Looking for a minimal distro that ONLY has Firefox

larrystotler · 02-06-2019, 03:59 PM

Well just tried StliTaz. Same basic result as TinyCore. Tried to install Firefox since it's not included in the iso, and after repeated attempts, it never happened. I don't know what the issue it, but it claims it's installing something in the package manager but there is no status of anything. Then, when I installed it from the command line it knocked out my X-session and when I logged back in as root, it wasn't there.

Man I miss DOS, I really do sometimes. My biggest gripe about linux is all the friggin dependencies. This needs that and this and that. It's a PITA!. NetBSD's portage will at least put everything in.

Maybe I'll try that. I dunno.

petelq · 02-07-2019, 02:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by larrystotler

Well just tried StliTaz. Same basic result as TinyCore. Tried to install Firefox since it's not included in the iso, and after repeated attempts, it never happened. I don't know what the issue it, but it claims it's installing something in the package manager but there is no status of anything. Then, when I installed it from the command line it knocked out my X-session and when I logged back in as root, it wasn't there.

Have you tried downloading just the tar ball from mozilla. It's stand-alone*. You untar to a folder that suits you and create a link in /usr/bin/. You can keep it as updated as you like but obviously you do it manually each time.

edit: *within a linux os.

larrystotler · 02-07-2019, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by petelq

Have you tried downloading just the tar ball from mozilla. It's stand-alone*. You untar to a folder that suits you and create a link in /usr/bin/. You can keep it as updated as you like but obviously you do it manually each time.

edit: *within a linux os.

It has a lot of dependencies(which likely have their own dependencies......etc, etc...May have to go that route. Was just checking to see if it's already been done before I do so I'm not duplicating work that may have already been done.

Firefox will not run at all without the following libraries or packages:
GTK+ 3.4 or higher
GLib 2.22 or higher
Pango 1.22 or higher
X.Org 1.0 or higher (1.7 or higher is recommended)
libstdc++ 4.6.1 or higher
For optimal functionality, we recommend the following libraries or packages:
NetworkManager 0.7 or higher
DBus 1.0 or higher
GNOME 2.16 or higher
PulseAudio

mrmazda · 02-08-2019, 02:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by larrystotler

Firefox will not run at all without the following libraries or packages:
...
For optimal functionality, we recommend the following libraries or packages:
...

One way to deal with that is to install whatever version of Firefox the distro does supply, so that it will pull in those dependencies by whatever names the distro uses for them. Once that's done you can remove the distro's Firefox and should remain ready to go for mozilla.org's builds with little or no fuss. <10% of my Mozilla product usage is with any distro's package manager's builds.

fatmac · 02-08-2019, 03:29 AM

If you are happy enough to do your own install of NetBSD, then I'd do it that way - personally, I now use OpenBSD with Firefox as my main system.

BW-userx · 02-08-2019, 06:52 AM

VOID Linux has nothing in it other then the very basics needed to run it. What one finds in other distros on the standard install, VOID does not include it, I have to install it all afterwords.

they've got some flavors of limited installs as well

https://mirror.clarkson.edu/voidlinux/live/current/

joe_2000 · 02-08-2019, 07:08 AM

I have some notes with copy-paste-ready bash code that sets up firefox running in openbox on a debian minimal install. It's designed for use in a virtual machine (i.e. auto-login set up etc.)

Let me know if you are interested and I can post it here...

hydrurga · 02-08-2019, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joe_2000

I have some notes with copy-paste-ready bash code that sets up firefox running in openbox on a debian minimal install. It's designed for use in a virtual machine (i.e. auto-login set up etc.)

Let me know if you are interested and I can post it here...

I for one would be interested, Joe.

joe_2000 · 02-08-2019, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrurga

I for one would be interested, Joe.

Ok, so here goes. Please treat them as notes I took in the process, not as authorative "must do like this"-instructions.

