Need some ubuntu 9.04 help please

[madokie]

how do I upgrade to firefox 3.5 from the version 3.0.14 that is on here now? I've downloaded the file but for the life of me I can't figure out how to install it. TIA

I'm in the process of switching to ubuntu instead of using windows for all my web browsing. I have this machine set up with xp on one partition and will be leaving it as I use autocad and need windblows to run it. I'm just wore out with worrying with window's this and window's that and want a change, so here goes. I'll try not to get on anyones nerves as I make this transition but I'll be asking some questions though I'm sure.

I'm eagerly waiting for the release of ubuntu 9.10 here in a few days.

[RoyGBiv]

1. Check Pokerfan's Thread ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=240x1629

This is a script that will automate this process now and in the future.

You can also add the ppa that has daily updates of this.

Here is a blog describing getting the .deb package.

http://www.blogsdna.com/3824/how-to-download-install-firefox-35-on-ubuntu-904-linux.htm

OnEdit: Sorry ... I'm at work and got distracted.

The file you have I'm guessing you got directly from Mozilla. That's a binary that you can run, but it's not installed system-wide. The second method at that blog describes getting this and running it, but I don't suspect that's what you want.

Getting the .deb will install it system-wide as will the method described in pokerfan's thread.

[madokie]

2. Thanks but that is all way over my head

I thought linux was supposed to be easier than windows?
Here is what I get when I right clik the icon on my desktop. /home/dave/Desktop/firefox-3.5.3.tar.bz2

Thanks Roy for the help but I need some more basic help I guess.

[charlie]

3. Use the package manager

On the Applications toolbar, select Add/Remove. A dialog will pop up. It may crank for a bit while it checks repositories.

On the dialog is a dropdown labelled Show. Select "All available applications" in the dropdown.

In the Search field, enter "firefox" (no quotes). It'll filter packages with "firefox" in the name.

In the Application field below, find Firefox 3.5. Tick the box next to it.

Click the "Apply changes" button. You'll probably be asked for your root password, so have it ready.

This'll install the Firefox .deb package. You can delete the tar file you downloaded earlier, you won't need it.

To remove FF3.5 (or any other package), follow the same procedure, but UNTICK the box next to the file you want uninstalled.

[RoyGBiv]

5. It's not there ...

He's got 9.04. The powers-that-be with the Ubuntu tree have reserved 3.5.x for the Koala.

He'd have to add the PPA to the repo list.

[charlie]

6. Oops

I'm going with memory and some lookups on the web. I only have Mint right now and... I've forgotten the password for that, so I don't know what's in the repositories :blush:

Ack. It's not even in the default 3rd party repos? That seems rather... stringent.

[RoyGBiv]

7. It is quite weird ...

It was a decision made at the debian level, as I understand it. According to my understanding it has to do with the new javascript rendering engine in FF 3.5. It was argued that this is enough of a major change to constitute a milestone release and as such does not belong in the incremental updates list.

That debian stability philosophy works well, but it sure can be annoying when things like this arise. Mozilla has greater quality control than a lot of projects, so it doesn't seem as necessary to hold back integration.

Anyway, it's in the PPAs, but none of those are included in the default installation. It's trivial to add them via the CLI, but because that's how I do it, I don't remember off the top of my head how to add a repo to Synaptic manually. I'd have to be looking at it, and I can't while I'm at work.

The thread by pokerfan in the OSS group pointed to a set of scripts someone did precisely because of the delay in getting Mozilla releases out to the masses. The scripts wget the most recent release and take care of the manual work of installing them system-wide for you. It also has a notifier that checks for new releases periodically and informs you of them. You can then immediately run the script again and get the new release. Pretty nifty, actually.

[charlie]

9. I didn't know Ubuntu was still so closely tied

to Debian's stability constrictions. I assumed someone would've thrown Firefox into the canonical repositories because, hey, it's Mozilla.

Thanks for checking out pokerfan's linked script, I didn't bother. I'll have to get it, when I can retrieve my password from my teflon-coated cranium or grab Ubuntu 9.04 :D

[RoyGBiv]

10. I don't think they are ...

... which is why it's weird.

