How to install Firefox 10 on Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Opensuse,

... or any other Linux distribution.

This howto explains how to install Firefox 10 on Linux distros, without replacing your current Firefox installation.

Firefox 10 will be released on January 31.

More information on Firefox release dates, beta, aurora and nightlies on the official releases wiki.

Summary

A. Install Firefox 10 in 5 easy steps
B. Ubuntu's case, Mint and Debian
C. Uninstall Firefox 10
D. Run multiple profiles or instances at the same time

A. Install Firefox 10 in 5 easy steps

1. Download

Download the release from the official channels page:
www.mozilla.com/firefox/channels/

(if the link does not work, use Mozilla's FTP server)

A 64 bit build is also available in the x86_64 directory of Mozilla's FTP.

This how-to supposes that the downloaded file is saved in the "Downloads" directory situated in your home directory.

2. Extract

The downloaded file is a compressed .tar.bz2 archive. In case you want to Learn more on these extensions: tar, bzip2.

To extract this juicy archive, open the Downloads directory. Look for a file named firefox-10.0.tar.bz2, right-click on it and select "extract here".

Alternatively, you can extract the archive from the command line:

cd ~/Downloads/

tar xjf firefox-10.0.tar.bz2

For those interested, here are the tar arguments used in the command:
x : eXtract
j : deal with bzipped file
f : read from a file (rather than a tape device)

The .tar.bz2 archive can now be deleted.

3. Move to /opt

External programs like LibreOffice, Google Chrome, Adobe reader, ... are all installed in the /opt directory. If you want more info about why, check out these two links:
Where to install my products on linux?
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

If you already had a previous Firefox version installed in the /opt directory, remove it with the following command:

sudo rm -r /opt/firefox

Now move the firefox directory – which was created in your Downloads folder during extraction – to /opt:

sudo mv firefox /opt/firefox10

4. Set up symbolic links

Depending on you usage pattern, follow the instructions for case 1 OR for case 2.

Case 1: you want to use Firefox 10 as you default browser:

"Backup" the old Firefox launcher:

sudo mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox-old

Create a symbolic link pointing to the new Firefox version:

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox10/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

No need to update your icons/shortcuts, they should now launch the new version of Firefox.

Your old Firefox version is still installed. If you want to use it, run firefox-old in a terminal or create shortcuts/icons referring to firefox-old.

Case 2: you want to keep using your "old" Firefox by default:

Create a symbolic link pointing to the new Firefox version:

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox10/firefox /usr/bin/firefox10

Launch the newly installed Firefox by running firefox10 in a terminal, or create shortcuts/icons referring to firefox10.

5. Updates & Final

Firefox 10 will manage its own updates independently of your system's package manager, an download subsequent releases.

There will be no need to repeat the whole "procedure"... Enjoy Firefox 10!

B. Ubuntu's case, Linux Mint and Debian

1. Ubuntu: no ubuntu-mozilla-daily ppa!

Many howtos on this subject will tell you to install Firefox pre-versions through Mozilla's ppa ubuntu-mozilla-daily.

Using this ppa will not only install the latest Firefox 12 nightly build, used to be called "minefield" - updated daily! It will also update your current Firefox and Thunderbird to test versions.

These testing versions are not meant to be stable or usable.

→ Avoid this ppa unless you know exactly what you're doing!

2. The Firefox Beta ppa: mozillateam/firefox-next

The firefox-next ppa will replace your current Firefox installation with the current available version in Mozillas Beta channel. Simply run these two commands in a terminal:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

You may also have a look at the Firefox Aurora ppa.

Note: you can use only one of these three channels (Aurora, Beta, and Daily) at the same time!

4. Official Ubuntu updates for Firefox (automatic)

Since Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal", Ubuntu will update automatically to the newest stable Firefox version when it is released. (it may take a few days more, though) This is also valid for Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" and upcoming releases.

5. Linux Mint 12, Debian 6 "Squeeze", ...

This howto has been tested with success on the following distributions, with Firefox 5 to 9 and Firefox 10:

Debian 6 "Squeeze"
Linux Mint 10 "Julia"
Linux Mint 11 "Katya"
Linux Mint 12 "Lisa"
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" (Long Term Support, until April 2013)
Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" (support until April 2012)
Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" (support until October 2012)
Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" (support until April 2013)

this installation procedure is reliable and should work with a wide range of distributions. Please share your experience with OpenSuse and Fedora in the comments.

