Setting Mozilla Firefox as default in Debian wheezy
 

Hi:
following extensive upgrading of Debian i386 wheezy, my installation of Mozilla Firefox was deleted. I have reinstalled it (and set as default browser), but now, to have this browser, I have to command the full path to its installation. Otherwise, Debian raises iceweasel at command "firefox".

I have nothing against iceaweasel, except that it lacks fundamental functions.

Any suggestion how to set Mozilla Firefox so that iceaweasel is not loaded?

In my feeling, life with Debian linux is becoming difficult, except for computational servers, where no server X is installed. Once gnome (particularly gnome3) is installed, I have no more command of the system. Thanks for suggestions chiendarret

Just de-install iceweasel. May I ask which fundamental functions you are missing?

Personally I have uninstalled Iceweasel and put Firefox in /opt with a symbolic link to it in /usr/bin.

for example there were some problem with tabgroups and sessions.

Ok, since you are using wheezy it would be nice if you report those problems to the Debian people, so that they can be fixed.

Iceweasel itself is ok, just the plugins: actually those problems are solved in the newer versions of those add-ons but they are incompatible with the official iceweasel.

What plugins?
Iceweasel IS Firefox - http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=73796

Upgrade to the newest version using the mozilla.debian.net repo.

$ apt-cache policy iceweasel
iceweasel:
Installed: 12.0-4
Candidate: 12.0-4
Version table:
*** 12.0-4 0
1 http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ experimental/main i386 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
10.0.4esr-2 0
500 http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ unstable/main i386 Packages


Iceweasel 12 works exactly the same and uses the same plugins/add-ons that Firefox 12 does.

If you want to switch to Firefox as default take a look at:
Tech Patterns :: Switching from Debian Iceweasel to Firefox, permanently - http://techpatterns.com/forums/about1435.html

Basically you need to add it to the Debian alternatives system. Follow the guide at Tech patterns.

I have the same plugins and add-ons in my Iceweasel profile that I do in my Firefox profile.

craigdevil, the problem occured with the official iceweasel, which is firefox 3.6 or something like that at this moment. Using the mozilla repo or downloading firefox 10 or above will solve these issues, but the original release contains a really old version and some add-ons, like tabgroups does not work well with that one.

iceweasel 12 should be in the mozilla.debian.net repo or if you are running testing or sid use the experimental repo.

Debian Mozilla team APT archive - http://mozilla.debian.net/
if you are running Squeeze make sure you have these lines in your sources.list
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main
deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ squeeze-backports iceweasel-release

You can install it with the following commands:

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install -t squeeze-backports iceweasel


For testing or sid use experimental

# apt-cache policy iceweasel
iceweasel:
Installed: 12.0-4
Candidate: 12.0-4
Version table:
*** 12.0-4 0
1 http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ experimental/main i386 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status


Hey I am with you, I switched to using Firefox and Thunderbird way back when Debian changed the names. I have used Firefox since back in the day when it was called Firebird and Phoenix.