And, I don't claim to know all the goings-on at Ubuntu Central. That's just what I heard.

Rather than actively accepting the Debian stable repo restrictions, it was more along the lines of them not taking the step of adding the new FF release to their own, essentially agreeing with the Debian stance on the matter I suppose.

[RoyGBiv]

4. Okay ...

It's not over your head. You're just not accustomed to the method. Neither Linux or Windows are easier than the other in all respects. They're different. It's a bit like trying to learn to drive a car in England having spent all your life in the US. It's the same or similar concept, but there are enough differences that it can seem impossible until you get used to it. Neither is actually easier than the other.

Before I get into more detail, are you averse to opening a terminal and doing some copy/paste at the command line? You could literally have this done in a couple minutes.

[RoyGBiv]

8. Instructions

I'm just going to go ahead and leave this here.  I'll be
offline in a few minutes and won't be back for a few hours.

This is taken almost verbatim from the blog post, with a
little explanation.

Open a terminal.  There's one in the menu system of Ubuntu.

Copy and paste these lines.  A single line, when you see it
here, will look like a block of text, but it's actually just
one line.  For example, with the first command, copy
everything from "echo ... sources.list."  

When the text is copied, click your mouse in the terminal
window, right click, the Paste.  Press enter after each line
and wait for the output to complete.  You'll be asked for you
password after the first "sudo" command.

echo ‘deb
http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu
jaunty main’ >> /etc/apt/sources.list

echo ‘deb-src
http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu
jaunty main’ >> /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys
247510BE

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install
firefox-3.5

After this, Firefox 3.5 should be installed on your system. 
Also, any future updates will already be available in
Synaptic.  You only have to do this once, in other words.

[madokie]

11. Does this look right?

I had to go through this process a couple times before I got this response.
Thanks again for the help. dm

dave@ubuntu:~$ echo ‘deb
‘deb
dave@ubuntu:~$ http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu
bash: http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu: No such file or directory
dave@ubuntu:~$ jaunty main’ >> /etc/apt/sources.listecho ‘deb-src
bash: /etc/apt/sources.listecho: Permission denied
dave@ubuntu:~$ http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu
bash: http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu: No such file or directory
dave@ubuntu:~$ jaunty main’ >> /etc/apt/sources.listsudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys
bash: /etc/apt/sources.listsudo: Permission denied
dave@ubuntu:~$ 247510BEsudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install
bash: 247510BEsudo: command not found
dave@ubuntu:~$ firefox-3.5
*NOTICE* No previous firefox-3.5 profile found, we'll initialize a profile using a copy of your existing 'firefox' profile.
Transfering... done.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090910 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Shiretoko/3.5.3

[RoyGBiv]

12. No ...

I'm guessing DU's forum put in a hard line break 'cause that's completely messed up.

Irritating ... dammit. I'm trying to provide instructions here how to use Synaptic, and the forum is messing THAT up. Grrr ... My kingdom for a simple plain text editor that doesn't insert anything other than what I tell it.

Well, sorry. It *should* have been easier than that.

Since I'm home now, I can tell you how to do it through Synaptic.

Open Synaptic. It should be in under the programs menu filed in System. It may be called Package Manager. (I'm using KDE, and the programs menu is different.) If you can't find it, just start it from the command line with the command "synaptic" (no quotes).

Anyway, when you have Synaptic open, go to Settings > Repositories

Click "New"

Make sure the drop-down tab is selected to Binary (deb)

Okay ... because DU is messing this up by adding line breaks if I set it to publish in plain text and converting to a hidden URL if I just do it normally, this is once again going to sound more difficult than it is.

In the URI field enter http:

Immediately after that (no spaces) enter the following:

//ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu

so that it looks like a normal URL.

In the Distribution field enter the word "jaunty" (without quotes)

In the Section field enter "main" (no quotes).

Click "OK" and it'll tell you that you need to Reload. Don't do that yet.

Click on Settings > Repositories again. We're going to add one more.

Click the drop down box and change that to Binary (deb-src)

In the URI field, following the same conventions as above, enter http:

//ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu

In the Distribution field enter "jaunty" (no quotes)

In Section enter "main" (no quotes)

Click OK.

