Updating Firefox the Windows way

[don't panic]

Hi,
I noticed FF 3.6.4 was released (actually, Firefox gave me a notification). Kind of forgetting about package management, I downloaded the Update from the Firefox Help menu, and "installed it". Actually I had to run FF as root first ... you'd think that would have reminded me I was using Linux.

Anyway - the funny thing was that it worked! Is that to be expected? Is there anything that might be missed not using an upgrade from GSlapt?

Anyway - 3.6.4 doing well it seems

[Shador]

The only difference is that you're using a non-official version then. So we can only provide limited support for it and if our package works fine we usually won't.

[gapan]

One thing that could break like that is localization support. The localization package would still be one for the old version. Also, upgrading the firefox package to the newer one when that becomes available will most probably leave files that do not belong to any package and might create conflicts. If you want to use the binaries provided by mozilla, put them in your homedir or in /opt.

[thenktor]

Also, upgrading the firefox package to the newer one when that becomes available will most probably leave files that do not belong to any package and might create conflicts.

I've thought exactly the same on first thought. Probably it's no problem, but still I would stick to official Slackware/Salix packages.

[don't panic]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not even sure what I was thinking at the time but it's interesting to hear your thoughts on this - fingers crossed I'll have no problems.

[jbs1136]

I download a nightly version every couple of weeks, extract it to a folder in my home directory where I also have the profile for it. I did this for a couple of years in Windows XP, over a year in a debian based distro, a different slackware distro for about 2 years, slackware 13.0 for several months and now in Salix (the best choice of all) for several months. I have never had a severe problem, no crashes, etc. Sometimes I uninstall the distro's version and sometimes I leave it. I prefer my profile rather than the default for the changes I have made to it. I just delete the folder called firefox and then extract the newer version which goes to a folder called firefox. All of my links to it work fine.

john

[damNageHack]

Also, upgrading the firefox package to the newer one when that becomes available will most probably leave files that do not belong to any package and might create conflicts.

I've thought exactly the same on first thought. Probably it's no problem, but still I would stick to official Slackware/Salix packages.

Then I would suggest to disable the firefox' own internal update notification and update procedure itself. Some other distributions have the menu entry set to grayed.

Disabling Application Updates In the firefox.js there is a line that looks like this: pref("app.update.enabled", true); Change that to: pref("app.update.enabled", false); and then your clients will not check for updates automatically.

[gapan]

That's not a bad idea. But this still doesn't disable the menu option under the Help menu. And it can't possibly be changed for profiles that have already been created, only new ones.

[damNageHack]

Fedora's way of doing it (thanks to nirik@freenode/#fedora (irc)
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/gitweb/?p ... 46c66fb161

1 diff -up mozilla-1.9.2/browser/base/content/utilityOverlay.js.checkForUpdates mozilla-1.9.2/browser/base/content/utilityOverlay.js
2 --- mozilla-1.9.2/browser/base/content/utilityOverlay.js.checkForUpdates 2010-06-13 15:36:16.617677299 -0700
3 +++ mozilla-1.9.2/browser/base/content/utilityOverlay.js 2010-06-13 15:39:54.485387418 -0700
4 @@ -510,7 +510,7 @@ function buildHelpMenu()
5 // Disable the UI if the update enabled pref has been locked by the
6 // administrator or if we cannot update for some other reason
7 var checkForUpdates = document.getElementById("checkForUpdates");
8 - var canCheckForUpdates = updates.canCheckForUpdates;
9 + var canCheckForUpdates = updates.canCheckForUpdates && updates.canApplyUpdates;
10 checkForUpdates.setAttribute("disabled", !canCheckForUpdates);
11 if (!canCheckForUpdates)
12 return;