firefox 2 on FreeBSD 6.1

Howard Goldstein wrote:
[snip]
>
> (And doesn't it say something good about our user's resourcefulness
> that one has a technique to force through the firefox update without
> doing the xorg upgrade)

What I was thinking of was I didn't update from 6.1-Release to 6.2-Release
until late in January. IIRC Firefox 2.0.0.1 went into the ports tree around
Dec 15-20, and I had been using 2.0 on the 6.1 box previously (maybe
October+ timeframe). Built from ports, no special voodoo required.

But yes - I do agree the xorg thingy was a beast. I count myself lucky as it
was fairly straightforward and I had no trouble with it.

-Jason

On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 17:23:07 GMT, Jason Bourne wrote:
: Howard Goldstein wrote:
: [snip]
: >
: > (And doesn't it say something good about our user's resourcefulness
: > that one has a technique to force through the firefox update without
: > doing the xorg upgrade)
:
: What I was thinking of was I didn't update from 6.1-Release to 6.2-Release
: until late in January. IIRC Firefox 2.0.0.1 went into the ports tree around
: Dec 15-20, and I had been using 2.0 on the 6.1 box previously (maybe
: October+ timeframe). Built from ports, no special voodoo required.

Like you I don't remember anything funky about any of the firefox2
updates, they just build and run. OTOH we're doing it ports, this
poor guy is doing the packages....not that it necessarily would have
made much difference I suspect as building it probably would have
broken on his system at some point when he ran into some critical
dependency that had a critical requirement for someing in xorg7

:
: But yes - I do agree the xorg thingy was a beast. I count myself lucky as it
: was fairly straightforward and I had no trouble with it.

I didn't find it that beastly but I cheated, and came into the process
when it was on Florent's git server, and wound up getting a lot more
out of the testing process than I was able to give back. The guys
worked very hard at making the upgrade as mechanical as it could have
been. Most folks who are running into issues just went straight to
portupgrade and forced through the upgrade without doing the other
stuff in UPGRADE note

If the timing had worked out better there'd have been a new -RELEASE
waiting but there wasn't, and it was becoming too much to expect the
freebsd-xorg volunteers to maintain two ports trees and the project
was at risk of losing all of the wonderful work these guys did. That
there are so few people with problems stands as a testament to the
great job they did.

Just for the record:

~# X -version

X Window System Version 6.9.0
Release Date: 21 December 2005

If it was upgraded it would be 7.0, I think. And, yes, I am running
RELEASE.

I am using packages instead of ports whenever possible for obvious
reasons. They are
much quicker to install.

Installation went quickly, with only a few other packages upgraded,
and with a couple of warnings
about the versions being too old (nss, nspr, glib, etc.)

Considering portupgrade, I've seen a thread here, where person tried
and failed with firefox. I didn't even bothered to try because what I
did was quick and simple. Nice, little UNIX hack. I am going to write
a shell script and try on another machine. If all goes ok, I am going
to post the script here. It might help someone. It might not be in
spirit of this or that, but it makes life easier.

DG

In article <%1xgi.2644$yp.892@trnddc08> Jason Bourne
writes:
>Howard Goldstein wrote:
>[snip]
>>
>> (And doesn't it say something good about our user's resourcefulness
>> that one has a technique to force through the firefox update without
>> doing the xorg upgrade)
>
>What I was thinking of was I didn't update from 6.1-Release to 6.2-Release
>until late in January. IIRC Firefox 2.0.0.1 went into the ports tree around
>Dec 15-20, and I had been using 2.0 on the 6.1 box previously (maybe
>October+ timeframe). Built from ports, no special voodoo required.

Yes of course the OS is (within limits) irrelevant - on the box where
I'm writing this I still have 5.3-RELEASE, but firefox 2.0.0.1 built
from cvsup'ed ports w/o problems some months ago, and I could be at
2.0.0.3 w/o xorg upgrade if I had bothered to keep up (or I could do it
now from a back-cvsup'ed ports tree). But for 2.0.0.4 I have to take the
xorg plunge (or force it like the OP did). And there are security fixes
in 2.0.0.4, but of course there are security fixes in .2 and .3 too, so
I'm apparently sloppy in that area anyway.:-)

>But yes - I do agree the xorg thingy was a beast. I count myself lucky as it
>was fairly straightforward and I had no trouble with it.

I assume it's straightforward for most people if they follow the
instructions, and I don't have any problems with the general idea, and I
certainly appreciate all the work that went into it. It's just that I
(like some other posters) can't afford to spend a lot of time fixing
things up *if* something goes wrong, against expectations. Which is also
why I chicken out of all the elegant OS-cvsup/buildworld etc, and
instead just do intermittent upgrades via full install, alternating
between two parti^Wslices. Primitive, but pretty much guaranteed to be
entirely trouble-free, and if there *is* trouble, backing down is just a
reboot away. I may just do a clean install of 6.2 + up-to-date
ports/packages using that method instead of doing the xorg upgrade.

