The FreeBSD Diary

Firefox is a pretty popular browser.

It runs quickly.

It has a lot of plugsin. I use Web Developer and Firebug myself.

However. All software ages. Hah, even this website ages.

Firefox 2 has a number of unfixed (to my knowledge) bug.

Solution: use Firefox 3.

Sometimes it is just time to move on.

Case in point: have you seen this?

# portaudit
Affected package: firefox-2.0.0.20_9,1
Type of problem: mozilla -- multiple vulnerabilities.
Reference: <http://portaudit.FreeBSD.org/49e8f2ee-8147-11de-a994-0030843d3802.html>

1 problem(s) in your installed packages found.

You are advised to update or deinstall the affected package(s) immediately.

How to fix: upgrade. However, it's not that easy. There are a few dependants. I found the solution in the Internet. ;)

Here is how I'd normally try fixing this:

# portupgrade firefox
** Port marked as IGNORE: www/firefox:
        is forbidden: too many security issues
        http://www.vuxml.org/freebsd/922d2398-9e2d-11de-a998-0030843d3802.html
        http://www.vuxml.org/freebsd/49e8f2ee-8147-11de-a994-0030843d3802.html
** Listing the failed packages (-:ignored / *:skipped / !:failed)
        - www/firefox (marked as IGNORE)

I also tried other things, such as replaying firefox2 with firefox35. That failed.

I searched and found:

• http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/FreeBSD/questions/2009-08/msg01228.html
• "http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/FreeBSD/questions/2009-08/msg01231.html

Which led me to:

• http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/docs/faq226.html#q1

The key point being:

• A FreeBSD port of libxul-1.9 has been added as an alternative Gecko provider to Firefox 2. This can be used by setting WITH_GECKO=libxul in /etc/make.conf.

It is that new library which will be used instead of Firefox 2.

Here is what I did:

1. I added the following to /etc/make.conf:

   # see http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/FreeBSD/questions/2009-08/msg01231.html
   # see http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/FreeBSD/questions/2009-08/msg01228.html
   #
   WITH_GECKO=libxul
   

2. Which ports depend upon Firefox 2?

   # pkg_info | grep firefox
   firefox-2.0.0.20_9,1 Web browser based on the browser portion of Mozilla
   firefox-3.5.3,1     Web browser based on the browser portion of Mozilla
   
   # pkg_info -R firefox-2.0.0.20_9,1
   Information for firefox-2.0.0.20_9,1:
   
   Required by:
   gegl-0.0.22_6
   gimp-app-2.6.6_2,1
   librsvg2-2.26.0_1
   

3. I upgraded those three ports:

   # portupgrade -f gegl gimp-app librsvg2
   

   The -f is vital. Without it, only those ports which are not up-to-date will be compiled. The -f forces all specified ports to be 'upgraded' (i.e. recompiled and installed). Which is what we want here. Effectively, we are just recompiling these applications to replace the Firefox 2 dependencies and use libxul instead.

   Now to finish it all off:

   # pkg_delete firefox-2.0.0.20_9,1
   

   Any comments?