Now on the main screen click "Reload" on the far left.

You may get a warning about being unable to authenticate. Ignore it.

The daily Firefox repository is now added to your system.

In the Quicksearch box, enter Firefox 3.5. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find an option that says, only, Firefox 3.5. Click on the box. A window will pop up. Click on "Mark for Installation." A warning window will pop up telling you it's installing some other stuff. Click Mark. Then click the Apply button.

Firefox 3.5 will now be installed.

I swear to you, the command line scripts are easier. :)

[madokie]

14. when I click help and scroll down to "about shiretoko" here is what I get

version 3.5.3
mozilla firefox for ubuntu
canonical - 1.0

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090910 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Shiretoko/3.5.3

so far nothing I've tried has been like you're showing me. I can not find a "new" button anywhere in synaptic package manager

Tell me this, what do I have now and is shiretoko not firefox 3.5?

I'm not trying to be difficult just can't figure how to do this what should be a simple process

thanks again though

Add: I've gone through all these processes a few times and I still don't have firefox 3.5, I'm still at 3.0.14. Maybe I just give up...

[RoyGBiv]

18. Screens ...

What you've got there is a version of the Firefox browser. How did you start it? It's not the "default" in jaunty.

Anyway, here are the screens showing how to add the appropriate repository.

NOTE: I don't actually recommend you do it this way, and I should probably just abandon this line because I'm probably confusing you giving you two different methods at the same time. But, I didn't want just to leave this hanging.

This method will only give you what's available in the repo at any given time, and I'm having you add a repo that has FF 3.5. It also has a lot of other, unstable things in it. The method below with the terminal screens will always give you the most recent, stable version of FF. I'm just adding this here to show you.

Settings > Repository




"New" is in the lower left.



Properly filled out fields in the add repository dialogue.



The package you need to select.

[madokie]

21. I'll be reviewing this thread quite often

as I think most of my questions about loading programs are answered here. That version of the browser must have been the one that I installed last night when I thought I was getting the right file. I think it was in my repository and it had 3.5.3 and firefox on it so I had hoped it was the right one. I can see that once I get a little more comfortable with this I'm going to like linux. Two more days until ubuntu 9.1 comes out and I'm going to go to it as soon as I can get it downloaded come hell or high water.
:toast:

Even though this time was frustrating I like the idea of the security that is by not putting shit out there before its been checked out real good.

[RoyGBiv]

19. I know you're not trying to be difficult ...

DU's formatting is partly responsible for making this harder than it is, as well as my attempting to talk through something when I was at work yesterday and being distracted every 30 seconds.

This specific process is not a simple point-and-click process for a reason. It's one of those philosophical differences between the *nix way of doing things and the Windows way, a trade off between security and ease-of-use. I won't go into all the variables here because it would just be confusing. Suffice to say the *nix way of doing things is to use a repository of quality controlled packages. Installing software *is* easy when you're choosing versions of that software available in the repositories. For reasons of security and stability, the repo managers do not upload the latest-and-greatest into those repos until they are tested, not just the program itself but also it's ability to integrate with the rest of the system with destabilizing anything.

As you know, it's fairly common to install a new software package in Windows that isn't compatible with something else on the system or that "breaks" certain things. This process that *nix uses is intended to prevent that from happening.

You *can* just double-click on any .deb package (roughly the equivalent of a Windows .exe installer file), and it will try to install. The reason you can't do that with Firefox here is because it relies on some upgrades to other packages that aren't specific to FF itself. If those were in the repositories for your distro, then it would be a simple point-and-click, but as mentioned elsewhere, the powers-that-be with Ubuntu made a decision not to include the 3.5 Firefox upgrade in the Jaunty repositories.

Being what it is, Linux allows you other methods to do whatever you want. You're not just locked in to what the repo managers tell you that you can use, but to get around the safety measures in place, it requires a bit more work. The scripts mentioned below are an automated method of doing this very thing.

