Mozilla Introduces Firefox Nightly .deb Packages for Debian-based Linux Distros (9to5linux.com)
23
Mozilla has some news for users of Debian-based Linux distributions (such as Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and others):
installing, updating, and testing the latest Firefox Nightly builds just got a lot easier. We've set up a new APT repository for you to install Firefox Nightly as a .deb package... These packages are compatible with the same Debian and Ubuntu versions as our traditional binaries. If you've previously used our traditional binaries (distributed as .tar.bz2 archives), switching to Mozilla's APT repository allows Firefox to be installed and updated like any other application... You will not have to restart Firefox after updating the package with APT...
For those of you who would like to use Firefox Nightly in a different language than American English, we have also created .deb packages containing the Firefox language packs.
Some context from 9to5Linux: Back in April, I reported that Mozilla was offering a DEB package of the Firefox 113 release during the beta testing phase. Unfortunately, that was the only time a DEB package was available for download and, of course, it didn't make it into the final release of Firefox 113, nor future releases. It would appear that Mozilla needed more time to work on the DEB package for Debian and Ubuntu-based distributions, and it looks like it will finally become a thing starting with an upcoming Firefox release, like Firefox 121 or later...
Using the DEB package over Snap or the official binary package offers some benefits like better performance due to advanced compiler-based optimizations, hardened binaries with all security flags enabled, access to the latest Firefox releases as fast as possible [because the .deb is integrated into Firefox's release process], and you won't have to create your own .desktop file anymore.
For those of you who would like to use Firefox Nightly in a different language than American English, we have also created .deb packages containing the Firefox language packs.
Some context from 9to5Linux: Back in April, I reported that Mozilla was offering a DEB package of the Firefox 113 release during the beta testing phase. Unfortunately, that was the only time a DEB package was available for download and, of course, it didn't make it into the final release of Firefox 113, nor future releases. It would appear that Mozilla needed more time to work on the DEB package for Debian and Ubuntu-based distributions, and it looks like it will finally become a thing starting with an upcoming Firefox release, like Firefox 121 or later...
Using the DEB package over Snap or the official binary package offers some benefits like better performance due to advanced compiler-based optimizations, hardened binaries with all security flags enabled, access to the latest Firefox releases as fast as possible [because the .deb is integrated into Firefox's release process], and you won't have to create your own .desktop file anymore.
Sounds great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Firefox is one of the few reasons I have to deal with snap while I would much prefer to just use apt. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Kudos to the dev team for making this happen.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think debian uses snap for firefox:
https://vitux.com/how-to-insta... [vitux.com]
Are you on ubuntu? If so, I think you could have been already able to install firefox without snap from the debian repository.
Firefox simply added it's own repository for nightly builds which still seems nice since I hear firefox is a pain to compile. Nightly builds are not for regular use since they might contain new bugs and even new security holes. Use a sanitized version. Nightly builds are mostly for developers, curious people
Re: (Score:2)
It's a somewhat older Firefox. Debian likes to test and vet software before offering it up as a package. It's normal for versions of many packages on Debian to lag behind a project's nightly builds.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. And that's GOOD. The only good reason for a rapid update is to fix a security hole.
Re: (Score:2)
Distros usually use ESR versions which only gets patched when there are security holes and they stay with the same version of firefox for the lifetime of the release. Ubuntu seems to do things differently although.
Re: (Score:2)
Firefox simply added it's own repository for nightly builds which still seems nice since I hear firefox is a pain to compile.
All the browsers have a extremely large code base and also bundle a large number of (known to work for the browser) 3rd party libraries, so even with a very hefty system it can take many hours to compile.
Re: (Score:3)
Firefox 119 compiled in 36 minutes on my 16 cores. This includes the profile-guided optimization (pgo) which needs two compile passes, and link-time optimization (lto), which used to be said to increase compile time (though I have not checked). However, it does not include bundled libraries which are de-bundled in gentoo. Latest compile time of the bundled libraries: dav1d [20 s compile time]/ libaom [46 s], harfbuzz [46 s], libjpeg-turbo [23 s], libevent [47 s], libvpx [37 s], libpng [44 s], libwebp [26 s]
Re: (Score:3)
However, it does not include bundled libraries which are de-bundled in gentoo
Firefox does not officially support unbundled library builds (it might work, and it might not, because, well, upstream), not that that prevents anyone from doing so if they desire. In some idealized world Firefox (and Chromium) would properly support the various libraries available on all platforms, but there are so many platforms and versions shipped that it is not at all surprising they just bundle rather than trying to validate all possible cases.
Re: (Score:2)
> so even with a very hefty system it can take many hours to compile.
Not true. On my Ryzen 5 4600G (6 cores) + 16GB + NV2 ssd + Debian 12 system building firefox takes ~25 minutes.
Since the build is almost 100% parallelizable, a really "hefty" system with 16 cores or more cannot take more than 8 to 10 minutes.
Re: Sounds great! (Score:2)
The other poster with 16 cores, that posted 6h before you, says it takes them 36m. The number of cores is not everything when building larger projects. There is a lot of disk io involved and the disk cache can have a big impact depending on how much spare RAM is available for caching.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the storage speed can affect that (since the source code of mozilla is HUGE).
My system includes some (rather foolhardy) kernel tweaks and patches (though I haven't had any data loss caused by them yet), which may have made the difference.
But my point stands -- building source code is most of the time ~100% parallelizable, so double the core numbers => halve the buld time.
Re: (Score:3)
Double the cores does not double your disk io, it depends what the bottleneck is.
Re:Sounds great! (Score:4, Insightful)
You can as well not use any package manager and install the universal linux binary from Mozilla. That's what I use on distros that only offer ESR. With this binary distribution, it auto-updates (like Firefox for Windows).
Re:Sounds great! (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't need snap nor the nightly builds.
Snap is annoying, and not the right way to manage an application that is not a big blob (i.e. it is not statically linked).
The nightly builds will require daily installs of Firefox. That is too disruptive.
The solution is to use the Mozilla Team PPA [launchpad.net].
It is a .deb repository, and they update Firefox when new versions are released, and when security fixes are pushed out.
The same repo has Firefox ESR (Extended Security Release) as well, if you want to go that way.
Instructions in the above link.
Re: (Score:2)
If the application is statically linked then there is even less of a use case for adding it to a snap or any other form of container. Firefox though is actually quite a good use case for something like snap, it comes bundled with specially built versions of all of its dependencies so a deb/rpm is basically like a container already, also since a browser is a major attack window the added sandboxing of snap is a nice extra. The issue is that Ubuntu wants to move other normal apps into snap, them moved Firefox
Re: (Score:2)
Or you could just download the .tar.gz, which doesn't even require root to install.
And contrary to common held beliefs, you can easily turn off automatic updates.
Why? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you are involved in the development, why would you want nightly builds?
Maybe you want a cutting edge feature that is currently being developed?
E.g. for the longest time I ran a nightly build because the current released version of Firefox lacked colour management support.
Re: (Score:2)
Yearly? (Score:3)
Where can I get a Firefox yearly? One that doesn't change except for security fixes more than once a year?
Re: (Score:3)
They put out an Extended Support Release roughly every 42 weeks which is obviously 10 weeks short of a year, and supported for a year. A bit of juggling and you can get your internal schedule very close to a year without compromising security.
I find their thinking on releases and security support a bit too opaque for my taste, luckily for me I'm a Debian user and the Debian Security Team applies security fixes to the ESR version they take for a few years. I hope other Debian based OSes have equivalent secur