Would you like iceweasel 3.0 and 3.5 to be co-installable ?

Hi lazyweb,

I'm wondering if there a lot of demand for such a feature, being to be able to install 2 (or more) major releases of iceweasel on the same computer. If there is a strong demand, I may consider allowing it. Please reply in the comments on this blog with your feelings, for or against the implementation of this co-installability.

Thanks.

PS: you may also forward this query to other sites and send people back here to leave their opinion.

2009-09-15 18:41:03+0900

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31 Responses to “Would you like iceweasel 3.0 and 3.5 to be co-installable ?”

  1. Feech Says:

    I’d like the latest stable version of iceweasel and the next development release of firefox to be co-installable. (e.g. iceweasel 3.5 and firefox 3.6beta)

  2. John H Says:

    If it didn’t cause you excessively large amounts of extra work, that would certainly be one way to avoid the long delays such as those in getting Iceweasel 3.5 into the mainstream branches. However, if it would involve significant extra work then it would seem better to focus on getting 3.5 ready for Sid.

  3. Armin Says:

    I always just have the latest Iceweasel installed. So from my POV I would prefer to see new upstream releases early in unstable to having the possibility to install two Iceweasel versions.

  4. Martin Says:

    Having e.g. 3 and 3.5 co-installable would probably promote test installs and therefore quality. Many people — including me — hesitate installing a new version, e.g. because (maybe) not all extensions in use are already supported by the new version. Having both side by side would ease testing, checking for regression etc.

  5. bubo Says:

    yes, please!

  6. egallego Says:

    We may not like Mozilla’s update policy, but I think unstable should follow stable upstream. I don’t undertand why Iceweasel should be handled differently than other packages, like libc, or gcc, (I mean the default).

  7. qocx Says:

    As long as this doesn’t mean, that the user’s $HOME is cluttered by multiple profiles… It’s already sad, that we have .mozilla and .mozilla-thunderbird.

    Is it guaranteed to switch flawlessly between several major versions on top of _one_ profile?

  8. Javi Says:

    My very little personal contribution:

    For the average user, having the latest possible version is a must. So i consider it is ok to replace iceweasel for version 3.5.

    There is also a subgroup of users who would like to stay on version 3.0, or being able to use both. Web developers are part of this subgroup, as an example. It would be ok for them if being allowed to install iceweasel-3.0 (when possible, somehow, officially or by additional repos).

    Thanks!

  9. Ken Bloom Says:

    Iceweasel should have version 3.0 and 3.5 co-installable because testing on multiple browser versions is useful for web developers. Certainly this is true for any set of common versions that fixes display bugs, improves ACID test compliance, and the like. How much more so when version 3.5 implements so many new technologies that version 3.0 does not.

  10. Tim Says:

    To me, it’s a nice to have, but not more. Fundamentally, why should this particular browser and this particular package get special treatment? This is a package still calling for extra maintainers, right? Experimental’s 3.5.x works really well, is the delay getting it into unstable related to lack of resources? Because if it is, then it may not be wise to extend the ambition and complexity of maintaining iceweasel.

  11. Simon Says:

    Not bothered. I currently install the Mozilla build in my home directory when I need the latest Firefox for testing.

    But I rarely need an older version of Firefox, since Windows self updates most users will have the latest Firefox.

    A backport of newer firefox would be more useful.

  12. Chris Hiestand Says:

    I think it depends how many people are having problems with 3.5. I have heard of issues like memory leaks and slowdowns, but I do not experience them myself.

    But otherwise I agree with Simon. For developers like Ken Bloom, installing other versions of firefox in your homedir is pretty easy, but not AS easy as installing a debian package :-)

  13. foo Says:

    One version in sid/testing and the other version in experimental, until users report that it works well for them.

  14. taggart Says:

    I like the ability to be able to use two different web browsers for when I run into browser bugs. Currently I use iceweasel and epiphany a lot (and actually like the fact that they don’t use the same user config files).

    The main additional reason I’d want to be able to use both 3.0 and 3.5 is if my usage model (several window, hundreds of tabs) and loaded urls didn’t work on one then I could quickly try the other.