[RoyGBiv]

13. Or (easier) ...

Download this:

If you're using 32-bit -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/ubuntuzilla/files/ubuntuzilla/4.7.4/ubuntuzilla-4.7.4-0ubuntu1-i386.deb/download
If you're using 64-bit -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/ubuntuzilla/files/ubuntuzilla/4.7.4/ubuntuzilla-4.7.4-0ubuntu1-amd64.deb/download

Save the .deb file to a directory. When it's done downloading, double-click on it. The installation app will open and install this for you.

Afterward, from a terminal window type (copy/paste) this:

ubuntuzilla.py -a install -p firefox

Follow the prompts. The latest Firefox will be installed. You can answer yes or no to whether you want to install the notifier. Doesn't matter.

Afterward, whenever you want to install a new version, just run that command again.

You can also use it for Thunderbird and Seamonkey. Just replace "firefox" with "thunderbird" or "seamonkey"

[madokie]

15. I have the 32 bit file downloaded but this isn't doing anything either

its telling me that it is reinstalling and when it finishes and when I open firefox up it still shows I'm running 3.0.14 :shrug:

maybe more coffee

[madokie]

16. I think I have it on my computer but just don't know where it is, is that possible?

To start firefox I'm still using the icon that is up at the top and when I go to applications/internet/firefox-web browser it takes me to the same 3.0.14 version. Where would I find 3.5 if indeed it is on this computer now. I'm thinking/hoping it is

why can't they just make this a, simple click on this and wait a few whatevers it takes and viola You have firefox 3.5 blab blab now? This just blows me away, the difficulty of it all

Add: When I click on my downloaded file it says its going to re-install and goes though the motions like something is happening then it says this:
Package ubuntuzilla -4.7.4 -0ubuntu -i386 was installed.

[RoyGBiv]

17. Okay ...

The line "ubuntuzilla -4.7.4 -0ubuntu -i386 was installed" means the necessary scripts were installed. (BTW, that was an example of the point-and-click method of installing software in a Linux distro. It works on any .deb file *if* the appropriate dependencies are either also installed already or are available in the repositories you have listed in your package manager.)

Now, if you haven't done this, do this.

Open a terminal and enter the command:

ubuntuzilla.py -a install -p firefox

Press Enter. You'll see this output.



Answer "y" for yes and press Enter. You'll have a numbered list of languages scroll past quickly. Assuming you live in the US, you want #14.



Press Enter. It will tell you the localization you've chosen (eng-us) and ask if you're sure. Choose "y" for yes.

Then a bunch of crap will happen. Just let it run. Eventually you'll end with a line like this:



It's asking if you want to install the notifier. I choose not to do so, but you can decide for yourself. If you answer "n" for no here, you're done.

Then, when you open Firefox, the About under Help should show you this:



If you get any kind of output *other* than the above, copy/paste it for me into a message so I can figure out what it's doing.

[madokie]

20. Thanks Roy, that fixed me up

Now if I can remember all this for the next time. In fact I think I'll print these instruction just in case. :hi:

[RoyGBiv]

22. Glad it worked out ...

Screenshots always help me, so I thought that would be better than trying to describe it.

Printing instructions is a good idea. I've always tried to keep notes when doing new things (and there's always something new to do). This has been especially helpful with difficult things. I finally got smart recently and wrote a plain ol' instruction manual for installing this program I use called stunnel. I kept having to re-invent the wheel every time I installed the thing 'cause the docs for it suck.

Anyway, if you need any more assistance, just ask. It gets easier as it goes.

[madokie]

23. Thanks

I'm sure I'll have more questions. Ubuntu with firefox 3.5 is scorching my desktop, spinning out and cutting donuts with black marks all over the place. :-)Actually it is quite a bit faster than my stripped down lean and mean xp home I've been using. I've already changed this to where I'm autohiding the top and bottom menu's in ubuntu and moving the menu bar in firefox to the side unhiding it when I need it with a button. I think my journey to ultimately leave bill gates and his wares has begun and I'm enjoying every minute of it thanks to you and the rest of the DU support team.

Now to work on my colors to get them right

[RoyGBiv]

24. Eye candy link ...

http://gnome-look.org/

It's all about the eye-candy there, and there are some things you can get into that are kind of advanced. However, it's a great source of wallpaper and color schemes.