Iceweasel/Firefox 4 in Debian Squeeze -- I make the leap
I contend that it's not necessary nor even desirable to upgrade an entire Linux distribution or BSD installation just to get some shiny newness like Firefox 4.
It's still a "selling" point for free operating systems: "Upgrade and you'll get the new Firefox/OpenOffice/Thunderbird, etc."
But what if you don't want to upgrade every last package just to get the latest web browser?
I'm running Debian Squeeze -- the Stable distribution -- and have been happily doing so since late November 2010.
My only concession to life after Squeeze has been to add a newer kernel from the Liquorix repositories, which offer the latest, desktop-optimized Linux kernels for Debian users. Going from the stock 2.6.32 to 2.6.37 has fixed a few niggling problems, and I couldn't be happier that I did it.
But I've stuck with the Squeeze defaults on just about everything else.
Until today.
I wrote in my Debian blog a while ago about the Debian Mozilla Team's APT archive and how to choose the version of Iceweasel/Firefox you wish to run. Today I went to said archive, followed the recipe for adding to my sources.list (I opted for a new file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ -- it's cleaner that way), bringing in the GPG key and then replacing Iceweasel 3.5.x with 4.0.
And here I am in a cutting-edge Mozilla browser while Debian Squeeze (albeit with a newer Linux kernel) handles my hardware as well as it ever did.
If I find a compelling reason to do so, I imagine I could bring in LibreOffice the same way, replacing the OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 that ships with Squeeze. Right now I'm not sufficiently offended by OO.
I know I'll probably want to try a newer version of my go-to image-editing app gThumb, and I really need to see what the OpenShot 1.3 video editor has to offer; I find the 1.1.3 in Squeeze to be a little wanting (transitions can be rough, and it's hard to precisely trim clips). Trading Icedove/Thunderbird 3.0.x for 3.1.x is another change I might benefit from.
But for now, I'm running Iceweasel/Firefox 4.0, and I fell pretty darn good about it.
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Why not use "Zero Install" to get up-to-date versions installed?
In order to use Firefox 4 on my Squeeze laptop I just downloaded the Firefox bin from the Mozilla website. Much simpler than changing my sources.list, adding a GPG key, etc
If I use a repository, I'll get updates automatically via apt/Aptitude. If you grab the binary, will it update automatically from Mozilla? If so, that could be a good way to go.
Yes the update is fully automatic. Yesterday (or the day before?) I got the Firefox 4.0.1 update automatically.
That is excellent.
Some users may trust the distro developers more and want to wait for patches from downstream, but for an application like Firefox, I'd be pretty confident getting patches directly from Mozilla.
Nice post.
I also went to the Debian Mozilla team's APT archive and successfully upgraded iceweasel to 4.0. Getting the GPG key process right was more tricky then it should have been, though, so maybe I'd agree with egan if I didn't already go through the complete 4.0 upgrade process after-the-fact.
This APT archive also lists iceweasel upgrade versions 5.0 and "aurora" (5.0a2). Any compelling reasons why anyone would want to upgrade to either of these latest two iceweasel versions --- other than being on the cutting edge???
They give the development versions different names so you can run the "stable" Firefox alongside the dev. version and not have conflicting executable names or menu items.
A lot of people are very interested in testing/enjoying/deriving pain from the latest features and improvements. Not having to throw out the old Firefox while trying the new version makes the whole thing much more palatable.
mozilla.debian.net seems to be offline. Anybody else having trouble reaching it?
I've been trying to get to mozilla.debian.net for like 2 days now...
I did the same thing the other day cos I wanted to try out Fabrice Bellard's Javascript PC emulator. I made a video of it. Its completely straightforward and the advantage of having patches pushed to you way outweighs the convenience of using the bin from Mozilla (which also wouldn't meet the DFSGs as far as I can see).
http://charlieharvey.org.uk/page/iceweasel4_on_debian_squeeze
Oh, and another thing.
I wrote previously...
-- begin quote --
This APT archive also lists iceweasel upgrade versions 5.0 and "aurora" (5.0a2). Any compelling reasons why anyone would want to upgrade to either of these latest two iceweasel versions --- other than being on the cutting edge???
-- end quote --
If I DO mistakenly install the cutting edge "aurora" (now beyond 7?) and wish to completely rollback to either the "beta" or "release" versions of iceweasel, What then is the best way of going about this rollback??
Is it entirely sufficient to simply substitute back the proper xxx in the 'deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ squeeze-backports iceweasel-xxx' entry of the /etc/apt/sources.list file, followed by an 'apt-get upgrade' (or 'aptitude upgrade') ???
What else may be required for such a version rollback??
-goossbears