Updating Firefox More Easily

I don't know why it didn't occur to me to try this before, but you can enable the Help -> Check for Updates menu option by launching Firefox through sudo. For example, open a terminal window and type:

$ sudo /usr/bin/firefox

Don't put it in the background with a trailing ampersand, as is probably the usual way to launch most GUI apps from the command line, or else you won't be able to type in the sudo password.

It turned out for me when I wanted to get the 2.0.0.3 update (from 2.0.0.2) that the patch wouldn't install properly, for reasons beyond my understanding, so I had to click the option to get the whole program. At least the rest was automatic -- no need to download and unpack a tarball.

Next issue: how to prevent Ubuntu's Update Manager from offering the download the updates for v1.5.0.11? Probably I have to remove it from the list of packages somehow, but I'm too tired to fiddle with that right now. Let me know, or I'll try to remember to post an update.

Ubuntu Desktop: Change Icon Size

I've been looking, off and on, for a way to shrink the size of the desktop icons. Not available through toolbar menus, as far as I can see.

Turns out there's a more direct way to do it: right-click on the icon and choose "Stretch Icon" from the context menu. You'll get a little box around the icon, with prominent corners. Grab one of the corners with the mouse, and while holding the left button down, move the corner (inward, to shrink, obviously). Release when you like the new size.

Nice!

Comment: One minor drawback to this GUI design decision: it means you have to resize all icons individually. On the other hand, I could see wanting icons to be different sizes by default. Matter of taste.

Firefox - sudden "Personal Security Manager" problem

This is correlated with, but not for sure caused by, upgrade to Firefox v1.5.0.10 (via GUI Update Manager):

I suddenly had a problem with visiting secure sites; e.g., login page for many web mail accounts. Got error page from Firefox saying there was some kind of server/config error, and something to do with "Personal Security Manager." Only other thing recent possibly related was addition of a Windows box to home network, but seems crazy to think that is at fault. Nonetheless, probably have done more than one upgrade to Linux box since last tried accessing any https sites, so unsure.

A bit of Googling suggested that missing package "mozilla-psm" was at root. Couldn't find this package directly through GUI package manager or via apt-get. Came across it as an evident download page, on Ubuntu site I think, but install info lacking. Nothing glaringly obvious on a few Linux forums that I looked at.

Decided to download and install Firefox v2.0.0.2 (the lazy way out). Downloaded tarball, killed current instance of Firefox, then did:

$ sudo cp ~/Desktop/firefox-2.0.0.2.tar.gz /usr/lib/.
$ cd /usr/lib
$ sudo mv firefox firefox-v1.5
$ sudo tar zxvf firefox-2.0.0.2.tar.gz
$ sudo rm firefox-2.0.0.2.tar.gz

Note the "mv" command refers to the directory firefox, and note that every line beginning with a $ should be entered as a single line.

Existing symlink (from v1.5) has /usr/bin/firefox pointing to /usrlib/firefox/firefox, so launch mechanisms preserved.

Everything worked after that: Add-ons updated properly on initial launch, can now access secure sites, etc.

Probably also worth noting that Upgrade Manager may not handle new version of Firefox properly, since v1.5.0.10 is what's current as an Ubuntu package. AFAIK: Firefox v2 hasn't been packaged for Ubuntu nice and easy upgrade/install yet; they're still on v1.5.x. FWIW: Update Manager thinks my system is up to date when force check; i.e., at least doesn't complain about new version. I'll have to try to remember to note what happens the next time an upgrade for either version is available.

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Update

2007-03-14 08:11 EDT

There are some more comments about this on a related post on my other blog.

test post

Just testing out some cross-posting business.