How to Install Firefox3.0a1 in Ubuntu

Firefox 3.0 is the next generation release of the award-winning Firefox web browser from Mozilla.This article describes how to install fiefox3.0a1 in ubuntu linux system.The development name for Mozilla Firefox 3 is Gran Paradiso (a national park in Italy) and final version will be released in May 2007.

Gran Paradiso Alpha 1 is an early developer milestone for the next major version of Firefox that is being built on top
of the next generation of Mozilla’s layout engine, Gecko 1.9. Gran Paradiso Alpha 1 is being made available for testing
purposes only, and is intended for web application developers and our testing community. Current users of Mozilla
Firefox should not use Gran Paradiso Alpha 1.

What is new in Firefox 3.0 ?

If you want to know what is new in Firefox 2 check here

Installing Firefox3.0a1 in ubuntu

Preparing your system

sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

Now you need to take backup of your old firefox prferences

sudo cp -R ~/.mozilla ~/.mozillabackup

Now you need to download firefox 3.0a1 from Mozilla site

wget -c http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/firefox-3.0a1.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2

Unzip the .tar.bz2 file in /opt directory using the following command

sudo tar -C /opt -jxvf firefox-3.0a1.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2

Now you need to link the plugins using the following command

cd /opt/firefox/plugins/

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/* .

Now you need to create a link to your new firefox launcher using the following command

sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/firefox.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/firefox

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox

This will complete the installation of firefox 3.0a1


Firefox3.0a1 Addons

If you want Firefox3.0a1 addons list check here

Troubleshooting

If you want to troubleshoot any problem with firefox3.0a1 check here

For debian users they can run the above commands without sudo it should work without any problem.

Categories: Ubuntu