Author: Christie Koehler

software engineer, geek, yoga practitioner, bike commuter, zen buddhist, queer, vegan, legion of tech board member, osbridge planner, engineer@ShopIgniter

How to Install Firefox and Thunderbird (Including Beta, Aurora & Nightly) on Ubuntu

One of the first things I do when setting up a new machine is install Firefox, Firefox Nightly and Thunderbird Aurora. There isn’t one source for all of these programs, and I always forget where to get each of them and how to make language packs work.

This article explains how to install the various releases of Firefox and Thunderbird on Ubuntu.

Overview of Firefox Builds

At any given time, there are four builds of Firefox available:

  • Release: Highly tested, relatively bug-free and stable. This is the build most people should use.
  • Beta: Needs a few final touches, but is otherwise stable and almost ready for prime-time. This build is for those who want a preview of upcoming features and are will to put up with a few minor bugs here and there.
  • Aurora: Aurora is a pre-Beta build. It’s most stable than a nightly, but not as stable as a beta. Use this build if you want a balance of cutting-edge features and stability.
  • Nightly: The most cutting-edge build you can get. It will have the most recent features, but might not be completely stable. Use this if you have a high tolerance for bugs.

Release

The most current release of Firefox should be available in the official Ubuntu repositories for all recent versions. As of the writing of this post, release from Quantal (12.10) to Precise (11.10) have Firefox 17, which is the current release version. The official repository for Raring (13.04), not yet released, has a beta build of Firefox 18.

Moreover, Firefox comes installed by default for these versions of Ubuntu. You shouldn’t have to do anything to install it. If you’ve un-installed it for some reason, you can install it with:

sudo apt-get install firefox

UPDATE 7 Jan: A commenter mentioned Ubuntuzilla, which I did not know about before. If you’re on a version of Ubuntu prior to 11.10 and want to install the current version of Firefox, this could be a good option for you.

Beta

A group called Mozilla Team maintains a repository for Firefox Beta (as well as and Thunderbird Beta).

To install from these repositories, first you have to add the ppa:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next

For Thunderbird, the command is:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/thunderbird-next

Note: if your system doesn’t have add-apt-repository for some reason, try installing python-software-properties and if that doesn’t work then try installing software-properties-common.

Then update packages and install:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox

Note: You’ll notice that this package name is the same as it is in the official repository. This means that you can’t have both installed at the same time. You can ‘pin’ a package to a given source and version, allowing you to install a specific version from a specific source. But, as long as the package names are the same, they can’t be installed concurrently. You’ll have to compile and execute one version from the source if you want to do this.

(If anyone knows how to re-name packages within a PPA, let me know how in the comments.)

Aurora & Nightly

Aurora & Nightly packages are maintained by Ubuntu Mozilla Daily Build team and there is one PPA for Firefox and Thunderbird nightlies, and then two other PPAs for the Aurora versions of each.

Installing Aurora versions:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/firefox-aurora
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/thunderbird-aurora
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox
sudo apt-get install thunderbird

Note: See note in previous section regarding the limitations of packages with the same name.

Installing nightlies:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox-trunk
sudo apt-get install thunderbird-trunk

You’ll notice that the packages names for both Firefox and Thunderbird are appended with ‘-trunk’. This means you can install and run nightly versions along side release, beta or aurora. In fact, this is what I do. I install and use release and nightly.

Installing Locales / Language Packs

For whatever reason, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting other locales to work with Firefox on recent versions of (X)Ubuntu. I always try installing the relevant language pack from the official repository. Packages like language-pack-de and language-pack-es should install everything you need for those locales, including the language packs for Firefox. But it never works. Here’s a method I’ve found that reliably works, at lease in 12.10.

Install your desired language pack xpi from:

You’ll also need to set your preferred language for displaying pages.

  1. In Firefox, open Preferences > Content.
  2. Under Languages press Choose.
  3. If you don’t see your desired language, click Select a language to add… and add one.
  4. If this doesn’t work, open about:config and set general.useragent.locale to your desired locale.

Almost there. Firefox will select the language pack to use based on what the system language is. If you’re not sure what your locale is, type this in a prompt:

printenv LANG

In my case, I get:

en_US.UTF8

This presents a problem because I don’t want to have to change the language for my entire system just to test another locale in Firefox. Luckily, there’s a solution.

