upgradepkg --reinstall mozilla-firefox doesn't work

[John Forkosh]

I have a slackware64-current installed from 2023-Feb-07,
running mozilla-firefox-109.0.1-x86_64-1.txz as originally
installed at that time. And that's been working just fine.
But a site said it's an old browser that they won't be
supporting much longer.

So I downloaded mozilla-firefox-115.0-x86_64-1.txz
back on 2023-Jul-06, and just got around to
upgradepkg --reinstall mozilla-firefox-115.0-x86_64-1.txz
which seemed to work, i.e., the messages said it reinstalled
the package. And firefox came up when executed,
and Help-->About_Firefox said it was 115. But then, when I tried
loading a page from a site, it just sat there and did nothing.

I played around with it for a while, but got nowhere.
So I then went back to the old package with
upgradepkg --reinstall mozilla-firefox-109.0.1-x86_64-1.txz
and that now correctly works just as it's been working since
originally installed.

So what did I do wrong, and how do I upgrade firefox
so that it actually works?

[John Forkosh]

Post by John Forkosh
I have a slackware64-current installed from 2023-Feb-07,
running mozilla-firefox-109.0.1-x86_64-1.txz as originally
installed at that time. And that's been working just fine.
But a site said it's an old browser that they won't be
supporting much longer.
So I downloaded mozilla-firefox-115.0-x86_64-1.txz
back on 2023-Jul-06, and just got around to
upgradepkg --reinstall mozilla-firefox-115.0-x86_64-1.txz
which seemed to work, i.e., the messages said it reinstalled
the package. And firefox came up when executed,
and Help-->About_Firefox said it was 115. But then, when I tried
loading a page from a site, it just sat there and did nothing.
I played around with it for a while, but got nowhere.
So I then went back to the old package with
upgradepkg --reinstall mozilla-firefox-109.0.1-x86_64-1.txz
and that now correctly works just as it's been working since
originally installed.
So what did I do wrong, and how do I upgrade firefox
so that it actually works?

Some additional googling solved the problem...
(a) downloaded script latest-firefox.sh
from https://gist.github.com/ruario/9672798
(b) then ran the script to create
mozilla-firefox-117.0-x86_64-1ro.tgz
(c) then, as root, ran
upgradepkg --install-new mozilla-firefox-117.0-x86_64-1ro.tgz
Now everything works with the new firefox 117.
Hmm... was my problem above that I used --reinstall
rather than --install-new as used here?

[Henrik Carlqvist]

So what did I do wrong, and how do I upgrade firefox so that it actually
works?

My guess is that you got yourself a system where the installed packages
didn't match.

Maybe you downloaded the firefox package from the patches directory of
Slackware 15.0 and installed on your Slackware current. Maybe you
downloaded only the firefox package for Slackware current and tried to
apply that to a four mounths old installation of Slackware current.

Trying to cherry pick only a few packages from the /patches directory of
a stable version of Slackware might give different kinds of trouble and
the same of course also applies to the allways moving target alpha
version that Slackware current is.

regards Henrik

[John Forkosh]

Post by Henrik Carlqvist

So what did I do wrong, and how do I upgrade firefox so that it actually
works?

My guess is that you got yourself a system where the installed packages
didn't match.
Maybe you downloaded the firefox package from the patches directory of
Slackware 15.0 and installed on your Slackware current. Maybe you
downloaded only the firefox package for Slackware current and tried to
apply that to a four mounths old installation of Slackware current.
Trying to cherry pick only a few packages from the /patches directory of
a stable version of Slackware might give different kinds of trouble and
the same of course also applies to the allways moving target alpha
version that Slackware current is. regards Henrik

Did my preceding followup show up on your newsreader???...
Some additional googling solved the problem...
(a) downloaded script latest-firefox.sh
from https://gist.github.com/ruario/9672798
(b) then ran the script to create
mozilla-firefox-117.0-x86_64-1ro.tgz
(c) then, as root, ran
upgradepkg --install-new mozilla-firefox-117.0-x86_64-1ro.tgz
Now everything works with the new firefox 117.
Hmm... was my problem above that I used --reinstall
rather than --install-new as used here?

[Henrik Carlqvist]

Post by John Forkosh
Did my preceding followup show up on your newsreader???...
Some additional googling solved the problem...
(a) downloaded script latest-firefox.sh
from https://gist.github.com/ruario/9672798
(b) then ran the script to create
mozilla-firefox-117.0-x86_64-1ro.tgz

Yes, it did show up in the newsreaded that you had found a "solution" to
the second part of your question but this did not answer the first part

Post by John Forkosh
So what did I do wrong, and how do I upgrade firefox
so that it actually works?

The "solution" that you have found is to download and repackage a binary
firefox from mozilla which is supposed to work on most Linux
distributions.

Slackware provides prebuilt patch packages built from sources on specific
versions of Slackware. As of today, such packages are built for Slackware
15.0 and Slackware current.

However, if you are no longer running the latest Slackware current, but a
several months old obsolete current install, the Slackware provided
package for current might no longer work with your old libraries.

The solution that you have found is a very good solution for people still
using Slackware 14.2 for which Slackware no longer provides firefox
packages. The reason that Slackware does not provide Firefox security
updates for Slackware 14.2 or older versions is that the Firefox sources
no longer compiles with those old libraries and/or compilers.

However, for stable version Slackware 15.0 and alpha version Slackware
current, the best solution would be to not only upgrade Firefox but to
apply all updates provided by Slackware to fix many more security issues.

Since Feb-07 in the ChangeLog.txt of Slackware current at
http://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/ChangeLog.txt
I can count to 19 CVEs (vulnerabilities) fixed in Firefox and 24 CVEs
(vulnerabilities) fixed in other packages only in the remaining part of
Februari 2023. By upgrading only the Firefox package you have now fixed
those 19 vulnerabilities and and possibly also about 100 more in Firefox.
However, you still have hundreds of known vulnerabilities in other
installed and used packages.

The right way to use Slackware current is to upgrade all packages, at
least as often as a CVE is mentioned in the ChangeLog.txt. If you are
afraid that upgrading to latest current might break something, then
current is not for you. Then you should instead run a stable version of
Slackware which only gets security updates.

regards Henrik