LinuxQuestions.org - Firefox 17.0.7esr?

- Slackware (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/)

- - Firefox 17.0.7esr? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/firefox-17-0-7esr-4175467933/)

Firefox 17.0.7esr?

I just ran slackpkg... which I do weekly... and found that the Firefox package being offered now is version 17.0.7esr. I'm confused because I was just upgraded to version 21.0 during my last update. I've tried multiple times to subscribe to the mailing lists but I've been unsuccessful so I'm kinda out of the loop here. If somebody could please just quickly explain this to me I would be very grateful. Thank you very much.

Slackware 14.0 Changelog:

Code:

Sat Jun 29 22:08:25 UTC 2013

patches/packages/mozilla-firefox-17.0.7esr-i486-1_slack14.0.txz:  Upgraded.

  This release contains security fixes and improvements.

  For more information, see:

    http://www.mozilla.org/security/know...irefoxESR.html

  (* Security fix *)

  We had to switch to ESR here as well, as there's a problem running Firefox

  22.0 on Slackware 14.0 under KDE (crash when oxygen-gtk2 is installed).

  Forcing people to uninstall oxygen-gtk2 isn't really an option for a

  security fix, and upgrading to the latest oxygen-gtk2 did not help.

  It's possible that future Firefox/Thunderbird security updates will always

  come from the ESR branch.

We still don't know why the crash is happening on Slackware 14.0, but not on -current (even where KDE and oxygen-gtk2 is used on both), and a bug report to KDE hasn't provided any answers: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=321679

But if anyone has a fix for this, let me know and I'd possibly consider upgrading the version in Slackware 14.0's /patches. Maybe... perhaps following ESR would still be a better plan for security patches to avoid breakage caused by new features.

Until the mystery is resolved for 14.0, how about offering ESR in /extra and 22.0 in patches?

Thanks so much for the info but should I downgrade from 21.0 even if it seems to be working fine for me?

Quote:

Originally Posted by digger95 (Post 4981372)

Thanks so much for the info but should I downgrade from 21.0 even if it seems to be working fine for me?

There's no need to really, as long as you're OK with whatever "security hole" exists in FF 21.
The "upgrade" to the ESR branch fixes that.
Have a look at "/etc/slackpkg/blacklist" so you can avoid slackpkg trying to upgrade you to the
ESR branch should you choose to stick with FF 21.

FWIW, I would vote to stay with ESR branches for Slackware releases. What I love about Slackware is sanity and stability and if the ESR branch provides the same for FF/Thunderbird then I say stick with that. Just my $0.02.

Thanks, @volkerdi!

I was at first surprised too, but yeah, @volkerdi's explanation nails it. +1 also for keeping it ESR (14.0 is close to a year old now, so it does make sense for it to move to ESR.)

Hmmm, I wonder why it's 22.0 in -current. Is the KDE in -current compatible or something?

If I have input to the decision, I vote for some method of keeping the two: Firefox-2x.0 and Firefox-xx-ESR. Perhaps put vanilla Firefox in extras and put Firefox-ESR in the main tree.

The reason is that vanilla Firefox is (presumably) OK for those of us who do not use KDE. I am reluctant to downgrade Firefox to a lesser version and give up the new features. I never use KDE so the conflict with oxygen-gtk2 does not arise for me.

I've just upgraded from 21 to 17esr, but realized that some extensions I use are incompatible.
Is there any right/easy way to down-upgrade from 17esr back to 21?

Quote:

Originally Posted by chess (Post 4981451)

Amen to that. Even if "current" (that is, non-ESR) releases of Firefox run well, maintaining a collection of add-ons (Adblock, Downtube, Web Developer Toolbar, etc.) is like herding cats.

I vote for ESR, as I have been using it for quite a while now and there are no problems or breakages.

in firefox 21 the folder layout changed
before it was /firefox/plugins
BUT in 21 it moved to /firefox/browser/plugins

the ff17 esr that you installed to the ff21 folder is using different folders that 21

Quote:

Originally Posted by gabrielmagno (Post 4981475)

I've just upgraded from 21 to 17esr, but realized that some extensions I use are incompatible.
Is there any right/easy way to down-upgrade from 17esr back to 21?

If you're on Slackware 14.0, you can grab the packages from my dropbox folder (give them a few minutes to upload).

This probably isn't much help, but I just finished building Firefox 22.0 on Slackware 14.0 using the build script from current, Running KDE 4.10.4 (thx AlienBob) and I get the same crash.