

# rm -rf /opt/firefox*
# rm /usr/bin/firefox

To make a desktop icon, do this

$ touch /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

Edit this using your favourite text editor:

$ nano /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

Contents of firefox.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Mozilla Firefox
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Exec=/usr/bin/firefox %U
Icon=/opt/firefox/icons/mozicon128.png
StartupNotify=true
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;

You can remove iceweasel with

$ apt-get remove iceweasel

If you encounter this error:

./firefox: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

You should probably install

apt-get install ia32-libs ia32-libs-gtk

Chances are that you are trying to install the 32 bit version of firefox in a 64 bit Debian environment.

Answer 3

You 'could' also get the latest and greatest version of Iceweasel from the mozilla debian team :-)

http://mozilla.debian.net/

Answer 4

There's a sourcefourge project, basically dedicated to allowing you to get the latest version of Firefox when running Ubuntu, no matter which version you run (as long as dependencies are satisfied, obviously). Since Ubuntu is a Debian derivative, I thought I'd try it. I've got Firefox working on Debian Testing ("Wheezy") just fine.

Run this:

apt-get remove iceweasel
echo -e "\ndeb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list > /dev/null
apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com C1289A29
apt-get update
apt-get install firefox-mozilla-build

This resolves the GPG key issue that is encountered when using the imported Linux Mint DE repository, and is significantly simpler than the other viable solution. Also, this gives you access to Thunderbird and SeaMonkey as well.

Note that this solution only gives you the English-US Release Channel version (no beta or Aurora builds). Other languages can be used, but additional steps are required.

See the project page at Ubuntuzilla for more information.