You can start Firefox from the command line and specific the LANG environmental variable:

LANG=es_ES.UTF8 firefox

If you want to change the menu and/or or launcher command, you would use:

sh -c "LANG=es_ES.UTF8 /usr/bin/firefox-trunk %u"

Troubleshooting

I tested the above procedures on Xubuntu 12.10 with both Firefox release and nightly (trunk). If you have trouble with other configurations, let me know.

If you install a language pack that renders Firefox unable to start, start it in safe mode and remove the language pack. From the command-line, issue:

firefox --safe-mode

My Year in Review: 2012

When I first started thinking about what would go into this year’s, only two words came to mind “good” and “riddance.” In many ways this year has been an awful one, full of new stresses and challenges. But as soon as I started drafting this review, I realized I accomplished a lot and that a lot of good things came out of the turmoil. So instead of saying “good riddance” to 2012, I’m saying “thanks for kicking my butt and making me realize what’s really important in life.”

That said, here are the highlights from Christie’s Twenty-Twelve:

Grew Our Household

Dori poses with the Christmas tree
Dori poses with the Christmas tree.

By which I mean that Sherri’s mom came to live with us permanently. Starting in January a series unfortunate events occurred in Mom’s life. As a result her health declined dramatically. She was not thriving in the retirement community where she was living. We were spending a lot of time driving out to East County on the weekends to check on her and then worrying about her during the days in between. We realized we could do a lot more if we saw her every day. We decided to ask her to come live with us, and she said yes. It was quite a journey getting to where we are now (more on that later). But now that we’re here, I know absolutely it was the right decision. Mom’s health has stabilized. She’s looking better, she’s feeling better and is more alert. Living together ultimately means that we are getting more quality time together as a family, for which I am amazingly grateful.

Bought a House (My First)

View from the deck of our new house.
View from the deck of our new house.

When we decided to invite Mom to come live with us, it came with the recognition that our current house was simply not suitable for her in terms of available space or accessibility. Plus Sherri’s daily commute from North Portland to Wilsonville was becoming unsustainable in terms of time and wear and tear on Sherri’s body. As last as July I remained convinced that we didn’t have enough of our ducks in a row to move, let alone buy a house. However, someone very wise told me that I just had to envision myself in a new place and that the ducks would align themselves. Sounds pretty woo-woo, I know, but it worked. I came home that day and told Sherri I was emailing the real estate agent and mortgage broker to whom we’d been referred. The fifth or sixth house we viewed was the one. I’ll never forget turning to Sherri and saying “this is it; we’re making an offer.” It was like falling in love. If I had know how much back and forth we’d go through in the coming weeks, I might have gone running and screaming from the property instead. But, we made it through and closed in mid-September and moved in shortly thereafter. I still think every day how lucky I am that we found this house and that we were able to buy it.

Completed Year One at Mozilla

Firefox Doughnuts
Firefox Doughnuts at this year’s Winter Coder’s Social.

My first year at Mozilla was certainly not without disappointments or difficulties. However, I’m still finding it worthwhile and am excited about my new role on the Technical Evangelism team working primarily on Firefox OS over the next year and beyond.

Won an Award

O'Reilly Open Source Awards
With Sarah and Edd at the O’Reilly Open Source Awards.

To my great delight and honor, O’Reilly presented me with an Open Source Award for demonstrating “exceptional leadership, creativity, and collaboration in the development of Open Source Software.”

Attended, Organized and Spoke at Some Tech Events

Me speaking during our tutorial at OSCON.
Me speaking during our tutorial at OSCON.

I think I participated in handful of events this year, as attendee, organizer and sometimes speaker. Chronologically, they were (and yes, I’m having to reference my calendar to write this):

Organized Code ‘n’ Splode & Women Who Hack

This year I continued organizing Code ‘n’ Splode and also founded a new group called Women Who Hack. Women Who Hack is similar to CnS, but takes a different approach to supporting women and genderqueer folks working in tech. Our meetings are held on weekends, are less structured and impose a more restrictive attendance requirement (men are not welcomed to attend). So far attendance for the group has been good and feedback has been positive.

