HOWTO: Install Firefox 2.0 on Fedora Core 6 December 18, 2006
Posted by devhen in HOWTO, Fedora, Linux. trackback
UPDATED: Mar-21-2007
Due to the popularity of this post I’ve decided to include instructions for all three of the most popular methods for installing Firefox 2 on Fedora Core 6. Read through the three options to decide which works best for you.
Option 1: Via yum with the ‘development’ repo
This command will allow you to upgrade to Firefox 2 via the Fedora Development repo. This is the most commonly recommended option.
Instructions (as root):
# yum --enablerepo=development update firefox
Pros: Uses “official” Fedora packages
Cons: Doesn’t include the (optional) bonuses of option 2
Option 2: Via yum with the ‘remi’ repo
Remi Collet, an “official” Fedora developer, has made available a repo of packages that provides Firefox 2. The repo updates Firefox and those packages that depend on it and also contains a few bonuses such as an updated XChat package (version 2.8).
Instructions (as root):
# rpm -Uvh http://remi.collet.free.fr/rpms/fc6.i386/remi-release-1-2.fc6.remi.noarch.rpm
Now make sure that in your /etc/yum.repos.d/remi.repo file you’ve got enabled=1 and then:
# yum update
Pros: All required packages as well as some extra goodies; new versions of Firefox are automatically installed with yum update
Cons: Not “official” Fedora packages–bugs should not be submitted to the Fedora project
Option 3: Via firefox-2.*.tar.gz from Mozilla.com
I always recommend using RPM packages on Fedora, if possible. However, if you’d like to install Firefox 2 using firefox-2.*.tar.gz from Mozilla.com use this option. One benefit of this option is that Firefox 1.5 remains on your machine so have a choice as to which version to run.
Instructions (as root):
Download firefox-*.tar.gz from Mozilla.com.
# mv firefox-2.*.tar.gz /usr/local/
# cd /usr/local
# tar xvfz firefox-2.*.tar.gz
# mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox15
# ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
Firefox 2 will now be your default browser. To run version 1.5 use the command firefox15. I don’t recommend running both versions concurrently because they will be using the same profile which might cause problems.
Pros: Firefox 2 co-exists with version 1.5
Cons: Installation isn’t as straightforward; must be repeated for future releases of Firefox 2
Comments»
1. hoang hanh - December 22, 2006
how to install Firefox 2.0 on FC6
2. Will Siddall - December 28, 2006
Hi Hoang,
The update to 2.0 is quite easy, but I’ve read in a couple of places that this repository is actually an attack site full of compromised software. The best way to update Firefox on FC6 is to use the following command:
yum -y -t --enable=development update firefox
This will perform the update from Fedora’s Development repository which is currently 2.0.0.1
3. Devin - December 28, 2006
Will,
I find it very hard to believe that the remi repo is filled with “compromised software.” In fact, I know it is not. Please provide the sources of this information. In the mean time, my readers can rest assured that the remi repo is effective. I’ve been using it for some time now and if I run into any problems I will post them here on my blog.
Having said that, thanks for the alternate method of installing Firefox 2.0!
Cheers,
Devin
4. felipec - December 28, 2006
Whatever is the status of the remi’s repo, it’s always safer to go with official versions.
However, as you can see here they are not planning to include Firefox 2.0 officially, so we’ll have to use the development version, or have a parallel Firefox 2.0 package, I’ll prefer the second one.
5. devhen - January 3, 2007
After looking further into this, I’ve found that Remi Collet, maintainer of the remi repo, is an “official” member of the Fedora development community. You’ll see his name and a link to his web site (and repo) at http://www.fedoraproject.org/people
So, rest assured that Remi’s repo is not filled with “compromised software.” Instead it is a reliable, effective repo setup simply to provide Firefox 2.0 to Fedora Core 6 users.
Other options for obtaining Firefox 2.0 would be to wait for Fedora Core 7, download and unpack the .tar file from Mozilla.com or use the development version as Will described above.
Cheers,
Devin
6. Trossachs - January 7, 2007
Have checked out the instructions below and have issued the command: “yum -y -t –enable=development update firefox” which did not work and then “yum -y -t update firefox” which gave me the following error:
[root@q6 firefox]# yum -y -t update firefox
Loading “installonlyn” plugin
Setting up Update Process
Setting up repositories
core 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
updates 100% |=========================| 1.2 kB 00:00
extras 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
Reading repository metadata in from local files
primary.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 1.7 MB 00:06
################################################## 5355/5355
Could not find update match for firefox
No Packages marked for Update/Obsoletion
I last use Fedora back aty version 2 and have been using Gentoo for my servers since then so am a little bit rusty. My yum version if v3.0.1.
