How can install Aurora (Firefox) and keep updating it?

Question

I would like test the Aurora channel on Ubuntu 11.10. How can I do this?

Solution 1

A ppa is great, and used by most users. But if you want an alternate you simply download from Mozilla

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-aurora/

You save the tar.bz in your home directory.

You extract it with tar xjvf firefox-version

At the time of this post it is

tar xjvf firefox-10.0a2.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2

Use tab completion (type firefox tab tab) ...

You then run it with

~/firefox/firefox-bin

The biggest potential advantages of this method is that it will install per user only, not system wide. On a multi-user system that might have an advantage.

You can 'install' it system wide easily enough

sudo cp -R ~your_user/firefox /usr/local

You then run it with

/usr/local/firefox/firefox-bin

Solution 2

Add the PPA for it:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/firefox-aurora

Then, sudo apt-get update and install firefox currently is at version 10. As they upload a new release of Firefox you will get an update.

Remember, adding the Firefox Aurora Channel PPA will replace your current stable Firefox! This version of Firefox is not stable so you may find bugs! Use it at your own risk.

Comments

[Admin]

Another advantage is that you can get daily updates which are differential (and mostly under 1MB) by clicking on Help, About. If you don't do an update daily, the next time you check for updates, you may get a full ~ 17 MB download. That's why I update daily. I think, but I'm not sure, that going the ppa route will result in full updates each time. You can also have a short cut and you can also ensure that .htm and .html files open with Aurora instead of the default Firefox stable version.

[Karolinger]

I marked your answer as accepted because I want to test the latest releases fast and because of the advantages you and vasa1 pointed out. Thanks, your help is greatly appreciated.

[Panther]

you are most welcome, glad you found a solution that works for you.