--Per Hedeland
per-at-hedeland.org

Michel, thanks for an illuminating answer!

Glad that I'm not the only one who finds this all quite complicated ;-)

In article ,
Jason Bourne wrote:
>Howard Goldstein wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:16:58 -0700, Drazen Gemic
>> wrote:
>> : I'd like to share an useful advice. I am using FreeBSD 6.1 in a daily
>> : work, and don't have time to upgrade to FreeBSD 6.2. Also I wanted
>> : FireFox 2. Besides, I think that it is more than stupid to have to
>> : upgrade OS just to have newer browser, and I don't want to be a part
>> : of that stupidity.
>>
>> I feel smarter just reading that
>
>What I _really_ don't understand is why he thinks he has to upgrade an OS to
>upgrade a port. Must be something I haven't RTFM'd yet. I'll Google..., and
>search the Handbook for possible explanation(s). Maybe I can learn
>something. :-)
>
>-Jason

Handbook is a must. But for many things a Google search won't help
as much as subscribing to one of the freebsd newletters that
are targeted to your needs.

All you need to do is send an email to mailman-request-at-freebsd.org
and in the body just put the single word 'lists'.

You will definately find more information there than on Google.
[of course this is just my opinion].

Bill


--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com

Bill Vermillion wrote:
[snip]
>
> Handbook is a must. But for many things a Google search won't help
> as much as subscribing to one of the freebsd newletters that
> are targeted to your needs.

I seriously like the Handbook. Great piece of documentation.

> All you need to do is send an email to mailman-request-at-freebsd.org
> and in the body just put the single word 'lists'.

I don't subscribe to the mail version of the list(s), however I do read them
on Usenet muc.lists.freebsd.xxxxx. I follow announce, security, stable, and
current. It is a great way to be "plugged in" to the community.

> You will definately find more information there than on Google.
> [of course this is just my opinion].
>
> Bill

Thanks! Sometimes I use Google to search the newsgroups for past reports of
problems that may sound similar. Sometimes it finds solutions when someone
else has already experienced and solved a particular problem. Also search
in the bug tracker too.

-Jason

Hello,

> If using Ports, I'd just utter something like
>
> portupgrade -Rr firefox2

That would fail because of the xorg mess that everbody but
me seems to consider perfectly acceptable.

Since the OP has FreeBSD 6.1 I'd guess he still has the
xorg 6.9. The upgrade can not be done automatically.

The correct procedure would be

- read /usr/port/UPDATING
- upgrade your X as described there
- ... which probably involes recompiling all your ports at some point
- then install firefox

Perfectly acceptable way to install a piece of software, don't
you think ? May need a few days and a few manual restarts, but,
hey, we all have enough time on our hands anyway.

> So what's the equivalent in Packages to pull in the dependencies
> automatically? Can't see this in the Handbook.

sysinstall(8)

Regards

Christoph Wber-Fahr

Hello,

> If using Ports, I'd just utter something like
>
> portupgrade -Rr firefox2

That would fail because of the xorg mess that everbody but
me seems to consider perfectly acceptable.

Since the OP has FreeBSD 6.1 I'd guess he still has the
xorg 6.9. The upgrade can not be done automatically.

The correct procedure would be

- read /usr/port/UPDATING
- upgrade your X as described there
- ... which probably involes recompiling all your ports at some point
- then install firefox

Perfectly acceptable way to install a piece of software, don't
you think ? May need a few days and a few manual restarts, but,
hey, we all have enough time on our hands anyway.

> So what's the equivalent in Packages to pull in the dependencies
> automatically? Can't see this in the Handbook.

sysinstall(8)

Regards

Christoph Wber-Fahr

Hello,

> If using Ports, I'd just utter something like
>
> portupgrade -Rr firefox2

That would fail because of the xorg mess that everbody but
me seems to consider perfectly acceptable.

Since the OP has FreeBSD 6.1 I'd guess he still has the
xorg 6.9. The upgrade can not be done automatically.

The correct procedure would be

- read /usr/port/UPDATING
- upgrade your X as described there
- ... which probably involes recompiling all your ports at some point
- then install firefox

Perfectly acceptable way to install a piece of software, don't
you think ? May need a few days and a few manual restarts, but,
hey, we all have enough time on our hands anyway.

> So what's the equivalent in Packages to pull in the dependencies
> automatically? Can't see this in the Handbook.

sysinstall(8)

Regards

Christoph Wber-Fahr