Upgrading FF and Chromium in Slackware 14.2

[Alexzee]

I've been using FF (Firefox) and Chromium for a while now and I've wondered if there is any easier way to upgrade these 2 browsers.

For now I use removepkg to rm the old Chromium browser and than follow that by using installpkg to install the newer version of Chromium. In order to upgrade FF I run a "latest-firefox.sh" script to bring the browser up-to-date and than install the txz once it's created.

Any ideas or other suggestion's are welcomed.

 

[TechnoJunky]

I don't know about Chromium, but Firefox should self-update unless your distro is controlling it's versioning. Whenever you tell Slackware to install updates, it should include any available for Firefox and Chromium.

If Slackware doesn't make it easy, like it is in Ubuntu based distros (apt-get upgrade), then you could download a fresh copy of Firefox from Mozilla, install it to a directory in your home drive and run that version instead. It will auto-update when there are updates available. I use Firefox Nightly that way and it updates itself all the time, with no input from me.

 

[Alexzee]

Unfortunately Slackware's update for Firefox controls it and keeps it at a esr version.
So I have to keep upgrading it.

 

[TechnoJunky]

Then do as I suggest and download a fresh copy from Mozilla and put it in your home directory. Modify your launch icons to point to it instead and it will auto-update all by itself.

 

[Alexzee]

How do I modify my launch icons to point to it?

 

[TechnoJunky]

that depends on your desktop environment. I only know how to do it in KDE, but if you tell us what desktop you use, I'm sure someone on here can assist.

 

[Alexzee]

I'm running XFCE

 

[VP9KS]

I use firefox in the KDE desktop, and I haven't had any problems with using the standard update commands. Are you experiencing problems with your browsers, or is that you just want the absolute latest versions? I just updated in both Slackware (68.0.1ESR) and Mint Cinnamon (68.0). It seems to me that that the ESR version is more recent.

 

[Alexzee]

I use firefox in the KDE desktop, and I haven't had any problems with using the standard update commands. Are you experiencing problems with your browsers, or is that you just want the absolute latest versions? I just updated in both Slackware (68.0.1ESR) and Mint Cinnamon (68.0). It seems to me that that the ESR version is more recent.

The problem that I'm running into is if I allow the ESR version of FF it won't allow me to install "Dark Reader". The only way that Dark Reader will install is if I run the script (latest-firefox.sh) bring the version up to the very latest and than Dark Reader will install.

Until recently (last few months) ESR always worked for me allowing the Dark Reader theme:-
I'm not sure what changed.

Aside from that Slackware is running flawlessly.

 

[Alexzee]

When you have time TechnoJunky could you explain how you auto update FF in KDE ?

Learning how you fix it in KDE might help me to understand how to fix or set it in XFCE.

 

[TechnoJunky]

That's the thing about auto-update. You don't do anything, that's the auto part. The only thing you need to do is close and reopen FF after it downloads and installs an update.

So go to www.getfirefox.com and download FF. It will auto select a .tar.bz2 file type for you. Open it and extract the files (you don't actually "install" it) and put them in your desired folder. Create a link or update existing links to point to /{path}/firefox/firefox %u. I'm not sure what the %u is but KDE had that for the FF it had installed by default, so I used it for Nightly as well. After that, run it and click Help and then About. You should see it downloading an update if it doesn't say Firefox Is Up To Date. Then after that you no longer need to worry if you have a current version or not, you always will.

 

[Alexzee]

How do I create a link?

 

[TechnoJunky]

I don't use XFCE, but a search on the web turned up this for creating a launcher (guess that's what it's called in XFCE) "right-click on the desktop background, and then select "Create Launcher" menu. Then fill out the details of the shortcut."

 

[Alexzee]

I downloaded FF and made a directory for it and created a launcher with the path to it.
When I launched FF and went to Help it didn't update.

There must be something I don't understand.

 

[Alexzee]

I'm trying:-
FF now launches when I double click on it however; it won't update when I click on Help and About. It just shows me the old version 68.0.

I'm not sure what's going on. Kinda clueless at this point.

 

[TechnoJunky]

It looks like you have the command pointing to the default installed FF. Change it to point to the one you downloaded
command = /home/zebracat/firefox/firefox

 

[Alexzee]

I changed the command and it won't launch.

 

[Alexzee]

I tried with /home/zebracat/Firefox/firefox and with /home/zebracat/firefox/firefox.
Neither work.

Here's a pic of the directory-

 

[TechnoJunky]

Ok, it looks like you created a firefox directory, then extracted the entire contents of the file to the firefox directory. So you have another layer of "firefox". So you can either move the contents of ~/firefox/firefox to ~/firefox or you can just add another firefox to the command "/home/zebracat/firefox/firefox/firefox". You have to have the entire path to the executable. The executable name is the same as the directory name, so it may look a bit confusing. The very last firefox is the executable, in your pic you show that within the directory firefox you have another directory firefox, so you have to have the 3 firefoxs due to that. firefox parent, firefox child ,firefox executable.

And just in case you're unaware, ~/ tells Linux/Unix, "my home directory". It's a shortcut that all Linux and Unix systems know so you don't have to type out /home/zebracat.

 

[Alexzee]

Thanks for explaining. I didn't realize there were 3 layers of firefox.

I changed the cmd to /home/zebracat/firefox/firefox/firefox and firefox now launches and is the correct version.

Thanks TechnoJunky for staying with me.

Have a great day!