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Oh ! Guess what ? One more new article about Firefox Quantum !

If you’re here, no need to explain why YOU HAVE TO upgrade to this new version, right ?
Faster, stronger, lighter and… OMG WE’RE TALKING ABOUT FIREFOX, AREN’T WE ???

BUT, I was a bit disappointed about not being able to install it with APT (even on the latest Debian)… So no more yelling, this is the procedure :

  1. First, we’ll have to add the sid (“Still In Development”) repository to our APT sources (actually, I imagine only the next stable version of Debian would have Quantum shipped-in) :
    # echo 'deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ sid main contrib non-free' >> /etc/apt/sources.list

  2. Once it’s done, just update the packages list :
    # apt update

  3. :warning: Dangerous part :warning:
    The new Firefox depends on some packages versions not “officially available” in Stretch (list at the end of the article).
    It’s very likely that upgrading them actually breaks some other packages…
    Be careful and please, do listen to APT for once in your life (:stuck_out_tongue:) !
    Once you read that, you may run :
    # apt install firefox/sid

  4. If everything went fine, and the new Firefox effectively starts, you can consider removing the old one :
    # apt remove firefox-esr

Now, you should have such a configuration :

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Whut, 57.0 ? Are you kidding again ? You’re so late bro’ :confused:

Yeah I know, the v58 is already out, but soon we’ll get it :rofl:

Enjoy ! :tada: :wave:


However, I advise you to change your APT settings to make the sid repository coexist with the others (and avoid a full system upgrade simultaneously :wink:).
To do so, just paste the following into a file named (for instance) /etc/apt/preferences.d/firefox-with-sid :

Package: firefox
Pin: release n=sid
Pin-Priority: 500

Package: *
Pin: release n=sid
Pin-Priority: 1

Now you may enjoy new Firefox versions from sid, and “regular” updates like before when you’ll run # apt upgrade ! :ok_hand:


Breaking packages

  • libevent (2.1-6)

  • libhunspell (1.6)

  • libfontconfig1 (2.12.3)

  • libnss3 (2:3.33)

Sources

Post mainly inspired from here.