My latest-$browser install scripts - Autoinstall?
 

Hi, a few people here use my latest-firefox or latest-chrome scripts. I originally wrote these for my own usage. I need to keep all my browsers up to date, as I do QA work for Opera and often need to do comparative testing. After some time it occurred to me to share these scripts with others.

I also have a latest-opera script but it probably isn't highly used these days due to the fact we have not released a stable update to Opera for Linux in quite some time. As we ramp up and get closer to a new release I have been thinking about redoing this one.

Prior to that I decided to work on something less Slackware specific. Currently we only have Debian packages for our new product, so I knocked up an install script that works on any distro. To simplify testing I added the ability to fetch the latest version of Opera (from or developer or beta streams). I also made it so that the script could be run as a cron job, only fetching and upgrading Opera if a new version available. I then place the script on all my test distro installs, knowing they will always be up to date.

Which lead me to think, what if I added an --install option to latest-firefox and latest-chrome scripts. When used this switch would install/upgrade the newly repackaged browser (if the script is run as root) by calling upgradepkg. This would in turn allow "latest-$browser --install" to be added as a cron job, ensuring you always have the latest browser.

What do people think? Would you find this handy or do you feel it would be over automated and you would prefer control and watch over the upgrade process? If most people aren't interested I may not bother, so I would appreciate your thoughts and feedback.

By the way, I also have a script to fetch and update Pepper Flash (latest-pepper-flash) for users of Chromium based browsers (such as Opera). It doesn't make a package but instead dumps Flash into /opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash (one of the directories Opera looks). However, by exporting a value for the variable PPAPI_FLASH_INSTALL_DIR, you can set it to be installed somewhere else.

I use Opera in a VM along with Konqueror, Firefox, Midori, Chrome, Chromium and some other browsers to test websites I develop for clients. Thanks for providing it.

It is simple enough to add and easy enough for a user to ignore if they don't want it. However, I would also request you add a single letter for those who like less typing with relations to command options. Maybe just a -i and an --install?

Yep, great minds think alike as I had already thought to add both. I already do this for the Opera script I mentioned previously.

You are right. It can be easily ignored and when I think more about it, its really simple.

So screw it, I just did it for both latest-firefox and latest-chrome.

Not exactly on topic but...

I assume that some people using the Slint installers/packages would be happy to easily get a localized version of Firefox (and also of Thunderbird) in their native language, that would replace the en_US version shipped in Slackware.

Replacing genuine Slackware packages by others is not in Slint's scope, but at least the Slint package could ship some stuff allowing the user to do that post-installation.

But what if a new version is proposed, and possibly mentioned in a message posted on the Slackware Security mailing list?

As using a Slint installer/installing a Slint package already installs some stuff in /usr/doc/slint-<version>-<date>, maybe we could also install there (or elsewhere if preferable) some stuff allowing the user to upgrade to the last (ESR or not) version that matches $LANG?

Ideally the configuration settings would be in a separate file to make them easier to change by a newbie (like e.g. slackpkg.conf).

Ruarí, I’d be very grateful if you could propose something...

It is probably me just having brain fade but I'm not sure what you are asking me. You want me to have my scripts read a config file? Or am I completely missing the point.

P.S. I put the scripts out there because I already made them (for myself). However once the feature set extends outside of something I would personally benefit from I doubt I would put the effort in. I don't want to actually promote Firefox, nor do I even use Thunderbird.

Yes that's what I meant.

I understand that, and I admit that my request was out of laziness ;)

So I'll try to build something myself, re-using at least part of what you've done if you don't mind.

Reuse as much as you like, I gave it an open license. ;)

thank you so much, found your github and your scripts a simple treasure trove of resources.