Had Some Travel Adventures

Jackson Square & St. Louis Cathedral
Jackson Square & St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, LA.

This year I traveled more than I have in year’s past. Mostly this was due to many trips to the Bay Area and other places (Scottsdale, Baltimore) as part of my work with Mozilla. But, Sherri and I also managed to take two big trips together (Orlando and New Orleans) as well as a weekend trip to Bend, Oregon for my birthday.

Read Many Books

2012 Reading Challenge Results (as of 28 December)
2012 Reading Challenge Results (as of 28 December)

I plan to do a whole post about the books I read in 2012, so here I’ll just mention that I blew away my reading goal of 24 books by reading almost double that. You can see all of the books I read on my Goodreads challenge page. (And if you’re a Goodreads user, send me an invite!)

Saved Money, Paid off Debts

Thanks to mine and Sherri’s generous tech salaries, 2012 was a good year financially, despite the ongoing uncertainty in the greater economy. I paid off the last of my student loans, financed a newer (used) car at a good rate, saved 10% of my salary, and bought a house. I am proud of myself for accomplishing these things, but I also recognize that I am extremely fortunate to have the job that I do and to be paid what I am for doing that job.

Those were the highlights of my 2012. Stay tuned for a post about how 2013 is shaping up and what I’m looking forward to most.

What Keeps Me at Mozilla

Note (added 30 December 2016): I quit Mozilla in August 2015. You can read why here and here. Most of what’s written below is still reasonably accurate, as far as I know. Except I think Mozilla being mission-driven is mostly horseshit, more about marketing than reality. Working for Mozilla might still be a good resume builder, but be weary of their ever-declining relevance. If you’re not a straight, white cishet man, be prepared to put up with a lot of bullshit, including lack of diversity across the board, co-workers potentially proselytizing to you without your consent, and other harassment that goes unchecked.

Doing good is part of our code.

A friend of mine is considering an offer to work at Mozilla and asked the question “what keeps me at Mozilla?” Below is my response to them.

(Note: As a couple of colleagues have indicated in the comments, this list is very-US centric. Benefits and even ability to work for Mozilla varies by your country of citizenship/residency.)

  • Near total flexibility in working environment. I can work at home, or from our Portland space, or any of the many Mozilla offices.
  • Ability to travel and go to conferences. Different teams have different policies about this, but over the last year I have been able to go to the conferences I’ve wanted to. Plus I can book travel to the MTV/SF offices whenever I feel like I need actual face-time.
  • Good salary and benefits. I don’t know exactly how Mozilla salaries compare to other Bay Area companies, but compared to Portland they are awesome. Last year I was able to pay off my student loan debt, save 10% of my salary AND buy a house. The health insurance is pretty good (not perfect; e.g. we don’t have complete coverage for trans folks yet). Paid time-off is plentiful as well (by US standards, anyway). And, having a flexible work environment means you can use for PTO for actual vacation as opposed to running errands or going to medical appointments.
  • Relative freedom in selecting your tools. You pick your hardware and operating system. You have root on your own machine. You can request a new laptop at least every two years (some people seem to get them sooner). There are gadgets like tablets, Android and now Firefox OS phones. If you need something to get your job done, you will get it.
  • Significant choice regarding what projects you work on. That’s not to say you can work on whatever you want according to whim alone. There is oversight, and your projects need to fit within Mozilla’s high-level goals. But within your functional team, you often have a great amount of say in what you spend your day-t0-day time doing. And, if you get in a position where you’re not doing what you really want to be, there are avenues for changing that.
  • Ability to work for mission-driven, open source oriented organization. Jobs at such organizations are rare because such organizations are few in number. At Mozilla, you have the honor of working for a project that has a ton of world-wide visibility and impact. We are working on initiatives that really matter, such as keeping the web open and bringing that open web to as much as the globe as possible (with Firefox OS).
  • You will work with brilliant, driven folks. These folks far outnumber the assholes. And it’s not just employees you’ll be working with. You will become part of a global army of awesome volunteer contributors.

If that’s piqued your interest, head on over to our Careers website and see if any of the open listings interest you. Got questions? I’m happy to answer them.