Can anyone advise how I can update to the latest version of Firefox?
7. Bard - January 9, 2007
the acutal command is
yum -y -t --enable=development update firefox
try that, the dashes were just a little fubared
–Bard
8. devhen - January 9, 2007
Bard,
Wordpress was turning the double dash into a single dash. I’ve edited the original and your comment, so the commands should work now. Thanks for pointing that out.
Devin
9. Emil - January 17, 2007
Error getting repository data for development, repository not found
10. Jessie V - January 27, 2007
—> Package gnutls-devel.i386 0:1.4.1-2 set to be updated
—> Package gnome-pilot.i386 0:2.0.15-3.fc7 set to be updated
–> Running transaction check
–> Processing Dependency: python-abi = 2.4 for package: smart
–> Processing Dependency: python(abi) = 2.4 for package: smart
–> Processing Dependency: python(abi) = 2.4 for package: mirage
–> Processing Dependency: libcurl.so.3 for package: bzflag
–> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: Missing Dependency: python(abi) = 2.4 is needed by package smart
Error: Missing Dependency: python-abi = 2.4 is needed by package smart
Error: Missing Dependency: python(abi) = 2.4 is needed by package mirage
Error: Missing Dependency: libcurl.so.3 is needed by package bzflag
it has an error on this part.
11. devhen - January 28, 2007
Jessie,
Are those deps for firefox or a different program that is being updated?
yum deplist firefox
would tell you all of the dependencies for the firefox package.
yum provides libcurl.so.3
would tell you what package(s) include the file libcurl.so.3.
Hope this helps,
Devin
12. Nemo - February 4, 2007
http://www.city-fan.org/ftp/contrib/sysutils/Mirroring/
They have a number of different vesions of libcurl. I’m running FC7-T1 and needed libcurl.so.3, and I found it there.
13. Remi - February 7, 2007
Hello,
@Will Siddall, can you tell me where you read that my repository is “an attack site” ?
Of course not, but you can look at my SRPM if you want. Most of them are only official one with some patch to work with older Fedora version.
Using the devel (F7) version under FC6 could work after the FC6 release (devel was near identical) but with time, and new version in rawhide, this is not sure.
Regards
14. dmon - March 11, 2007
Ok… Can you guys help a rockie here.. please!
I am using Fedora core6, out of the box (no updates).
I fellowed Remi’s instructions. Here’s what I’ve done:
> Downloaded firefox-2.0.0.2-1.fc6.remi.i386.rpm into root
> Executed the following command:
wget http://remi.collet.free.fr/rpms/fc6.i386/remi-release-1-2.fc6.remi.noarch.rpm rpm -Uvh remi-release-1-2.fc6.remi.noarch.rpm
> Executed the following commands:
su -
cd /etc/yum.repos.d
wget http://remi.collet.free.fr/rpms/remi.repo
> Imported the PGP key and made sure that it is listed
> Executed the following command:
yum –enablerepo=remi install firefox-2.0.0.2
aargh.. and here is what I get:
[root@localhost ~]# yum –enablerepo=remi install firefox-2.0.0.2
Loading “installonlyn” plugin
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
core 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
updates 100% |=========================| 1.2 kB 00:00
extras 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
Reading repository metadata in from local files
primary.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 1.4 MB 00:27
################################################## 4400/4400
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
–> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
—> Package firefox.i386 0:2.0.0.2-1.fc6.remi set to be updated
–> Running transaction check
–> Processing Dependency: gecko-libs = 1.8.0.10 for package: epiphany
–> Processing Dependency: firefox = 1.5.0.10 for package: epiphany-extensions
–> Processing Dependency: gecko-libs = 1.8.0.7 for package: yelp
–> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes.
–> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
—> Package epiphany.i386 0:2.16.3-2.fc6.remi set to be updated
–> Running transaction check
–> Processing Dependency: firefox = 1.5.0.10 for package: epiphany-extensions
–> Processing Dependency: gecko-libs = 1.8.0.7 for package: yelp
–> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: Missing Dependency: firefox = 1.5.0.10 is needed by package epiphany-extensions
I know this is no forum and devhen sorry for posting such a big comment, but I will be more than glad if someone can tell me what to do here.