C. Uninstall/remove Firefox 10 (for non-ppa installations)

Remove the Firefox directory:

sudo rm -r /opt/firefox10

You also should consider changing back or removing symbolic links which pointed to the old Firefox directory. Change back:

sudo mv /usr/bin/firefox-old /usr/bin/firefox

Or remove the firefox10 symlink:

sudo rm /usr/bin/firefox10

D. Run multiple profiles and instances simultaneously

Problem: it is possible to run different Firefox versions with the same profile (profiles are compatible through major versions). However this is not very convenient, as Firefox will check the profiles extensions and plugins every time you start a newer or older version.

Solution: create a profile for each Firefox version. Create new profiles with:

firefox -no-remote -ProfileManager

The -no-remote option starts a new instance of Firefox even if there is already a Firefox instance running. Use the -no-remote option to run Firefox 10 and Firefox 11 instances at the same time.

Let's say that you've created two profiles: ffox10_profile and ffox11-profile . You can start one instance of Firefox 10 and one instance of Firefox 11 with the following commands:

firefox -no-remote -P ffox10-profile
firefox11 -no-remote -P ffox11-profile

Now you may create desktop shortcuts / icons / launchers (Gnome: Custom Application Launcher) for each of these Firefox versions with their respective profiles.

If you need some svg icons to recognize your different Firefox installations, here they are. (Obviously these are NOT official Mozilla artwork, please use them wisely.)

By Johannes Eva, December 2010 – January 2012

...
Updated December 29, 2011: Firefox 8 → Firefox 9
Updated January 27, 2012: Firefox 9 → Firefox 10

This article has been linked on Tuxmachines, Ubuntu News, Debian News, LXer.com and some more...

If you found this article useful, please share it!

Add new comment

Comments

Great article

Permalink Submitted by Andrew on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 10:13

Thanks for the article. By the way, I've found a typo in A.4 Case 1: "sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox6 /usr/bin/firefox" should be "sudo ln -s /opt/firefox6/firefox /usr/bin/firefox" Best regards.

Fedora FF update

Permalink Submitted by Tom Baron on Fri, 09/02/2011 - 16:30

Whoever wrote this, thanks very much!! I followed the instructions for Fedora, and it worked flawlessly!!!

Thanks!

Permalink Submitted by Carlos on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 02:18

Great post! It has been really usefull to me. Thanks

Firefox Tutorial

Permalink Submitted by Emanoel on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 14:50

Thank you. This tutorial has come to help many who were having trouble installing firefox on his linuxs. Sorry for the translation. The google helped me ( Muito obrigado. Este tutorial veio a ajudar muitos que estavam tendo problemas para instalar firefox em seus linuxs. Desculpem a tradução. O google me ajudou)

Thank You!!!

Permalink Submitted by Javier on Wed, 10/12/2011 - 21:55

This was very helpful, thank you so much!!!!

LMDE

Permalink Submitted by cmltow on Thu, 10/13/2011 - 02:37

Worked for Linux Mint Debian Edition. I just had to change the path to the launchers from "/opt/firefox/firefox %u" to "/opt/firefox7/firefox %u" and everything works perfectly.

I'm a bit confused: in step 3

Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 11/06/2011 - 16:34

I'm a bit confused: in step 3 you remove the old Firefox installation but in step 4 you pretend that the old launcher will still work? My solution is slightly different: (1) I prefer to keep the old Firefox installation and just move it to a different folder, e.g. mv /opt/firefox /opt/firefox-old. (2) Install Firefox 8 into /opt/firefox, e.g. mv ~/Downloads/firefox /opt/firefox. No need to update the links then - icons & launcher will immediately start Firefox 8. When something breaks I can just remove /opt/firefox and rename /opt/firefox-old to /opt/firebox to have my default installation.

Great tutorial

Permalink Submitted by Bocskai Csaba on Tue, 11/15/2011 - 09:02

Thanks a million for this! Strangely, Mozilla guys forgot to put a "how to install" link on the download page and I never dealt with this sort of install.

good bit

Permalink Submitted by makis on Thu, 12/01/2011 - 23:19

These would have taken a good while to dig up without you. firefox8 -no-remote -ProfileManager firefox8 -no-remote -P ffox8-profile You might mention in the future that a nice: alias ff8='firefox8 -no-remote -P ffox8-profile' in ~/.profile might make this even more practical. Cheers.

libre-software.net