Replacing builtin Firefox (52) with current Firefox (54.0.1)

I recently installed Leap 42.3 and noticed I couldn’t install some of the extensions I use. I went ahead and installed the latest stable version of Firefox v54.0.1, by unzipping the package, and noticed that I have to use the script file within said unzipped file called “Firefox”. I’m just wondering (new to linux mind you, and that I couldn’t really find anything else related to this) if there is a way for me to somehow install/replace the newer version (54.0.1) from where the current version (52) is installed at? Or is that not possible for the way YaST installs things?

you could add the Mozilla repo and install from there
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_Leap_42.3/

one of the things that bugged me with 42.3 is the inclusion of Firefox-esr as Firefox
opensuse already has a Firefox-esr build they could have had both in the main repo and let users chose weather they preferred a current or an esr build (I really don’t think a lot of people use java in browsers)
https://software.opensuse.org/package/firefox-esr and
https://software.opensuse.org/package/MozillaFirefox
you can do as farcusnz said and get Firefox 54.0.1 from the mozilla repo but there is a bug in a java package that causes an unsolvable dependency issue the workaround is simple just ignore the dependency warning when switching packages as 54 does not support java anymore
to get 54 you’d need to add the mozilla repo (so you get regular updates) and do a full vendor change to it (this might switch thunderbird and seamonkey to the mozilla repo builds so think twice before doing it)

zypper ar -f http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_Leap_42.3/ mozilla
zypper dup --from mozilla

[QUOTE=farcusnz;2831906]you could add the Mozilla repo and install from there
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_Leap_42.3/[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=I_A;2831916]one of the things that bugged me with 42.3 is the inclusion of Firefox-esr as Firefox
opensuse already has a Firefox-esr build they could have had both in the main repo and let users chose weather they preferred a current or an esr build (I really don’t think a lot of people use java in browsers)
https://software.opensuse.org/package/firefox-esr and
https://software.opensuse.org/package/MozillaFirefox
you can do as farcusnz said and get Firefox 54.0.1 from the mozilla repo but there is a bug in a java package that causes an unsolvable dependency issue the workaround is simple just ignore the dependency warning when switching packages as 54 does not support java anymore
to get 54 you’d need to add the mozilla repo (so you get regular updates) and do a full vendor change to it (this might switch thunderbird and seamonkey to the mozilla repo builds so think twice before doing it)

zypper ar -f http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_Leap_42.3/ mozilla
zypper dup --from mozilla

[/QUOTE]

Thank you both, that should solve my issue.

Hi
Based on the Factory ML info from the Firefox maintainer it’s an issue with the build tools for the latest version changing to rust…

I do remember reading a thread in the mailing list that there wore “issues” with newer Firefox sources mainly that gtk2+ support has been dropped (opensuse used/uses gtk2+) issues with dpi scaling and the fact that all plugins except for flash have been blocked, I don’t remember reading anything about rust, I think I read somewhere that rust is still not used for Firefox compilation but is planned to be.
anyhow I’m amazed TW is on ESR I switched to the mozilla repo while I used 42.2 and am still using it on 42.3 I hadn’t noticed any issues

my mistake apparently rust is stable and is used for parts of Firefox
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/07/shipping-rust-in-firefox/
any way 54.0.1 from the mozilla repo is working great for me I had zero issues under plasma 5 or lxqt (with openbox)

Hi
The changes in rust 1.18.0 only came through a few weeks ago as well for Tumbleweed to build Firefox;

The Leap 42.3 version is still of rust is still at 1.17.0…

  • Change i586 build to produce i686 target instead of i586 so that
    x86 Firefox can be built with Rust.

does that mean only sse2 cpu’s will run Firefox on TW?
there are still quite a few amd and p3’s in the wild

On Mon 31 Jul 2017 12:56:01 AM CDT, I A wrote:

malcolmlewis;2832107 Wrote:
> Hi
> The changes in rust 1.18.0 only came through a few weeks ago as well
> for Tumbleweed to build Firefox;
> File rust.changes of Package rust - openSUSE Build Service
>
> The Leap 42.3 version is still of rust is still at 1.17.0…

> - Change i586 build to produce i686 target instead of i586 so that
> x86 Firefox can be built with Rust.
>
>
does that mean only sse2 cpu’s will run Firefox on TW?
there are still quite a few amd and p3’s in the wild

Hi
Anything less than a P4…


Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE Leap 42.2|GNOME 3.20.2|4.4.74-18.20-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

Not necessarily.
I don’t think Firefox has any SSE2 or i686 specific assembly code itself.
So that should just depend on how it is compiled (e.g. compiler optimization options).

No idea about rust, but the comment in the spec file says this:


# The cargo binary is only used to build rust and is not shipped
# Using i686 for i586 seems to be okay for now but may cause issues in future 

IOW, that change should have no impact on the resulting binary rpm package.

Btw, despite what some people seem to think, SSE2 has nothing to do with i586 vs. i686… :wink:
And actually, if I read P6 (microarchitecture) - Wikipedia correctly, P3s are already i686.

But yes, “Pentium4 or newer” generally refers to having SSE2, as SSE2 was introduced by Intel with the Pentium4. (note that AMD Athlon XPs don’t have SSE2 either, despite being newer than Pentium4)

I was able to install the latest version of firefox, yet I can’t watch any twitch streams and when I go https://www.youtube.com/html5 it says that H264 is not enabled. However, it is enabled under the plugins section of FF54.

that plugin is only meant to work with webrtc which mozilla abandoned (Firefox Hello) so it works with nothing
if you want h264 you’ll need the restricted codecs from the packman repo

zypper ar -f ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/packman/suse/openSUSE_Leap_42.3/ packman
zypper dup --from packman
zypper in vlc-codecs libxine2-codecs flash-player

that last line is needed because there are no vlc-codecs and libxine2-codecs packages in OSS and they are needed for full (not just firefox) multimedia support, also packman hosts flash and you might need in firefox