Problem

The following describes the process of trying out Firefox Quantum using an installation of RHEL/CentOS.

Solution

Firefox Quantum isn’t available via package manager currently. So, extract the Firefox Quantum tarball source file into the /opt directory.

Open a terminal, and issue this command to download & extract Mozilla’s latest browser.

#!/bin/bash

sudo bash -c '[[ "$(uname -m)" == "x86_64" ]] \
              && ost="$(uname)";ost="${ost,,}64" \
              && dir="/opt";app="firefox";ver="latest" \
              && uri="https://download.mozilla.org" \
              && src="$uri/?product=$app-$ver-ssl&os=$ost" \
              && curl -L "$src" | tar xfj - -C $dir \
              && unset ost app ver uri src dir'

Create a GNOME desktop entry for our new add-on application software package.

#!/bin/bash

sudo bash -c 'OLD_DESKD="/usr/share/applications"
              OLD_DESKF="$OLD_DESKD/firefox.desktop"

              NEW_DESKD="/usr/share/applications"
              NEW_DESKF="$NEW_DESKD/firefox-quantum.desktop"

              EXEC_FIND="firefox";
              EXEC_REPL="\/opt\/firefox\/firefox"

              ICON_FIND="firefox";
              ICON_REPL="\/opt\/firefox\/browser\/icons\/mozicon128\.png"

              NAME_FIND="Firefox";
              NAME_REPL="Firefox Quantum"

              if [[ ! -f $NEW_DESKF ]]; then
               if [[ -f $OLD_DESKF ]]; then
                sed "s/Exec\=$EXEC_FIND/Exec\=$EXEC_REPL/g
                     s/Icon\=$ICON_FIND/Icon\=$ICON_REPL/g
                     s/$NAME_FIND/$NAME_REPL/g" $OLD_DESKF > $NEW_DESKF
               else
                cat <<EOF > $NEW_DESKF
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Firefox Quantum Web Browser
Comment=Browse the Web
Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox %u
Icon=/opt/firefox/browser/icons/mozicon128.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
EOF
fi
fi'

Restart GNOME Display Manager (GDM).

#!/bin/bash

sudo systemctl restart gdm.service

# [NOTE] Keep in mind that restarting the service forcibly interrupts any
# currently running GNOME session of any desktop user who is logged in. This
# can result in users losing unsaved data.

Summary

Wahllah! You’ve successfully installed Firefox Quantum from an archive according to the current Linux Foundation Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS), and freedesktop.org desktop entry specification.

You could also also use yum install firefox -y, but version 57.0 has not been added to the source repository - yet.

What I like about this method of installation, is it sheds some light on where Linux distributions endorsed by the Free Software Foundation derive their specifications from.

Which makes the above scripts a little more interesting because it reveals a trade off between installation portability, and maintenance. Consider what happens when specifications change? Or, how about if there is an update to the tarball source file download URL? Is this really keeping track of in the future? Maybe, or maybe not - it depends on who you ask.

Anyway, hope this helps satisfy ones craving for the latest browser tech. If you want this only available to yourself - that’s easy! Set dir=$HOME in step #1, NEW_DESKD="$HOME/.local/share/applications" in step #2, and drop sudo privileges from both commands.

See you space cowboy… ;)