Firefox 5 won't start.

Archived topics about LMDE 1 and LMDE 2
Chris M

Re: Firefox 5 won't start.

Post by Chris M »

I borked a Debian Testing install trying to push it with nVidia drivers. Oh well. I wanted to install a LMDE with stable repositories on one of my boxes anyway.

Testing, as mentioned in this thread, doesn't seem to have FF5 issues anymore. So this is for folks who have gone the stable rout, and after updating from 3.6, can't get 5 to come up.

As perhaps a temp fix, don't remove Firefox. Do this: http://www.johannes-eva.net/how-to-inst ... untu-linux

It worked like a charm. And not removing FF left the link icons in the menu and on my desktop.
bushguy42

Re: Firefox 5 won't start.

Post by bushguy42 »

I had the same problem. I put it down to broken updates.

When I ran

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg --configure -a
It resolved itself.
mint123

Re: Firefox 5 won't start.

Post by mint123 »

Chris M wrote:I borked a Debian Testing install trying to push it with nVidia drivers. Oh well. I wanted to install a LMDE with stable repositories on one of my boxes anyway.

Testing, as mentioned in this thread, doesn't seem to have FF5 issues anymore. So this is for folks who have gone the stable rout, and after updating from 3.6, can't get 5 to come up.

As perhaps a temp fix, don't remove Firefox. Do this: http://www.johannes-eva.net/how-to-inst ... untu-linux

It worked like a charm. And not removing FF left the link icons in the menu and on my desktop.
The Firefox Stable PPA the above link gives is for Ubuntu Lucid, Maverick and Natty.
https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+arc ... fox-stable

Are those an exception to use Ubuntu PPA's in Mint Debian? I also have the FF5 no start cause of the update problem. I'd like to just go back to ver 4 if a working 5 isn't available.
craigevil

Re: Firefox 5 won't start.

Post by craigevil »

Why not just use Iceweasel?

$ apt-cache policy iceweasel
iceweasel:
Installed: 7.0~a2+20110715042002-1
Candidate: 7.0~a2+20110715042002-1
Version table:
*** 7.0~a2+20110715042002-1 0
500 http://mozilla.debian.net/ experimental/iceweasel-aurora i386 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
6.0~b2-1 0
1 http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ experimental/main i386 Packages
5.0-4 0
500 http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ unstable/main i386 Packages

Mozilla Corporation software rebranded by the Debian project - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Co ... an_project
mint123

Re: Firefox 5 won't start.

Post by mint123 »

Ok I figured this out. I downloaded Firefox 5 from Mozilla.
http://www.mozilla.com/

Then go to /opt and delete the current firefox folder. Extract the new firefox folder into /opt. Firefox will now start. All my about:config settings and bookmark changes were preserved.
craigevil wrote:Why not just use Iceweasel?
This computer isn't mine and the user wants to keep Firefox.
craigevil

Re: Firefox 5 won't start.

Post by craigevil »

Tech Patterns :: Switching from Debian Iceweasel to Firefox, permanently : http://techpatterns.com/forums/about1435.html

The above howto uses the Mozilla Firefox, once everything is done properly it will auto-update any time Mozilla releases updates. Personally I am lazy and since I am the only one using my computer all I do is download, extract, create a shortcut to launch Firefox, and copy the firefox.desktop to /usr/share/applications so it shows up on the KDE menu. Two minutes of work and I have Firefox as my default browser with no worries about versions since it auto-updates.
Chris M

Re: Firefox 5 won't start.

Post by Chris M »

craigevil, thanks for that. Another reason that I prefer FF is that the BBCode extension (and UnMHT, I think) won't take in Iceweasel. But I think both of these solutions circle the FF wagon.

Aside from the extensions issue, techAdmin's post is a little dated, and I have not experienced his rather serious Iceweasel issues.

I've seen you post quite a bit over at the Debian System Configuration forum. That's another great source of info.

mint123, I did what you did (went to ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/5.0/linux-i686/en-US/), and followed the same procedure.

But I just couldn't help myself and went testing again. I opened up the floodgates on Stable, and screwed the pooch doing a sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. And then I ran into advice on this forum somewhere that indicated that you can use the old ISO:
  • For a new installation with the original disk:

    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

    That will catch you up to date and fix any broken packages/dependencies along the way.
It worked. And there is no FF5 issue anymore with Testing. Now I'm looking forward to messing with the smxi/sgfxi method for installing the nVidia driver.
Locked

Return to “LMDE Archive”