[kwlug-disc] sadness in Ubuntu land

Andrew Sullivan Cant acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca
Mon May 30 21:01:07 EDT 2022


Never too late, Charles!

That link looks interesting and it is in my list of things to try out.


I did find something interesting in the Ubuntu release notes about the 
Firefox snap missing the "NativeMessaging" protocol

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/jammy-jellyfish-release-notes/24668

> The Firefox snap does not support the NativeMessaging protocol yet but
> this feature is planned to be added soon. This means for instance that
> installing GNOME Shell extensions from Firefox won’t work. As a workaround, 
> you can try the gnome-shell-extension-manager app.

If that permission is added then maybe the gnome-extension, browserpass, 
and other extensions which use an external server might work with the 
snap again. Maybe?

Still won't allow management of Firefox extensions through apt, which I 
would still like to have.

Andrew


On 2022-05-03 16:48, Charles M wrote:
> It's probably a bit late Andrew, but I found these instructions for
> restoring the ability to install Firefox from apt on *buntu 22.04
> here:
> 
> https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2022/04/install-firefox-deb-ubuntu-22-04/
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Charles
> 
> On Sun, 1 May 2022 at 14:01, Andrew Sullivan Cant
> <acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>
>> I just did the upgrade to 22.04, last night. The system prompted me to
>> do it, like a regular upgrade, and it worked.
>>
>> However, now I have lost the Firefox installation through APT.
>>
>> :sadtrombone:
>>
>> My installation steps described below no longer work. :( I guess it is
>> time to try out the PPA method from OMG if I want browserpass or the
>> ability to install new Gnome extensions.
>>
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>> On 2022-04-28 17:10, CrankyOldBugger wrote:
>>> I'll say one thing for the new Ubuntu, the new RDP (with legacy VNC)
>>> option is certainly speedier than the old way.
>>>
>>> And no longer needing the Dash-to-dock extension (now built-in, sort of)
>>> is good too.
>>>
>>> The Snaps ecosystem aside, I don't find 22.04 to be too bad at all.  The
>>> new GNOME Extensions app seems to cover what we lose when using FF for
>>> GNOME extensions, so no big loss there.
>>>
>>> And for the first time in a long time, the Ubuntu upgrade app worked
>>> without any issues on my laptop.  Usually I have to do a wipe and load.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 24, 2022 at 4:44 PM Andrew Sullivan Cant
>>> <acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca <mailto:acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca>> wrote:
>>>
>>>      I saw that article last week, but I don't understand why the PPA is
>>>      needed.
>>>
>>>      Here is my context:
>>>      * I re-installed my laptop with Ubuntu (v21.10), maybe 2 months ago
>>>      * installed various firefox extensions from apt including the Gnome
>>>      extension helper:
>>>          - webext-browserpass
>>>          - webext-privacy-badger
>>>          - webext-ublock-origin-firefox
>>>          - chrome-gnome-shell
>>>      * then I noticed some inconsistent behaviour in Firefox configuration,
>>>          and realized that there were now 2 copies of Firefox installed
>>>          - snap version, which has been installed by default
>>>          - deb version, which was installed as a dependency from the webext-*
>>>            packages
>>>
>>>      After I realized this I remove the snap version, `snap remove firefox`,
>>>      and everything seems to be working as expected. Including that the apt
>>>      installed browser could communicated with the local helpers needed for
>>>      the Gnome and browserpass addons.
>>>
>>>      Tada? I guess...
>>>
>>>      It was a bit confusing, but now it seems to be working, including
>>>      surviving automatic updates.
>>>
>>>      Hopefully, this is a helpful data point. :)
>>>
>>>
>>>      Andrew
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>      On 2022-04-24 16:12, CrankyOldBugger wrote:
>>>       > Seems like we're not the only ones concerned about FF as a Snap:
>>>       >
>>>       >
>>>      https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04
>>>      <https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04>
>>>
>>>       >
>>>      <https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04
>>>      <https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04>>
>>>       >
>>>       > OMGUbuntu takes a more in-depth look at how to fix this.
>>>       >
>>>       >
>>>       > On Sun, Apr 24, 2022 at 12:41 AM Chris Irwin via kwlug-disc
>>>       > <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org <mailto:kwlug-disc at kwlug.org>
>>>      <mailto:kwlug-disc at kwlug.org <mailto:kwlug-disc at kwlug.org>>> wrote:
>>>       >
>>>       >     __
>>>       >     On Sun, Apr 24, 2022, at 00:23, Chris Frey wrote:
>>>       >>     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:
>>>       >>     firefox : PreDepends: snapd but it is not going to be installed
>>>       >>     E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
>>>       >
>>>       >     It may be as simple as Ubuntu's (snap-installing) deb has a
>>>      slightly
>>>       >     higher version that the one from the third-party repo, rather
>>>      than a
>>>       >     malicious modification to apt itself. You should be able to
>>>      use apt
>>>       >     pinning to say `firefox` should only be installed from a specific
>>>       >     repo. This might also prevent the dependency warning message.
>>>       >
>>>       >     A mocked-up /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozillateam:
>>>       >
>>>       >          Package: firefox
>>>       >          Pin release o=mozillateam
>>>       >          Pin-Priority: -10
>>>       >
>>>       >     However, I don't actually have an Ubuntu machine to test, so
>>>      you may
>>>       >     need to adjust that. I got this from the following URLs:
>>>       >
>>>       >        1.
>>>       >
>>>      https://askubuntu.com/questions/449426/pinning-package-using-own-repository-and-apt-get
>>>      <https://askubuntu.com/questions/449426/pinning-package-using-own-repository-and-apt-get>
>>>       >
>>>        <https://askubuntu.com/questions/449426/pinning-package-using-own-repository-and-apt-get <https://askubuntu.com/questions/449426/pinning-package-using-own-repository-and-apt-get>>
>>>       >        2. https://linux.die.net/man/5/apt_preferences
>>>      <https://linux.die.net/man/5/apt_preferences>
>>>       >     <https://linux.die.net/man/5/apt_preferences
>>>      <https://linux.die.net/man/5/apt_preferences>>
>>>       >
>>>       >     If you're looking for alternative distros, Fedora is nice. I
>>>       >     switched from Ubuntu about 10 years ago now, and have been
>>>      very happy.
>>>       >
>>>       >     If you're just trying to avoid the startup issues associated with
>>>       >     snap, the flatpak firefox from flathub works well. It's
>>>      provided by
>>>       >     Mozilla, and is indistinguishable from the native firefox. I
>>>      have it
>>>       >     installed for troubleshooting and honestly have few issues
>>>      with it.
>>>       >
>>>       >     --
>>>       >     *Chris Irwin*
>>>       >
>>>       >     email: chris at chrisirwin.ca <mailto:chris at chrisirwin.ca>
>>>      <mailto:chris at chrisirwin.ca <mailto:chris at chrisirwin.ca>>
>>>       >        web: https://chrisirwin.ca <https://chrisirwin.ca>
>>>      <https://chrisirwin.ca <https://chrisirwin.ca>>
>>>       >
>>>       >     _______________________________________________
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