Iceweasel now Firefox in Debian Jessie Backports

If you have the release version of Iceweasel installed from Debian Backports, you will notice an error message when updating:

Failed to fetch http://mozilla.debian.net/dists/jessie-backports/Release Unable to find expected entry 'iceweasel-release...

This is because Iceweasel is no more and Firefox has taken its place, as I described in my previous post.

Changing the sources.list file to the entry given by the Debian Mozilla team now installs Firefox, as the above screenshot shows.

Now I just have to try to uninstall Iceweasel without uninstalling the whole of Gnome...

Update: "Debian stable will receive Firefox ESR after Iceweasel/Firefox ESR38 is end-of-lifed, in about 3 months." Glandium.

Son of Firefox returns to Debian

Over five years ago I wrote that Iceweasel was going to be renamed Firefox in Debian.

Well, now it finally seems to be happening, according to pcworld.com.

Scanning the bug report, the change might happen in June in Debian Jessie.

United Kingdom localisation of Iceweasel from Debian Experimental.

I've wondered for a while why Iceweasel did not use British spelling in this install of Debian- I'd selected British English as the language when I'd installed it.

I noted in my previous post how a localisation package is available for LibreOffice. Well, there's one for Iceweasel as well, but it wasn't installed by default.

As I'm using Iceweasel from experimental, I had to get the language pack from experimental too.

 # apt-get install -t experimental iceweasel-l10n-en-gb

Can't update Iceweasel from Experimental on Jessie

Update: this problem is now fixed with the latest upgrade.

I use the Debian Experimental repository to update Iceweasel to the latest Firefox release version provided by the Debian Mozilla team.

Trying to update to Iceweasel 21 produces this message:

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 iceweasel : Depends: xulrunner-21.0 (>= 21.0-1) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Very similar to a similar problem I had in Wheezy.

Trying to install xulrunner-21.0 produces this message:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 xulrunner-21.0 : Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15) but 2.13-38 is to be installed
                  Depends: libmozjs21d (= 21.0-1) but it is not going to be installed

libc6 seems to be the issue, as it is currently not available in Experimental and the version in Testing is 2.13 as reported.

Edit: Fixed the title. Cut and pasted from a previous post but forgot to change Wheezy to Jessie.

SolydXK Forums have also noticed the problem.

Update:  libc6 has entered Testing, but Iceweasel still won't install.

The following packages have unmet dependencies: iceweasel : Depends: xulrunner-21.0 (>= 21.0-1) but it is not going to be installed

Trying to install xulrunner-21.0 produces this error:

The following packages have unmet dependencies: xulrunner-21.0 : Depends: libmozjs21d (= 21.0-1) but it is not going to be installed

Which in turn produces:

The following packages have unmet dependencies: libmozjs21d : Depends: libffi6 (>= 3.0.4) but it is not installable.

Looks like we're waiting for libffi6 now.

Can't update Iceweasel from Experimental on Wheezy

I use the Debian Experimental repository to update Iceweasel to the latest Firefox release version provided by the Debian Mozilla team.

Trying to update to Iceweasel 18 produces this message:

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies: iceweasel: Depends: xulrunner-18.0 (>= 18.0-1) but it is not going to be installed E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. 

It seems Iceweasel 18 depends on xulrunner-18.0 which depends on Libnss3 2.3.14, which isn't in Testing or Experimental.

 The problem is described here and here.

Iceweasel tracking Firefox Extended Support Release

A post on the Debian forum alerted me to the fact that Debian is tracking the Firefox Extended Support Release: my Debian Testing installation comes with Iceweasel 10.0.3esr-3. I blogged about the ESR release here. It provides security updates for longer, but feature updates less often than the normal release: Iceweasel 10 ESR has the security updates of Firefox 12, but without the new features.
Debian packages are ultimately progressing towards the Stable release, with long term support, so it obviously makes sense for Debian to track the ESR release, but ironically it means that my Testing installation uses Iceweasel 10 while my Stable installation uses Iceweasel 12 from the Debian Mozilla team.
Currently there are no obvious feature differences between Iceweasel 10 and Firefox 12, but Firefox could reach version 18 before Iceweasel sees a feature release.

(Graphic from Mozilla Firefox ESR Overview.)

Get recent Mozilla packages in Debian

Debian stable releases come with a re-branded version of Firefox (and a re-branded Thunderbird is available too). However, the version doesn't get upgraded, so Lenny users still have Iceweasel 3.0.6 (unless they've got 3.5.16 from backports) and Squeeze users 3.5.16.
The Debian Mozilla team "provides various versions of some Mozilla related packages for use on different Debian systems". There's a wizard to help you find the packages suitable for your system.
If I'd known about this, I probably wouldn't have installed Firefox on Squeeze- I'd've gone for an updated Iceweasel and saved myself the manual updates (3.5.16 has an annoying bug in the way it handles dark menus in Gnome, which was fixed in 3.6).

Firefox returns to Debian?

Debian comes with a rebranded version of Firefox called Iceweasel. The reasons for this are that the Firefox logo was copyright, and everything in Debian must be strictly free software- thus free to modify- and Debian maintains its own Firefox/Iceweasel package after Mozilla itself has stopped providing security updates for them. (Debian Lenny comes with Iceweasel 3.0- perfectly stable- which is the aim of Debian stable releases by definition- but old.)
Now Firefox has dropped the restrictions that were an obstacle to the use of its logo by Debian, and there is hope that the other issues may be worked out to allow Firefox back to Debian, I discover on the Debian Forum.
I have to admit that I'd already dropped Iceweasel for original Firefox, which I installed according to the instructions on DeviceGuru. I'd got used to using Firefox 3.6, and couldn't get used to using a rebranded Firefox 3.0. (A more up-to-date Iceweasel, 3.5, is available from Debian Backports, but I only discovered that after dropping Iceweasel.)
Firefox installed in this way has to be updated manually after starting Firefox as root. Another slight disadvantage is that browser plugins for Iceweasel don't work with Firefox (Totem 2.22.2 plugin is too old?) The way round this is to tell Firefox to open content such as MPEG video in Totem rather than with the broswer plugin. (This is also true for Opera and Chrome. They will see the browser plugin but it won't work. Either disable the plugin- Chrome- or tell the browser to use Totem- Opera.)
[UPDATE: A comment suggests using the mozilla-mplayer plugin instead of the Totem plugin.]
(The instructions for installing Firefox can also be modified to install Thunderbird, which is replaced by a rebranded version in Debian for the same reasons.)
I tend to agree with this quote from the Debian Forum:

I think this would be great. Not because Firefox is "better" than Iceweasel or whatever, but because this was always an unfortunate nitpicky battle that to my mind made FOSS look somewhat silly to outsiders. The whole thing became a lightning rod for extreme positions, and people just beat each other over it.

I would love to see Debian and Mozilla work this out.

UPDATE: A comment suggests that Firefox will update itself, but this doesn't seem to be true. As far as I can see, my original post is correct, and you have to update as root.