Debian 10 Gnome and Firefox 88 SOLVED

Alexzee

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Sadly I hosed my Firefox 78-esr that came with my fresh Debian installation.

I went into the Preferences> Language and Appearance> Colors> and changed the background for my tabs to black so I wouldn't be so blinded by the white background. When I ticked the box to do that always it made all of my pages black and I couldn't see anything on the pages.

Because of that I had to install the new version of FF which btw, runs fine.

In order to launch FF I have to go to my Downloads directory where I downloaded the tar.gz of FF and click on the FF folder.

Is there a way to add the FF icon to my gnome launcher?
 


Why not just purge Firefox ESR, make sure your profile (in /home/user/.mozilla) is deleted, and then reinstall it?
 
Why not just purge Firefox ESR, make sure your profile (in /home/user/.mozilla) is deleted, and then reinstall it?
I tried purging FF ESR and it brings me right back to the exact same issue's with black pages and I can't see anything.

A reinstall keeps the settings.

I don't want the ESR that comes with Debian. The blinding white pages give me headaches.

I'd like to be able to add the FF icon to my launcher if that's possible.
 
I'm not a Gnome user, but someone here will know. Someone's bound to use Gnome. It's pretty popular.

Did you delete the .mozilla folder? It may need to be deleted manually was my thinking.

I did find this: https://forums.centos.org/viewtopic.php?t=70511 But, again, I don't use Gnome. Of all the DEs out there, that's one of my least favorite. So, I can't vouch for the success.
 
Create a desktop file, this is what I use for LibreWolf:
Code:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=LibreWolf
Comment=Secure Web Browser
GenericName=Web Browser
Exec=/home/pi/Downloads/LibreWolf-88.0-1.aarch64.AppImage
Icon=/home/pi/Pictures/librewolf.png
Type=Application
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;application/x-xpinstall;application/pdf;application/json;
StartupWMClass=LibreWolf
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Keywords=Internet;WWW;Browser;Web;Explorer;
Name[en_US]=LibreWolf

Save that then Copy that to ./local/share/applications

or you can follow my ancient post:
 
Create a desktop file, this is what I use for LibreWolf:
Code:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=LibreWolf
Comment=Secure Web Browser
GenericName=Web Browser
Exec=/home/pi/Downloads/LibreWolf-88.0-1.aarch64.AppImage
Icon=/home/pi/Pictures/librewolf.png
Type=Application
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;application/x-xpinstall;application/pdf;application/json;
StartupWMClass=LibreWolf
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Keywords=Internet;WWW;Browser;Web;Explorer;
Name[en_US]=LibreWolf

Save that then Copy that to ./local/share/applications

or you can follow my ancient post:
Thanks I'll do that and let you know how it goes.

BTW, I don't have a .png for the icon so what path would I give for the icon?
 
Last edited:
*IF* you want to go back to the ESR release, I just tested on Debian (Xfce, not Gnome) and I had to delete the .mozilla folder manually after purging firefox-esr.

I was then able to reinstall it and it had a completely new profile.

Selection_115.png


It did require manually removing the .mozilla folder, which was recreated when the new installation was opened for the first time.

So, if you want to go back to the ESR version, it looks possible and pretty painless.

Edit: You can probably just close Firefox, delete the .mozilla folder, and restart Firefox. I just tested that too.
 
I created the desktop file and copied it to /usr/share/applications/
I don't have anything on the desktop so what am I missing?
 
I created the desktop file and copied it to /usr/share/applications/
I don't have anything on the desktop so what am I missing?
Sorry copy it to .local/share/applications
 
Sorry copy it to .local/share/applications
Ok, I copied it to .local/share/applications

debian:~$ cd .local/share/applications
@debian:~/.local/share/applications$ ls
Firefox

FF is still not showing on my desktop or in my Gnome launcher.

Any ideas?

I looked in /usr/share/pixmaps and I don't have a FF icon in there.
Maybe that's the problem?
 
Last edited:
I tried downloading the .png of the FF icon and change the desktop entry file to point it to where I put the .png in pixmaps. Still no joy.

Screenshot from 2021-05-05 15-59-05.png
 
FF is still not showing on my desktop or in my Gnome launcher.
Gnome 40? I recently had this experience while trying Gnome 40 in a live USB, I wanted to see if I could add the appimages I use to the app's menu, but there's no such thing in Gnome. You need to install a gnome-shell extension, which one? No idea, sorry, didn't bother to check. Gnome doesn't seem to handle those things like the rest of the DEs where you can just create a .desktop file, save it to ~.local/share/applications for only your user or to /usr/share/applications to apply system wide; I tried both methods, none of them worked, though I don't know if you need to log out and log back in for it to take effect, I mean, it's Gnome so ... I don't know, didn't try that, maybe you could and see if that makes the trick.
I looked in /usr/share/pixmaps and I don't have a FF icon in there.
Maybe that's the problem?
In the firefox folder, the one where the .tar.gz was extracted to, you'll find icons in browser > chrome > icons > default.
 
Last edited:
Gnome 40? I recently had this experience while trying Gnome 40 in a live USB, I wanted to see if I could add the appimages I use to the app's menu, but there's no such thing in Gnome. You need to install a gnome-shell extension, which one? No idea, sorry, didn't bother to check. Gnome doesn't seem to handle those things like the rest of the DEs where you can just create a .desktop file, save it to ~.local/share/applications for only your user or to /usr/share/applications to apply system wide; I tried both methods, none of them worked, though I don't know if you need to log out and log back in for it to take effect, I mean, it's Gnome so ... I don't know, didn't try that, maybe you could and see if that makes the trick.

In the firefox folder, the one where the .tar.gz was extracted to, you'll find icons in browser > chrome > icons > default.

I'll try logging out and log back in.
If that doesn't do the trick I'll see if I can find a Gnome shell extension for FF.

Thanks!
 
Logging out and back in didn't help and going to extensions.gnome.org didn't help either.
There isn't a extension for Firefox just a extension for FF bookmarks.

Gnome ask you said doesn't work with a desktop entry file.
 
There isn't a extension for Firefox

Try looking for applications instead of FF. I don't know if this will do the trick, but I just remembered there's an app called "menulibre" to edit/add menu applications entries, it can be installed in Debian with `
Code:
sudo apt-get install menulibre
again, don't know if it'll work in Gnome the same way it does in other DEs, I've used in XFCE to add apps to whisker menu.
 
Along the lines of what @Tolkem said, Alacarte works with Gnome. I see it recommended specifically for Ubuntu fairly often. I believe it works with anything that adheres to the FreeDesktop specs.
 
@Alexzee I just remembered something else; after my failed attempt to add the appimages to Gnome's apps menu or whatever it is called there, I started searching and found this https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/apa.html there's one specific thing that not you nor me did; the app.desktop file starts with
Code:
Version=1.0
I thought of trying again and use that but haven't done so yet, so you might try and see it that helps.
 
Thanks guys for your help.
I decided I didn't want to fight with this anymore and followed KGIII's instructions in post #7.

After removing the .mozilla directory and reinstalling Firefox-esr I'm up and running again w/o any issues.
 

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