Installing Firefox 2.0 on Freespire 1.0

There is very little I dislike about desktop Linux. One of those things is that fact that repositories don't keep applications like Firefox up to date with the latest releases. So here's what I did to install Firefox 2.0 on Freespire 1.0.

I started this process with Firefox 1.5 installed through apt/CNR. Although it doesn't have to be installed in order to install Firefox 2.0.

I downloaded Firefox 2.0 at getfirefox.com

Saved the archive to my desktop. Opened the archive and saved out the contents. I moved the "firefox" folder and all it contents to /opt.

The easiest way to do this is open terminal.

cd /home/your-username/Desktop

cp -R firefox /opt

With terminal still open

cd /opt/firefox

Now I could start Firefox 2.0 by running the command /opt/firefox/firefox

Great now I have Firefox but no plugins.

Soooo

mv plugins plugins-orig

ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins plugins

Now I had a plugins directory! Hooray. Next I cd'd into plugins and made sure I didn't have any broken links or relative links that might not resolve.

I restarted Firefox with /opt/firefox/firefox. I now have FF2.0 with plugins. Only one problem I encountered at this point -- no sound in Flash.

To get sound in Flash I found a tip on the freespire forums to start Firefox with an audio wrapper. Here's how.

At the terminal I typed vi firefox-launch.

Typed i

Then inserted the following:

#!/bin/bash
audiowrapper --alsa -- /opt/firefox/firefox $@

Quit and saved the filie by hitting esc and then :q

Next I made the file executable with:

chmod +x firefox-launch

Then I fired up Firefox with /opt/firefox/firefox-launch

I went to Homestarrunner.com and was over joyed to hear "Everybody!, Everybody!"

With that done I added Firefox to my Kmenu.

To do that I right clicked on Launch and selected edit menu.

I added a new item, found the icon, inserted the launch command saved my work.

Finished.