Should beta software be in the Ubuntu Long Term Release?

I've been wondering since the alpha 3 release notes what Firefox 3 beta was doing as the default browser in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), due out on April 24th, a mere 4 days away (RC notes). I wonder this because the final Firefox release is not expected to be released until about June. It seems odd to me to include beta software as the default for a LTS release that will be supported for 3 years. It seems a little odd for most any release really.

I am assuming though that as subsequent betas, release candidates and the final release are made available, those packages will make their way into the OS as updates and that the Firefox version in Ubuntu 8.04 will ultimately be Firefox 3 (not stuck at beta 5).

I have not seen any formal discussion or mention of this decision but there have been a few Brainstorm ideas (see images above) concerning the issue and a 12+ page discussion on the Ubuntu Forums (Ubuntu 8.04 - worried about Firefox 3 Beta).

Most people, and I am one of them, think the 2 months of dealing with a beta version is well worth it in the long run. Do we really want people to be using Firefox 2 in 2011 because Firefox 3 was only 2 months away from a final release in early 2008? Mozilla certainly will not be supporting it anymore by then. This is one of the unfortunate side effects of time based releases but I think Ubuntu made the right decision.

Ubuntu Desktop Screenshot of the Day #6 - Hello Hardy Heron!

Just a quick post before I go to bed. I finally got an Ubuntu 8.04 beta installed on my laptop with the proprietary video drivers installed and most importantly with wireless access working! For the wireless, all I really needed to do was install the b43-fwcutter package which actually downloaded and installed the firmware as part of the package installation. How nice is that! Using the wifi card with WPA seems to be pretty solid now. It was almost never usable before and I would always a have to connect to good old linksys to get online. Shhh...

I still do not think kindly of the Broadcom 4306 wireless card I have thanks to the lack of openness. I will be doing a lot more hardware research on future computer purchases!

The last time I tried to upgrade to 8.04 it was a disaster. Today I started fresh with the daily DVD image from 4/5/08. I have to get a DVD because the drive in my laptop no longer reads CDs. Installing the DVD went fairly smoothly but then I realized I was just running 7.10 that pointed to the Hardy repositories so I had to preform an upgrade. ~600MB of packages downloaded later... The install/upgrade went well except Mono (the Linux .NET implementation) didn't work so a few applications like F-Spot and Tomboy likely do not work either (I haven't tried them yet).

Anyway, I need some sleep so here it is. Click on the image for the full resolution image.



Ugh, the sun will be here way too soon. Thanks for the info there new world time clock applet.

Install Firefox 3.0 Beta 2 on Gutsy Gibson

Wohoo!! Firefox 3 Beta 2 was released on December 18th with a lot of buzz. Download the latest beta here. I am finally getting around to running it (I am writing this post using it) and so far I am loving it. I am not going to go into all the details of what is new, I will let the Firefox 3.0 Beta 2 release notes tell you that.

I do wish it was easier to install on Ubuntu though. I first tried the Ubuntu Forums which suggested I use Synaptic to install the firefox-granparadiso package. That would have worked well except that didn't install Beta 2 but rather Gran Paradiso Alpha 8. Gran Paradiso releases are quite rough and I assume the name change during alpha development is to keep overly eager users from running something that isn't ready for anything more than testing. I also imagine there is some repository that has it but finding that would have been more work than the time it would have saved using apt-get.

Anyway, to install Firefox 3 beta 2, I did it the old fashioned way. I downloaded the tar.bz2 archive, extracted it, stuck it in my home folder and then created an icon for it on my top panel that runs /home/forrest/firefox-3.0b2/firefox.

When I first fired up beta 2 I got a nice little dialog letting me know that some of my extensions are not compatible. I expected this. I was actually surprised that some of the extensions did work. I know that there is an extension manifest that allows you to specify which Firefox versions your plugin supports so many of these may still work but the meta data tells Firefox they don't. I remember that being a BIG problem when 1.5 came out. It was less of a problem when 2.0 came out though because extension developers were more prepared for it.

Save Session does has an updated version that was then downloaded and installed but at this point I don't care about it anymore. Firefox 3 makes the Save Session add on obsolete with the long awaited (by me) feature that lets you save you current open browser windows and tabs.

Save Session is a feature that should have been implemented in version 2.0. All the internals were there when they implemented Session Restore so you wouldn't loose your open pages after a crash or a required restart to load a new Add-on. Also, about the time Firefox 2.0 came out, so did IE7 which does have a save tabs feature. Before save session I found myself occasionally opening up Task Manager/System Monitor to forcefully kill the process and save my open tabs.

Addblock plus, Gmail Notifier and StumbleUpon add-ons all still work. As long as those first two are still working, I'm not going to complain until a week or so after the final release for the other add-ons.

One fun thing to point out before the obligatory screen shot is the new first run page is really funny. And now for the screen shot:

And one final note since I just realized it. The improved GTK support is very nice. "[Improved in Beta 2!] Integration with Linux: Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menu styles now use the native GTK theme." Now the browser visually feels more at home with the rest of my desktop. Also, when I change themes around with Firefox open, it doesn't render the entire browser useless for a minute or so. I don't change themes that frequently but it was annoying if you change your theme while Firefox 2.0 was up and running.

Reviews and other thoughts (including some beta 1 stuff)

• Firefox 2 compared with Firefox 3 beta 2, with screen shots
• Firefox 3 Beta 2 - faster and easier to navigate
  
• ZDNet - First Look at Firefox 3.0 beta 2
• Ars Technica - First look: Firefox 3 beta 2 officially released
• Memory test - Firefox 2.0.0.9 vs Firefox 3.0 b 1
• Ars Technica - First look at Firefox 3.0b1: fast, stable, and full of new features
• We haven't forgotten Linux in Firefox 3: Mozilla
• “Beautiful” tab switching for Firefox 3 - a feature I hope might make it in 3.0
• Firefox 3.0 Beta 2 Is A Win For Linux
• Firefox, apply directly to the forehead. (Added 1/11/08, very interesting read)
  

Update: Flash is not working. I am not sure what I need to do to get it working but it makes you realize that a lot of sites use Flash!

Update 2: I moved Firefox from my home directory to /opt and also got Flash working. To get Flash working I downloaded it from Adobe and then just copied libflashplayer.so to /opt/firefox-3.0b2/plugins and restarted.