15. devhen - March 11, 2007
dmon,
I’m happy to help. First off, you don’t need to download firefox-2.0.0.2-1.fc6.remi.i386.rpm because yum will download it for you during install. Secondly, doing both of the following is overkill. You only need to do one or the other:
> Executed the following command:
wget http://remi.collet.free.fr/rpms/fc6.i386/remi-release-1-2.fc6.remi.noarch.rpm rpm -Uvh remi-release-1-2.fc6.remi.noarch.rpm
> Executed the following commands:
su -
cd /etc/yum.repos.d
wget http://remi.collet.free.fr/rpms/remi.repo
To be more specific, rpm -Uvh remi-release-1-2.fc6.remi.noarch.rpm automatically installs remi.repo to /etc/yum.repos.d/ so you don’t have to do it again.
Lastly, you should do ‘yum update firefox’ instead of ‘yum install firefox-2.0.0.2.’ Here --enablerepo=remi is not necessary unless you have enabled=0 in your /etc/yum.repos.d/remi.repo file. It is set to enabled=1 by default.
Cheers, and welcome to Fedora! :)
Devin
16. Froi - March 14, 2007
here is the right command:
su
yum -y --enablerepo=development update firefox
“ion, like a lion in zion”
17. pham si manh - vietnamese - March 16, 2007
i have the package source firefox-2.0.0.2.tar.gz
i howto install???
you can help me
18. Froi - March 18, 2007
pham si manh,
just follow my instructions and you will have no problem installing firefox 2…
“ion, like a lion in zion”
19. ThePowerTool - March 23, 2007
OK, so I thought I was on a roll….
I tried the rpm but it didn’t work for some reason so I did the wget, first:
wget http://remi.collet.free.fr/…. ….noarch
then I ran:
rpm -Uvh ./remi-release-1-1.fc6.remi.noarch.rpm
warning: ./remi-release-1-2.fc6.remi.noarch.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID ….
Preparing… ################## 100%
1: remi-release ############### 100%
That seemed to look fine.
Next I peeked in /etc/yum.repos.d/remi.repo and notice that enabled was set to 0 and not the default 1 as mentioned, above. I changed it to 1.
yum update firefox
Loading “installonlyn” plugin
Setting up Update Process
Setting up repositories
Reading Repository metadata in from local files
Resolving Dependencies
–> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
—> Package firefox.x86_64 0:2.0.0.3-1.fc6.remi set to be updated
.
.
.
Error: Unable to satisfy dependencies
Error: Package devhelp needs libxpcom.so, this is not available
Error: Package devhelp needs gecko-libs = 1.8.0.10, this is not available
Error: Package devhelp needs libgtkembedmoz.so, this is not available.
This is on a *fresh* install of FC6 from the DVD. Any suggestions? I’m not really familiar with yum, yet. I notice even a “yum update” ends with this set of errors. Any assistance sincerely appreciated!! :-)
20. devhen - March 23, 2007
ThePowerTool:
That is strange. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that you are on x86_64. Try googling for firefox 32bit on fedora x86_64.
21. ThePowerTool - March 23, 2007
devhan,
Thank you for your fast post. After much research I found a solution to the problem. It is a work-around and the real solution might be for remi to post the gecko-libs (assuming it wouldn’t create additional deps problems.
Anyone running into the problem I have posted above can simply:
yum remove firefox
yum install firefox
gecko-libs is something remi has included in some of the firefox rpms. If, for some reason, you do not have the gecko-libs, it seems your only solution is to completely remove and re-install FireFox. Luckily, for me, a painless process.
I hope this helps someone else that runs into the challenges I faced and posted here.
Good Luck!
22. ThePowerTool - March 23, 2007
devhen
Very sorry for the typ-o in your name, above.
Also, I checked the versions posted by remi and the 64-bit is the same file as the 32 bit–I downloaded both, both had the same name. I then did a diff and found them to be identical.
ThePowerTool
23. Olivier - March 25, 2007
Hi Remi
I think Will did not read those false warnings about your repository himself, but here :
http://www.philoking.com/2006/11/15/how-to-update-to-firefox-20-on-fedora-core-6-the-easy-way/
instead.
I really wonder why this guy (”philoking”) has posted such a misleading warning… It’s very unfair in regard of the work you do for the community.
24. homer - March 25, 2007
hi,
i’m working with a fresh installation of FC6 on my old thinkpad t22. i do the following:
[root@localhost ~]# yum –enablerepo=development update firefox
Loading “installonlyn” plugin
and the terminal just hangs indefinitely (i’ve let it go for ~25min at this point). has anyone else encountered this problem?