1) Allocate 5 GB of disk space and 2 GB of RAM for the VM. Download the Debian netinst iso and launch the installer. Upon software selection, unselect all groups except for system tools. Boot the machine and run the following as root:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get install -y xorg openbox tint2 iceweasel vim-nox rungetty unattended-upgrades xterm sudo
cd /etc/X11/xinit
mv xinitrc xinitrc.orig
cat > xinitrc << "EOF"
#setxkbmap de  # uncomment if you have a german keyboard like I do
exec openbox-session
EOF
mkdir -pv /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/
cd /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/
cat > autologin.conf << "EOF"
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --autologin user --noclear %I 38400 linux
EOF
systemctl enable getty@tty1.service
sed -i.bak 's/GRUB_TIMEOUT=.*/GRUB_TIMEOUT=0/g' /etc/default/grub
update-grub
cat >> /usr/local/bin/shutdown.sh << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash
shutdown -h now
EOF
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/shutdown.sh
echo "Now, add the following line to sudoers:"
echo "ALL ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/local/bin/shutdown.sh"
read -p "Press enter when ready " foobar
visudo
echo "Done"

Then, log in as the regular user and run the following script:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
mkdir -p ~/.config/openbox
mkdir -p $HOME/.config/openbox
cp /etc/xdg/openbox/menu.xml $HOME/.config/openbox/
cp /etc/xdg/openbox/rc.xml $HOME/.config/openbox/
cat > ~/.config/openbox/autostart << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash
tint2 &
EOF
cat >> $HOME/.bashrc << "EOF"
if [ "$TERM" == "linux" ];then
        startx
fi
EOF

Finally, edit ~/.config/openbox/menu.xml to contain the following entry:

Code:

<item label="Shutdown">
   <action name="Execute" ><execute>sudo /usr/local/bin/shutdown.sh</execute></action>
</item>

Last time I ran it might have been on Debian 8 so I can't guarantee this will run through...

hydrurga · 02-08-2019, 08:19 AM

Thanks Joe!

NeedBrowsingOS · 10-09-2020, 02:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by larrystotler

I did try ReactOS, but it only has Firefox 48 available. It's not very stable, so I didn't see much point in trying to install the current version of Firefox.

Hey there...did you finally something according to your need I've been searching for them a lot lately..
regards

berndbausch · 10-09-2020, 03:04 AM

Since Alpine is so small, you could argue that Alpine with Firefox is a distro that (almost) only runs Firefox.

larrystotler · 02-22-2021, 10:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NeedBrowsingOS

Hey there...did you finally something according to your need I've been searching for them a lot lately..
regards

I just tried SliTaz again. It's a rolling release distro, and I installed whatever current one that was available to download today.

I can report that I was able to successfully install Firefox 77. When I selected it in the package manager, it acted like it was hung, but eventually it started showing a dependency list. It then fetched all of the dependencies(and of course several packages had there own, etc, etc.). It installed them all and I was able to start Firefox. In fact I'm using it now.

Firefox help showed that here was an update available. I will install it and report back.

larrystotler · 02-22-2021, 10:38 PM

Ok. Don't update Firefox from within the Help Menu. When I did it never loaded. After starting it from the command line it complained that it needed glibc2.17 and when I checked, the only thing in the repo was 2.14.

So, while it's not the most current version I can now use pages I couldn't before.

It would be nice if developers would realize that there is a difference between security/bug fixes and "new features". More often that not, these "new features" end up making things worse instead of better. I'm not trying to stifle innovation, but it would be nice for things to work.

The changes to FF 57 were bad. The new addon system is bad. The add-ons are more "cartoony" and harder to use than before. Examples are forecastfox and noscript. Before they were clean and worked well and stayed out of the way. In Firefox < 57, forecastfox showed 7 days in the menu bar. Now you have to hover over the icon and it takes up 1/3 of the window....... Talk about a step back.

Also, they target the newest hardware while some of use are happy to make use of older stuff that still works. It amazes some people how we got work done, and quickly, with 8MB of RAM(or less). Would be nice to find a happy medium.

jefro · 02-24-2021, 03:26 PM

Not sure if there were mentioned. Webconverger, openkiosk, Proteus Kiosk distro's.