  15. dam Says:

    I am with Tim here. Testing websites with the browser in Lenny would be nice, but if this means Iceweasel maintainers get burried in work (including backporting security fixes from 3.5), then no, thanks. Having happy Iceweasel maintainers is nicer :)

  16. Andrea Says:

    I would not like it. There’s a reason why newer iceweasel keeps being stuck in experimental: why should we bring it to sid if it is not ready?
    Moreover, making it co-installable with older versions brings to two different sceneries:
    1. people just updating their system will not have the new version automagically
    2. people wanting the new version should install it manually and then they’ll discover they still have the older version up and working.

    The whole thing should be useful only for testing purposes but not for the standard user.

  17. Míchání různých verzí Firefoxu (IceWeasel) (Debian-linux.cz) Says:

    […] správců balíčku IceWeasel, se na svém blogu zeptal debianí veÅ™ejnosti, jestli má zájem o koexistenci více verzí prohlížeče na jednom počítači. „Pokud bude zájem velký, můžeme to povolit,“ píše Mike. […]

  18. azhag Says:

    Yes, I would like to be able to install few versions of Iceweasel at the same time.

    However if shipping few parallel versions requires a lot of extra work, which can be consumed in a better way — then no, this isn’t so important.

  19. pepca Says:

    Hi, i think that “iceweasel” and “iceweasel-unstable” should be enough.

    For web development/testing would be nice some latest versions of older major versions like iceweasel-2 or so.

  20. Jon Says:

    I really disagree with “For the average user, having the latest possible version is a must”.

  21. Linux Blog » Blog Archive » Míchání různých verzí Firefoxu (IceWeasel) Says:

    […] správců balíčku IceWeasel, se na svém blogu zeptal debianí veÅ™ejnosti, jestli má zájem o koexistenci více verzí prohlížeče na jednom počítači. „Pokud bude zájem velký, můžeme to povolit,“ píše Mike. […]

  22. Petr Says:

    Its good idea! I am not Web developer but I welcome new version of Iceweasel…

  23. Sheridan Hutchinson Says:

    Personally I don’t feel that installing two versions would add any value to Debian.

    As an end user, what would add value is more timely promotion of newer versions. 3.5 has been out for an age and not got near Sid yet.

  24. Maththias Says:

    No.

  25. Piotr Kubaj Says:

    I don’t think it’s a good idea. Though, I think it’s considerable that the last stable release (3.5.3 for now) be put to unstable and the last unstable official release (not some tinderbox of nightlies, in this case 3.6a1) be put to experimental.

  26. Bicycle Wrench Set Says:

    I don’t know where else to put this info but I thought you should know when I tried to sign up for the rss feed I got tons of error messages and then my ‘puter froze up and I could not sign up.

  27. Michael Schurter (@schmichael) Says:

    Please no. Please please no.

    I’m a web developer who routinely tests sites in multiple versions of browsers, and *I* don’t want this. It just overcomplicates what should be a clean, seamless, and straightforward upgrade process.

    Those few people who need multiple versions know how to install them.

    IMHO Co-installable packages make sense for projects like pgsql whose audience is highly technical to begin with as well as projects for whom old versions remain popular long after updates (games? programming languages, etc). Firefox doesn’t fall into either of these categories.

  28. P. Damelos Says:

    I wouldn’t use such a feature, so it’s a no from me.

  29. FTF3k3 Says:

    I’d like to have 3.5 in Sid.

  30. Samat Says:

    There’s a profile sharing problem if multiple versions of Firefox can be installed, which qocx (comment #7) touched upon.

    firefox-3.0 and firefox-3.5 would both use ~/.mozilla/firefox to store profiles. A profile generated with one version of Firefox may not be compatible with another (particularly w.r.t. extensions). Users would have to keep two separate profiles, and juggle to make sure whatever version of Firefox they started used the appropriate profile. Given the juggling involved, it really puts perspective into how many would actually run both 3.0 and 3.5 simultaneously.

    That said, I don’t think it’s worth the extra work, and would rather firefox-3.5 appear in the archives sooner rather than later.

  31. Aaron Calderon Says:

    Hi,

    Yes, I would like to have such a feature to be available. I find myself with the need to install more than one version of Firefox (Iceweasel) on my linux system.

    Please so.

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