ESR firefox - need help installing please

marbles

Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2023
Messages
122
Reaction score
20
Credits
1,117
hi -

i'm trying to install firefox esr and got stuck :(

i downloaded the .tar.bz2 from here

i extracted it

and now i'm stuck - why did it create a firefox folder..... it should of create a firefox-ESR folder so i can have both regular firefox and ESR firefox
(i must have both :)


i'm guessing someone will say "that is ESR, your regular one is there somewhere in another directory"

and then i will say "cool, so now what do i do? how do i install ESR from this directory of files it created"

thx

you guys are smart so i know the pics are useless
firefox esr - 1.jpg
firefox esr  - 2.jpg
 


What Linux distrbution are you using and which version?
 
marbles wrote:
i downloaded the .tar.bz2
i extracted it
and now i'm stuck - why did it create a firefox folder..... it should of create a firefox-ESR folder so i can have both regular firefox and ESR firefox

The firefox tarball created a firefox directory to hold all the files. This is standard behaviour of properly written tarballs.

That folder it created is probably in your home directory, so it is entirely usable from that directory with a few simple steps.

If this is the second firefox on your system, (being a firefox-esr), when you run it, it will create it's own profile under the /home/<username>/.mozilla/firefox directory, and will not interfere with the existing firefox.

To run the firefox-esr from your firefox directory, from the terminal, you can enter that directory where all the files are and run:
Code:
./firefox
and if it's all true and good, the command should open the browser.

Since you're wanting to run both, you need to pay attention to the way they are called. Presumably the first firefox installed was installed by your package manager, so when you run the firefox command from a terminal, or when you hit the relevant icon on your desktop, it is that packaged firefox that will run.

I assume the firefox-esr is outside the package manager, that is, you haven't converted it to be installed through the package manager, so you will need to manage it yourself in relation to updating, removing etc. This is not difficult to do.

One way of doing it is to create a small executable script that you can place in /home/<username>/bin directory which is named differently from the package manager installed firefox. I'll propose "foxesr" as the name of the script file. Its contents could be something like this:
Code:
#!/bin/sh
#
# this is a script for to start the firefox-esr browser startup executable
#
cd /home/<username>/firefox
./firefox
where the cd command goes to the firefox directory from the expanded tarball. You may place the directory anywhere you like and adjust the script accordingly.

Note that the /home/<username>/bin directory needs to exist and be included in your path. Check with:
Code:
echo $PATH

The file: foxesr needs to be made executable:
Code:
chmod 775 foxesr

From here, you would just need to open a terminal and run: foxesr.

There are a number of alternative methods and the above is simply one to get going. You can also create an icon for this firefox version to run from the desktop but I'll leave that as an exercise for others.
 
Last edited:
If it were me I would download and run ESR from an appimage. That way there will be no interaction with the standard FF on the machine. You can download the appimage from here.
Once downloaded move it from downloads to your home folder and right click on the download file and go to Properties then to the permissions tab and click on the box that says " Allow executing the file as a program"
Now all you have to do is click on the file and it will run FF ESR. You can manually create a menu Item for it in the menu then. Good luck.
 
Last edited:
If it were me I would download and run ESR from an appimage. That way there will be no interaction with the standard FF on the machine. You can download the appimage from here.
Once downloaded move it from downloads to your home folder and right click on the download file and go to Properties then to the permissions tab and click on the box that says " Allow executing the file as a program"
Now all you have to do is click on the file and it will run FF ESR. You can manually create a menu Item for it in the menu then. Good luck.
Tried worked well thanks.
 

Members online


Top