Oh, and to any co-workers who are reading, free free to add your own responses to ‘what keeps you at Mozilla’ by leaving a comment.

(Photo of Firefox billboard courtesy of Fligtar.)

Taking a Break

I’m taking a break from all social media and any unnecessary communication channels. I have a lot to do before I take vacation starting Friday until 2 January and I just don’t have it in me right now to participate in the non-stop, mostly-knee jerk discussion about violence and gun policy, among other topics. By and larege, my participation in recent dialogs hasn’t felt productive and I’m feeling more and more disconnected from the folks I interact with. That tells me it’s time to take a timeout.

After I tweet/share this blog post, I’m logging out of Twitter and Facebook. I have turned off email notifications for those services. I’ve left all non-essential IRC channels. However, I’m more than happy to interact with you all one-on-one. If you need to get a hold of me, feel free to:

  • send me an email (put level of urgency in the subject line)
  • give me a call
  • query me on Freenode or Mozilla IRC
  • send me a gChat

 

 

A Moment of Reflection on Firefox’s Birthday

8 years ago today, Mozilla released Firefox 1.0. I remember when this happened. I was 23 and working for a small technology publisher in San Francisco. Even now, I can feel the excitement I felt then at having a viable open source alternative to Internet Explorer. I was an early Firefox Affiliate and I installing it on every computer I could get access to, including all the ones at work.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think then that I’d be fortunate enough to make my living in open source, let alone working for Mozilla. Mozilla isn’t a perfect organization, and it’s been a stressful first year for me, but I’m still proud to call myself a Mozillian and look forward to being here for a long while. At least long enough so see us successfully launch FirefoxOS and hire some more women and queer people (especially in technical roles).

What about you? Where were you when Firefox 1.0 launched?

Oh, and If you’re curious about this history of the Mozilla Project, including key releases, check out this timeline.

Joining the Technical Evangelism Team at Mozilla

I’m happy to announce that next Monday, 5 November will be my first day working full-time as a technical project manager and evangelist on the Technical Evangelism team within Mozilla’s Developer Engagement group, lead by Stormy Peters.

I joined Mozilla 13 months ago as a Web Product Engineer on the Web Productions team. During that time I helped guide the successful launches of Firefox Live, Firefox Flicks, the Legacy Firefox Startpage, a re-vamped Mozilla Careers and De Todos Para Todos. I’m going to miss working day-to-day with my awesome colleagues on this team!

However, I’m also excited about what I’ll be working during the next year because I’ll be contributing to programs directly related to the launch of FirefoxOS. This includes the early adopter hardware program, and programs to engage developers in writing HTML5 apps for FirefoxOS.

If you love technical project management, consider applying for my previous role. Got questions about that or how you can get involved in FirefoxOS? Drop me a line.

 

Please Join Me in Supporting the Ada Initiative

The Ada Initiative is a not for profit organization with the goal of supporting women in open technology and culture. The organization is currently fundraising for operating expenses through March of next year. They are very close to reaching their goal, but need your help! I’m a recurring supporter of the organization, and have just made another donation in solidarity with Sumana and Leonard’s generous offer of a $10,000 matching donation towards this goal.

If you want women to increase women’s participation in open source and you want women to feel welcome and safe doing so, please consider a contribution. Your money will be used for many awesome programs, including: imposter syndrome training, career development resources, supporting women in submitting their first patches, resources for conference organizers, and much more.

Tech Podcasts Hosted by Women?

Last week I asked on Twitter/Facebook:

What are some tech/FLOSS podcasts that aren’t hosted exclusively by dudes?

I received very few responses.

Among them were two already on my radar: The two programs that Gina Trapani co-hosts, In Beta and This Week in Google, as well as yayQuery with Rebecca Murphey.

A person responded with two I didn’t already know about: Nixie Does Linux and Our SQL co-hosted by Sheeri Cabral.

I know women are underrepresented in tech, but there has to be some others. If you know of any, please leave a comment and let me know!

For a couple of years now, I’ve wanted to start a podcast and realizing the lack of ones co-hosted by women motivates me that much more. Problem is, I have no idea where to start. Oh, and no time. That means I need your help! if you’re interested in helping, please contact me.