[nmglug] dist-update w/o upgrading Firefox

Mon May 27 16:16:35 PDT 2019

Thanks for the detailed instructions! The only add-on that holds me back 
from upgrading is Scrapbook wherein I have many sites from years back. 
Some are legal, technical, travel, etc. If I could access them in some 
manner than FF I would upgrade in a minute but I can save them as a list 
but they are unusable otherwise. Given the amount of times I actually do 
access them I could probably do without the add-on. If I could link them 
to the original web page and then bookmark them then that could work but 
if you've used it, the addresses only link to saved pages in a scrapbook 
file.

Thanks Jared. I may go down this road but my preference would be to save 
the scrapbook references and be able to open them in the latest FF as 
bookmarked sites. I don't think that's possible however.

Again

Thanks Jared

On 5/27/19 2:40 PM, ABQLUG wrote:
> Hi Brian and the rest of the mailing list:
>
> Aptitude is basically a frontend (also provides different features) 
> for the apt structure, so you can run that same command with apt, if 
> you wanted to.
>
> ~$ sudo apt hold firefox-esr
>
> HOWEVER, for your use-case I would probably approach this differently.
>
> Since you want to stick to a super old version for add-on 
> compatiability reasons, I would probably just install the .deb file 
> for firefox esr 52.9. This should help freeze firefox without having 
> to hold anything. Though the thought of running a year old firefox 
> just makes me cringe.
>
> Which add-on isn't compatible?
>
> Here is how to install firefox esr 52.9 from the .deb files. Keep in 
> mind I don't include any troubleshooting tips, so if you run into 
> problems, then you will want to let me (or the mailing-list) know. 
> Also, I tested this on KDE Neon (18.04)
>
> Step Zero: Download everything that you need.
>
> Firefox ESR 52.9: 
> https://launchpad.net/~jonathonf/+archive/ubuntu/firefox-esr/+build/15059457/+files/firefox-esr_52.9.0esr-1~14.04.york0_amd64.deb
> libevent-2.0-5: 
> http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/libe/libevent/libevent-2.0-5_2.0.21-stable-2ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb
> libhunspell-1.3-0: 
> http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/h/hunspell/libhunspell-1.3-0_1.3.3-4ubuntu1_amd64.deb
> libjsoncpp0: 
> http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libj/libjsoncpp/libjsoncpp0_0.6.0~rc2-3.1_amd64.deb
> libvpx3: 
> http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/libv/libvpx/libvpx3_1.5.0-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb
>
> Here is how you can easily download this in the terminal. Copy and 
> paste the whole line:
>
>     mkdir firefox-esr_52-9_all-deb ; cd firefox-esr_52-9_all-deb ;
>     wget
>     https://launchpad.net/~jonathonf/+archive/ubuntu/firefox-esr/+build/15059457/+files/firefox-esr_52.9.0esr-1~14.04.york0_amd64.deb
>     http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/libe/libevent/libevent-2.0-5_2.0.21-stable-2ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb
>     http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/h/hunspell/libhunspell-1.3-0_1.3.3-4ubuntu1_amd64.deb
>     http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libj/libjsoncpp/libjsoncpp0_0.6.0~rc2-3.1_amd64.deb
>     http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/libv/libvpx/libvpx3_1.5.0-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb
>
>
>
> Step 1: remove firefox (without removing your existing profile).
>
>     sudo apt remove firefox* iceweasel*
>
> Step 1.5: If you receive this error, dpkg-divert: error: 'diversion of 
> /usr/bin/firefox to /usr/bin/firefox.real by firefox-esr' clashes with 
> 'diversion of /usr/bin/firefox to /usr/bin/_neon.firefox by neon-settings'
> Then run this:
>
>     sudo dpkg-divert --remove /usr/bin/firefox
>
>
> Step 2: change directories and install firefox-esr with the dependencies
>
>     sudo dpkg -i lib* firefox-esr_52.9.0esr-1~14.04.york0_amd64.deb
>
>
> At this point you should be able to use firefox ESR 52.9.
>
> I reached out to the IRC channel #newbies on irc.mozilla.org and no 
> one replied to me, so that PPA is the only place I was able to 
> download the .deb file.
>
> You can compile from source, however, I think you still need the other 
> 4 libs.
> Link to the source files, 
> https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.9.0esr/linux-x86_64/en-US/firefox-52.9.0esr.tar.bz2
>
> Also, I wrote a blog post on this.
>
> https://www.abqlug.com/tutorials/how-to-install-firefox-esr-52-9-on-ubuntu-18-04/
>
> Regards,
>
> Jared
>
>
> On 5/24/19 4:35 PM, Brian O'Keefe wrote:
>>
>> Thanks! Yes, I did mean dist-upgrade and thanks for catching that. I 
>> will give your instructions a try. I may use a virtual machine to be 
>> sure I know what I'm doing. I am used to apt and apt-get and the 
>> command line.
>>
>> Ciao
>>
>> Brian
>>
>> On 5/24/19 3:33 PM, Akkana Peck wrote:
>>> Brian O'Keefe writes:
>>>>     I'd like to run "apt dist-update" but I don't want to upgrade FF as I'm
>>>>     using FF52 ESR as any newer version doesn't support some add-ons I want
>>>>     to keep. Hence I never upgrade it though if the add-ons maintainers
>>>>     adapt to the new FF I certainly will too.
>>> I'm assuming you mean dist-upgrade, since dist-update isn't a valid
>>> apt command (at least on my system, it says Invalid operation).
>>>
>>> You can tell apt to "hold" a package, so it won't install a new
>>> version on top of what you already have:
>>>
>>> sudo aptitude hold firefox-esr
>>>
>>> (or whatever the package name is that you want to hold.
>>> Apparently you can also use sudo apt-mark hold firefox-esr,
>>> if you don't have aptitude installed, though personally I've only
>>> set holds with aptitude.
>>>
>>> You should probably hold all the firefox-esr-related packages
>>> you have installed, so get a list with
>>>
>>> aptitude search firefox-esr | grep '^i'
>>> or
>>> apt list --installed 'firefox-esr*'
>>>
>>> to see if you need to hold any additional packages.
>>>
>>> I don't know for sure that any of this will work with the GUI
>>> update manager you're using, but it works for apt-get dist-upgrade
>>> from the command line.
>>>
>>> You can see your held packages with
>>>
>>> aptitude search '~ahold'
>>>
>>>          ...Akkana
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> nmglug mailing list
>>> nmglug at lists.nmglug.org
>>> http://lists.nmglug.org/listinfo.cgi/nmglug-nmglug.org
>>>
>>>
>> -- 
>>
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>> http://lists.nmglug.org/listinfo.cgi/nmglug-nmglug.org
>
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