updating firefox

foyle

New Member
Joined
May 27, 2020
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Credits
37
Hello everybody,
I cannot update firefox browser(currently firefox 68.8.0esr 64 bit) on my Debian run laptop:I downloaded firefox 71, then I run the usual command - tar xjf ... - from the terminal, and then... nothing, nothing at all, again stuck on firefox 68. Someone of you can help me? Thanks a lot from foyle
 


Hello everybody,
I cannot update firefox browser(currently firefox 68.8.0esr 64 bit) on my Debian run laptop:I downloaded firefox 71, then I run the usual command - tar xjf ... - from the terminal, and then... nothing, nothing at all, again stuck on firefox 68. Someone of you can help me? Thanks a lot from foyle
Hi @foyle and welcome to the forum :)

There is no firefox-esr 71 but the one you're currently using which happnes to be the latest, so it's up to date and I don't think you can update the ESR one with that, you could use both though:
If you have the firefox folder extracted to your home directory, move it to /opt and change the /opt/Firefox folder and /opt/Firefox/firefox permissions to 755 so it auto-updates, Of course, you have to create the Firefox folder first so you could just open a terminal and do
Code:
sudo mkdir /opt/Firefox  && sudo mv firefox /opt/Firefox
Change Firefox dir persmissions
Code:
sudo chmod 755 /opt/Firefox
Change Firefox binary/executable permissions
Code:
sudo chmod 755 /opt/Firefox/firefox
Then you could add it to your DE's menu, which you havent' told us which one it is nor the Debian version, 9? 10? depending on it you might run a web search like "add an app to your_DE_menu", change "your_DE_menu" for the actual thing, i.e "add an app to xfce4 menu".

You migth want to read here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-esr-release-cycle
as well as here https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/ESR_Landing_Process and here https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firefox_71

Hope this helps! :)
 
Thank for your answer. Unfortunately I cannot change the dir permissions, because I got the answer "no such file or directory", and my copy-and-paste here gives you the whole picture:
ommy@debian:~$ cd Downloads
jommy@debian:~/Downloads$ sudo mkdir /opt/Firefox && sudo mv firefox /opt/Firefox
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/opt/Firefox’: File exists
jommy@debian:~/Downloads$ sudo chmod 755 /opt/Firefox
jommy@debian:~/Downloads$ sudo chmod 755 /opt/Firefox/firefox
chmod: cannot access '/opt/Firefox/firefox': No such file or directory
jommy@debian:~/Downloads$
Any idea?
 
@foyle -- Confused yet?

Use this as a guide (Option #3) as you look at the following

Code:
#Ctrl-Alt-F2
**Log in**

#cd /opt && ls -al

**if necessary (i.e. there is a firefox directory in /opt)**
#sudo rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty firefox/

#wget https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/71.0/
linux-x86_64/en-US/firefox-71.0.tar.bz2

#chmod +x firefox-71.0.tar.bz2

#tar xvjf firefox-71.0.tar.bz2
#cd firefox/ && firefox

Beginning to make sense, yet?
(remove the # in front of the command to use in console)
__________________________________________________________

BTW -- I respectfully decline to make updates automatic, so would not use ubuntuzilla, myself. Your choice, as always!
 
Last edited:
@foyle -- Confused yet?

Use this as a guide (Option #3) as you look at the following

Code:
#Ctrl-Alt-F2
**Log in**

#cd /opt && ls -al

**if necessary (i.e. there is a firefox directory in /opt)**
#sudo rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty firefox/

#wget https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/71.0/
linux-x86_64/en-US/firefox-71.0.tar.bz2

#chmod +x firefox-71.0.tar.bz2

#tar xvjf firefox-71.0.tar.bz2
#cd firefox/ && firefox

Beginning to make sense, yet?
(remove the # in front of the command to use in console)
__________________________________________________________

BTW -- I respectfully decline to make updates automatic, so would not use ubuntuzilla, myself. Your choice, as always!
Thanks for your answer. Again, I downloaded flatpak but I could not install firefox because when I treid to do that I got the answer that it needd a later version of flatpak. Then I tried to copy your commands on my terminal, and the result is this:
$ cd /opt && ls -al
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 May 27 18:50 .
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 May 26 18:36 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 27 18:50 Firefox
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Nov 26 2019 google
jommy@debian:/opt$ wget https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/71.0/
--2020-05-27 23:37:06-- https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/71.0/
Resolving ftp.mozilla.org (ftp.mozilla.org)... 13.35.193.96, 13.35.193.25, 13.35.193.31, ...
Connecting to ftp.mozilla.org (ftp.mozilla.org)|13.35.193.96|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
index.html: Permission denied

Cannot write to ‘index.html’ (Permission denied).
jommy@debian:/opt$ linux-x86_64/en-US/firefox-71.0.tar.bz2
I don't know, it seems impossible to install another version of firefox on my laptop...
 
Option #3, OP!

I deliberately avoid so-called 'easy fixes' like flatpack and timehift 'cause it's easier and better to do it the old-school way, for me, in most cases!

And don't go to mozilla, go to Debian -- for you are apparently using Debian or a debian distro -- correct?

Understand what the commands mean and you will KNOW what to do in the long run. And thereby become a real Linux User.

But I started out cutting and pasting, so I cannot say not to do that!
 
I'm not a Debian guy, but there's nothing on the repos?
 
Thank for your answer. Unfortunately I cannot change the dir permissions, because I got the answer "no such file or directory", and my copy-and-paste here gives you the whole picture:
ommy@debian:~$ cd Downloads
jommy@debian:~/Downloads$ sudo mkdir /opt/Firefox && sudo mv firefox /opt/Firefox
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/opt/Firefox’: File exists
jommy@debian:~/Downloads$ sudo chmod 755 /opt/Firefox
jommy@debian:~/Downloads$ sudo chmod 755 /opt/Firefox/firefox
chmod: cannot access '/opt/Firefox/firefox': No such file or directory
jommy@debian:~/Downloads$
Any idea?
Hi @foyle That's weird, I don't use FF but just downloaded and tried those instructions in my Debian box with no errors as you can see in the img below

FF.png


You still haven't told us what your Debian version is nor what DE you are using and it might help a bit if you did. It seems like the /opt/Firefox dir is already present on your system, did you run FF 71 by using the binay/executable file? Cause if you did, if might have created that folder. By the way, that's another option; run FF 71 by using the binary/executable file which you can easily locate inside firefox folder, it is conveniently called "firefox. You did change dir permissions, the problem is there is no firefox binary within it. So, you could try this;
1 cd into the dir you downloaded FF which in your case seems to be Downloads
Code:
cd Downloads
2 Move firefox folder to /opt/Firefox
Code:
sudo mv firefox /opt/Firefox
3 Change firefox executable permissions
Code:
sudo chmod 755 /opt/Firefox/firefox
 
Last edited:
@jglen490
I'm not a Debian guy, but there's nothing on the repos?

No. Just ESRs. Individual debian-based distros may have their specific repos containing plain releases.

@OP -- what's wrong with ESRs, anyway? Welcome to GNU/Linux, where the OS assumes you know exactly what you are doing! Options are limited primarily by the IBK's ability to perform them, myself included. LOL!!
 
Last edited:

Members online

No members online now.

Latest posts

Top