25. Jason Burns - March 25, 2007
I apologize for any innacurate statements I made about remi’s work, I have updated my article and send my apologies….
JB
http://www.philoking.com/2006/11/15/how-to-update-to-firefox-20-on-fedora-core-6-the-easy-way/
26. Antonie Potgieter - April 2, 2007
Thanks for the great post!
27. Bob Maple - April 10, 2007
I do not understand, is the remi repo supposed to show up in the yum repo directory after running the rpm? I have i86_64 and I need to install thunderbird because the email on this machine doesn’t filter spam very well but first there is a mess with libraries and then people say to run yum this and yum that and I just want the program to install and work. I look everywhree and my eyes start to bleed. bottome line is how do I make the right repo so stuff will start working without going insane?
28. rituraj - April 20, 2007
hii devhen….
I got this error while trying to install wth tar package
everything went fine wth ur instructions but finally when i issued command
[root@localhost local]# firefox
/usr/local/firefox/firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[root@localhost local]#
above error returned…any soln to it
29. joe - April 21, 2007
Thanks…for the great help…i installed the firefox2 from option 2 in one go…
Thanks a lot
30. devhen - April 24, 2007
@ rituraj :
The package you need is compat-libstdc++-33. Do this:
yum install compat-libstdc++-33
The easiest way to find which package you need for a particular file is like this:
yum provides libstdc++.so.5
Cheers,
Devin
31. Justin - April 29, 2007
Thanks for this post, I am not very Linux/Fedora literate yet and it has been very helpful to update my Firefox. I want to install Thunderbird 2, but the yum action only installs 1.5. Will your instructions here about installing Firefox from the tar.gz file work for Thunderbird as well???
32. devhen - May 1, 2007
@ Justin:
Yes, those instructions will work. Just use the Thunderbird tar.gz and replace any instance of ‘firefox’ in the instructions with ‘thunderbird’. In the end you should have thunderbird installed to /usr/local/thunderbird and issuing the command ‘thunderbird’ will launch Thunderbird 2.0. The command ‘thunderbird15′ will launch Thunderbird 1.5.
Cheers,
Devin
33. What is Firefox? - May 9, 2007
For those who do download the rpm, don’t install it via the rpm command, but rather via yum:
# yum localinstall firefox*.rpm
This way yum will be aware of what is installed on your system.
34. Serendippo Italicus - May 20, 2007
Hi, Devin - great post for us Fedorians…
I run into it while googling for a way out of such a puzzle.
I chose “Option 3″, but for some reason it has not worked for me. I carefully followed your instructions, but when I launched Fx, it started checking “Compatibility Updates” (so version 2 should be there), then nothing more — I had to close it by means of “top” command (k PID # and so on).
Disappointedly I have tried to resort to the former situation by simply renaming
# /usr/bin/firefox15 /usr/bin/firefox
it asked me if it was ok to overwrite, I said yes, it duly executed, so I expected Fx 1.5 was restored, but Firefox still cannot start (BTW, I also rebooted a couple of times).
Now my question is: is there any chance to have Fx 1.5 run again, without performing the somewhat ‘radical’
# yum remove firefox
# yum install firefox
(and before engaging in the other 2 options you have kindly shared with the rest of the worlds) ???
Thanks a lot in advance, and best wishes!
35. baLaJi - July 18, 2007
hi all,
i’m using fedora core 6. i had the same problem of not being able to deploy and use firefox 2.0.0.4. all i did was use the yum install method to install libstdc++ for .33 and .so.5. then i issued yum install firefox. now i can run both firefox 1.5 and 2 (but not simultaneusly). my problem, rather puzzling situation is how can these two coexist? won’t the updated libraries for 2 be incompatible for 1.5? anyone answer?
thanx,
baLaJi
36. Balaji - July 21, 2007
hello everyone,
this forum’s been dormant like cyberciti for a while i guess. let me dehibernate (pardon my pun) it.
i’ve two partitions in my sata one booting xp and the other fedora 6. i wanted to access my xp data booting into linux. so as root, i did the required ‘mount’ (mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/c -t ntfs-3g -r -o umask=0222) in /etc/fstab. i’ve a user account which i log into when i’m using linux normally. now my problem is i’m not able to access the xp partition thru this. with root it’s fine but i can’t be logging in as root.
early help would be appreciated.
thanx in advance,
baLaJi
