brokndodge

I don't know if anyone is interested, but I found that Debian Etch comes with Firefox 1.5 rather that Firefox 2.0. There has been some talk about Firefox 2.0 rendering pages faster and generally working better than Firefox 1.5. It took me some time to figure out everything needed to get Firefox 2.0 and various plugins installed and running. Here's how I did it.

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We are going to need some additional repositories other than the basic ones used by a fresh Debian Etch Install. Start your Root Terminal and give roots password. Gnome users click Applications - Accessories - "Root Terminal". You should now have a nice pretty white window that says Terminal at the top.

I found a very easy to use editor for novices, it has a complete menu of all available options. To install this editor type:

now we are going to edit our sources.list

The important parts are in bold:

Now update apt

Now that our sources.list has the required repos lets start with Firefox 2.0.

Firefox 2.0 depends on libstdc++5


Firefox 2.0 may be available from the debian unstable repo as Iceweasel. However, I elected to go with the official Firefox 2.0. I am in the US and speak English so I use the en-US version of Firefox. Other versions can be found at ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or....0/linux-i686/ pick your locale and substitute into the following code:

Now we need to unpack the archive:

I have seen some warnings that some Firefox 1.5 plugins (namely totem) are supposed to mess with Firefox 2.0. I have not found this to be the case. I have found that some plugins in the Firefox 1.5 directory are simlinks that break if you just copy the files over to the 2.0 directory. Aside from that, dpkg will still install your plugins to the old 1.5 directory. So let's recycle all those plugins from the previous Firefox 1.5 install. We are going to create a symbolic link from the installed Firefox 1.5 plugins directory to our new Firefox 2.0 plugins directory.

Now we need to tell debian where to find the new Firefox 2.0

That is all there is to installing Firefox 2.0. You should now be able to click on your Firefox panel icon and find that firefox 2.0 is up and running.

Now let's install some standard plugins.

Sun's Java

Type the following command to install Java from debians contrib repo. You will be asked to accept Sun's license agreement.
According to Sun's website (https://jdk-distros.dev.java.net/debian.html) "...you may need to choose the Sun JRE as the default with:"

After the install is done, you will need to restart Firefox and test the plugin here -> http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp

When I tested mine the plugin didn't work so I created a link from Sun's Java plugin to Firefox's plugin dir.

Now restart Firefox and retest here -> http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp

Adobe's Flash Player 9

Now lets install Flash player 9. This install has been made painless by a package thats available in either the contrib or non-free repos.

Restart Firefox and test Flash here -> http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_15507 You should see a version number in the 9,0,21,78 range.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

There is an official Adobe Acrobat plugin for firefox in either the Debian contrib or non-free repos. You can install it using:

Restart your browser and test the plugin here -> http://www.opa.ca.gov/help/pdf/testpage.pdf

Mplayer and mp3 stuff

If your like me, you get tired of going to sites and finding out that you can't view or listen to some video or music file because they used a format thats not open source. Debian-multimedia.org has fixed this for us. If you followed this howto exactly the repository is already setup. Simply do the following:

Restart Firefox and test the plugin with your favorite multimedia site. If you want to see every plugin you now have available to you then type in the Firefox url bar.

Optional Firefox Configuration

I don't like having to manually select urls in the url bar to navigate to a different site. I also like having the tab bar up all the time. I don't like the bookmarks bar up all the time. And all those security warnings talking about entering and leaving encrypted pages really don't make any sense to me. Also, by default Firefox doesn't use http.pipelining. pipelining allows the browser to use more available bandwidth to download pages quicker. If you agree with all of the above then you can fix it by following all of the following instructions:

Bookmarks toolbar

Click View - Toolbars - "Bookmarks Toolbar"

Tab bar

Click Edit - Preferences - Tabs - "Always show the tab bar"

DOM Inspector

I don't know what it does, except slow down Firefox. But there is an addon running by default called DOM Inspector. The Description says that it "Inspects the structure and properties of a window and its contents." You can turn it off by clicking Tools - "Add-ons" under the heading "DOM Inspector" click Disable. Voila, Firefox is now a lot faster (at least on my old eMachine).

Urlbar, pipelining, security warnings

Now we are going to get into the actual Firefox Configuration. In the Firefox url bar type about:config

urlbar

In the Filter bar type urlbar. The second item listed should be browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll. Under the Value column right click on false then click toggle. The value field should now say true.

pipelining

In the Filter bar type pipelining. The first line will say network.http.pipelining right click on false and click toggle. Now the third line will say network.http.proxy.pipelining right click on false and click toggle.

security warnings
In the Filter bar type security.ui. The only option is security.ui.enable. Right click on true and click toggle.

Restart Firefox for all the new settings to take effect. Now you are rid of all the annoying things that cause people to not use firefox. Hopefully you will get as much enjoyment from all the new features and plugins as I do. Enjoy using Firefox 2.0.

craigevil

Some tweaks for 2.0 that some people may like:

/* 2.0 UI tweaks */
user_pref("layout.css.dpi", 0);
user_pref("browser.urlbar.hideGoButton", true);
/*Get rid of the ugly file picker*/
user_pref("ui.allow_platform_file_picker", false);
/*Block third part cookies*/
user_pref("network.cookie.cookieBehavior", 1);

/* Set backspace key to go to previous page */
user_pref("browser.backspace_action", 0);

macondo

Hi craigevil, what is the file in iceweasel to edit all this?

brokndodge

ice weasel is Firefox with some debian tweaks. you can configure them both the same way. the preferred method is to type about:config in the url bar where you would type an internet address (like linuxforums.org). The is a file that you can manually edit. however, if you are not careful it is possible to really mess stuff up there.

--edit - I just checked all of the settings craigevil described and they are all available in about:config. type about:config in the url bar then copy each of the following into the filter bar 1 at a time. For each setting you will right click on the value column and then click either toggle or modify. Enter the settings that craigevil listed in his post.

You will need to restart your browser for these changes to take effect.

craigevil

I always try to put modification in user.js, that way an upgrade doesn't tend to overwrite my changes.

All of my settings.
http://www.geocities.com/reverendsky....0settings.txt

Nice guide BTW. I was lazy and simply extracted the Mozilla Firefox tar file to my hope directory then symlinked the plugins, when Firefox 2.0 first came out. Now I run Iceweasel most of the time.

netstrider

Very nice tutorial if that's what I may call it. I bookmarked the page and saved it in a text file. I might publish this content on my website in the near future if it's OK with you. Of course, I will give the author credit

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macondo

Thanks brokndodge and craigevil, it works!

luckykar

Thanks for the how to it works very well just a small question when a new version comes out do i just update it the same way as it was installed or do i need to remove the old version first then reinstall the newer one the same way.

thanks

brokndodge

I believe Firefox2 will self update. But I'm not completely sure. Yet

craigevil

Yes , if you have the update option checked under Advance it will update when Mozilla releases updates.

Debian's Firefox/Iceweasel updates in Sid usually come out 4-5 days after Mozilla releases an update., which is much better than most other distros.