Installing Firefox on Solaris (Update III)

These are my updated notes on how to install Firefox on a Solaris 10 server. In this installment, I will go over two different ways to install Firefox. I will be using the files found at the Mozilla website, which just started hosting these files. To check out my previous posts on installing Firefox please check out at the bottom of this post.

The files on the Mozilla site, are the same files that can be found at Sunfreeware.com or UNIXpackages.com. The only issue with getting Firefox from this site is that it is not actually from them. They go out of there way to say this on there site and I quote; "They are the ONLY packages in our repository that are not compiled by us, and were contributed by External Offshore developers in East Asia". The README file on the site says that they where contributed by Oracle Solaris Desktop Beijing Team. I checked with the local Oracle reps in the area and they can't confirm that install files are from Oracle. Anyway if this is not an issue for you then follow the instructions below to install Firefox.

Get the Files
Use the links below to download the files needed for this how to.
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/24.0esr/contrib/solaris_pkgadd/
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/24.0esr/contrib/solaris_tarball/

We will use the files below to install Firefox.
firefox-24.1.1esr.en-US.solaris-10-fcs-sparc.tar.bz2
firefox-24.1.1esr.en-US.solaris-10-fcs-sparc-pkg.bz2

Install Firefox from a tar file.
One advantage of installing Firefox with a tar file is that you can install Firefox almost anywhere.  Run the following commands to install Firefox.

root@earth> mv firefox-* /usr/lib/
root@earth> cd /usr/lib
root@earth> bzip2 -cd firefox-24.1.0esr.en-US.solaris-10-fcs-sparc.tar.bz2 | tar xvf - root@earth> ln -s /usr/lib/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

Start Firefox.

root@earth> firefox

Install Firefox from a package.

root@earth> bzip2 -d firefox-24.0esr.en-US.solaris-10-fcs-sparc-pkg.bz2
root@earth> pkgadd -d ./firefox-24.0esr.en-US.solaris-10-fcs-sparc-pkg

The following packages are available:
   1  SFWatk           ATK - Accesibility Toolkit Libraries
                       (sparc) 1.24.0,REV=110.0.4.2009.02.26.22.56
   2  SFWcairo        Vector graphics library
                       (sparc) 1.8.4,REV=110.0.4.2009.02.26.23.05
   3  SFWfirefox     Mozilla Firefox Web browser
                       (sparc) 24.1.0esr,REV=110.0.4.2013.10.24.13.53
   4  SFWglib2       Low level core compatibility library for GTK+ and GNOME
                      (sparc) 2.18.3,REV=110.0.4.2009.02.27.14.31
   5  SFWgtk2        GTK+ - GIMP Toolkit Library for creation of graphical user interfaces
                      (sparc) 2.14.5,REV=110.0.4.2011.05.26.09.57
   6  SFWpango      Library for layout and rendering of internationalized text
                      (sparc) 1.22.3,REV=110.0.4.2009.02.26.23.21
   7  SFWpixman    Vector graphics library
                      (sparc) 0.12.0,REV=110.0.4.2009.02.26.23.01

Select package(s) you wish to process (or 'all' to process
all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]:

You can install all the packages listed above or just the Firefox package (SFWfirefox). Firefox will be installed at /opt/sfw/lib/firefox. The install process will link the Firefox exacuteable to /usr/local/bin/firefox. Start firefox as shown below.

root@earth> firefox

If Firefox doesn't start then I would make sure that /usr/local/bin in your path.

My Other Firefox posts.
Installing Firefox on a Solaris server
Installing Firefox on Solaris (Update)
Installing Firefox on Solaris (Update II)