Iceweasel release channel for Debian Jessie is now available

First of all, greetings to all after so much absence at the time of writing in this blog. As you know, there are some people who use Debian and on many occasions we have had to settle for the browser Iceweasel, which was born as a consequence of legal conflicts that the Debian team has had with the Mozilla Foundation regarding trademarks and incompatibility of policies.

Normally, we choose to use the repo of Debian-Mozilla to update the ESR branch that comes by default in the main Debian repos to the release branch or install Firefox by hand, or using Launchpad or another automated method to keep Firefox and Thunderbird on hand. Or if it is an extreme case, we switch to the experimental branch in case we use Debian's testing branch, seriously compromising the stability of the distro and the relationship between the packages (in case we are not careful when it comes to manage repositories from branches other than Debian, of course).

However, after Debian released edition 8.0 (codenamed "Jessie"), the Debian Mozilla repository has recently released access to its repository for the current stable version of Iceweasel, which has version 37.0.2, so it will not be necessary to add the branch experimental to those who use Debian Jessie or replace it with Firefox (if they are used to working with Iceweasel, of course).

Installation procedure

This tutorial assumes that the Debian installation has not had the function of Sudo. However, if you have it configured, prepend the word SUDO in the case of editing the list of repositories and installing packages.

To update Iceweasel to the release branch, it is essential to have the package installed pkg-mozilla-archive-keyring in conjunction with debian-keyring, which contain the signatures of the repository in order to access it.

apt-get install pkg-mozilla-archive-keyring debian-keyring

Now, what follows is to verify that the repository signatures are indeed installed.

gpg --check-sigs --fingerprint --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/pkg-mozilla-archive-keyring.gpg --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/debian-keyring.gpg pkg-mozilla-maintainers

Then we add the following repository with Nano or another text editor (in my case, I have edited it with Nano).

deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ jessie-backports iceweasel-release

We update the repositories accordingly and update the browser with this line:

apt-get update && apt-get install -t jessie-backports iceweasel iceweasel-l10n-es-ar

NOTE: the package iceweasel-l10n-en-ar is the Icewaeasel package localized for Spanish speakers in Argentina. For Chile, it is iceweasel-l10n-es-cl; for Spain, it is iceweasel-l10n-en-es; and for Mexico, it is iceweasel-l10n-en-us.

And that would be all. Hope you enjoyed the tutorial.

As an additional note, I should add that Iceweasel has disabled the OpenH.264 codec, so YouTube will not activate the HTML5 browser automatically by default. However, when manually activating this function, you use the H.264 codec based on the GStreamer codec, so you may ask for that package as a suggestion.

Until next time.


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  1.   Miguel Angel said

    No problems, thank you very much and greetings.

    1.    eliotime3000 said

      You're welcome, and I just found out that they have updated the Iceweasel to version 38.

  2.   Maykol Adrian said

    Excellent worked very well, thank you.

  3.   Bill said

    And something to comment on the incorporation of proprietary software to the next version of firefox that we have on top?
    http://www.muylinux.com/2015/05/14/firefox-pocket

    1.    diazepam said

      I just reproduce a very old comment that I read when they included the DRM in Mozilla: This with Eich did not happen.

    2.    elav said

      I don't think there is any problem with Pocket support, I say this because in theory it is just a button that sends the URL of the link to the service as such. What would be curious is to see if no more data is sent in this URL submission.

      Anyway, it would be nice if Firefox would go back to the experiment they were doing and have their own “read later” system, although unfortunately, I doubt they can do something like Pocket (I mean cloud syncing).

    3.    eliotime3000 said

      The Pocket thing is only a link that allows sharing with the available social networks. It is not a proprietary blob like the CISCO H.264 codec or the EME and MSE DRM, which are not included in the browser source code and derivatives (now Firefox is literally the new Netscape).

      1.    trolling in the deep said

        I don't understand, if you don't include closed parts in your code, why do you consider it the new netscape?

      2.    Juan said

        Look, Firefox uses the OpenH264 codec which is BSD licensed, so the most exclusive thing is DRM, which requires a plugin

        http://www.openh264.org/

      3.    eliotime3000 said

        For the inclusion of DRM MSE and EME. And as @diazepan once said:

        This with Eich did not happen.

  4.   Marcelo said

    Hallelujah! I was wondering today when they were going to update the repo for Jessie. I thought they had abandoned it. I breathe easy ... Ufffff

  5.   Nonamed said

    We already have iceweasel 38 in sid, so it will be in testing soon

    regards

  6.   peterczech said

    Version 38.0.1 is now available in the mozilla.debina.net repo

    http://mozilla.debian.net/pool/iceweasel-release/i/iceweasel/

    1.    eliotime3000 said

      That is what I was referring to explicitly. And precisely, in the SID branch, its changelog which details the respective modifications.

  7.   MrNadix said

    Thank you very much, everything works fine 🙂

  8.   zetaka01 said

    Well, nothing, I just installed deb8 and when trying to escape the heavy Firefox I come back.
    Greetings.

  9.   pepper said

    What is the real difference between Iceweacel and Firefox besides the logo?

    1.    zetaka01 said

      Please install both and test the performance. Only when starting it shows.

    2.    zetaka01 said

      Well, unless you have a machine that doesn't care. In that case, I don't say anything. I still have a dual core with 2GB of RAM. And it suits me luxury.

    3.    zetaka01 said

      Ah, Debian 8 fails to install if you repeat the internet domain on multiple machines, even if you don't have any. I understand that it is for statistics but it is silly that it will limit the facilities. With a single USB I have installed three computers and it failed me on 2 and 3 for repeating the domain. I changed the domain to pepe1 and pepe2 in the last two and it worked.

    4.    zetaka01 said

      And as a final warning, Deb 8 forces you to create a / (root) partition and a / home (user) partition, the swap is re-configured. In my case, with 2 Gb of RAM, it works like a motorcycle with the Mate desktop. I dual boot DEB8-XP, and in no case do I use a partition or swap file. It only serves to burn the hard drive.
      My partitions are four primary:
      -XP, first for boot reasons.
      -NTFS data
      -DEB8 /
      -DEB8 / home

      A greeting.

      1.    lucas black said

        how is that @zetaka that forces you to create a debian 8 home partition ?. He has never forced me to do anything.

    5.    eliotime3000 said

      Firefox logos are copyrighted, in addition to the MSE and EME DRM implementation, respectively. Iceweasel, on the other hand, both the name of the browser and the logo are copylet (they use the GPL license) and do not include the DRM MSE and EME.

    6.    jmponce said

      it just adds more fragmentation ...

      They are the same wea no more, without the logo, what a way to waste time some

      1.    mario said

        Debian is not authorized to use the Firefox logos and trademarks. What other solution was there? Chromium did not exist. Apart from its social contract that does not admit trademark limitations.

  10.   Yoyo said

    Thank you very much, it was perfect for my CrunchBang / Jessie hybrid 🙂

    A greeting.

  11.   piero said

    Hi. I really do not understand why you throw the commands. How do I uninstall this? Excuse me and thank you.

  12.   Angel Miguel Fernandez placeholder image said

    Thank you very much, this version of iceweasel will almost certainly roll faster than firefox on debian.

  13.   Miguelon said

    Excellent, thanks for contributing knowledge, great