neddie Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 (edited) If I look in the /usr/lib directory, I see 4 directories for firefox: mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.6/ mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.7/ mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.8/ mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.9/ each of which is around 30 MB. Each of them has a "plugins" directory where things like my flash plugin are installed. Every now and then, there is a patch update to firefox, maybe a security fix or whatnot, and when I do a urpmi update, I get a new version in /usr/lib. It's all cleverly handled behind the scenes and firefox keeps working very smoothly without problems. Except that it no longer looks in the old directory for the plugins, so flash suddenly stops working, until I manually copy over the .so files into the new directory. It did it again last week with 1.5.0.9, and I assume it'll keep on doing it every time firefox is updated. Am I doing something wrong, should I be putting the plugins somewhere else so that they remain visible to firefox even after a patch upgrade? Or is this just sloppy packaging where a script should be included in the rpm to copy over the contents of the plugins directory? Edited March 21, 2007 by neddie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 (edited) You shouldn't have to be moving anything if you let the Firefox rpm do its thing. I just checked my /usr/lib and I see the earlier version 0.8 and the new 0.9 I installed yesterday. When I open Firefox it correctly uses the new version and all my flash plugins are correctly working. You can safely delete the older versions in /usr/lib. I proved it by doing it just now. The plugins for flash etc appear to go into /usr/lib/Mozilla/plugins and not in the plugins folder in /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins. Cheers. John. Edited January 16, 2007 by AussieJohn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted January 16, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Aha, ok I didn't see the Mozilla directory cos I did an autocomplete on "moz". Thanks for that, John, I'll give that a go tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Not wanting to put the cat amongst the pigeons, I have in my /home folder a .mozilla folder inside of which is a plugins folder and all the plugins are in there.So any updates find the plugins without a problem. :unsure: Seems like there is more than one way to skin a cat so to speak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted January 16, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Well I'd rather not put the plugins in my home because then other users wouldn't be able to find them. I looked anyway, and although I have a ~/.mozilla directory, there is no plugins directory anywhere underneath it. And I don't have a /usr/lib/Mozilla or a /usr/lib/mozilla. Maybe these are optional steps to manually create these directories? In the Firefox instructions at mozilla.com it just says You should know in what folder you installed Firefox. In that folder, there's a sub-folder called "plugins". Maybe I'm using a different flash plugin than you two? Did you get yours from adobe.com or via urpmi? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mhn Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 (edited) I've installed mplayer-plugin from urpmi, and maybe some more: $ ls /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ libtotem-basic-plugin.xpt mplayerplug-in-qt.xpt libtotem-complex-plugin.xpt mplayerplug-in-rm.so libtotem-gmp-plugin.xpt mplayerplug-in-rm.xpt libtotem-mully-plugin.xpt mplayerplug-in.so libtotem-narrowspace-plugin.xpt mplayerplug-in-wmp.so mplayerplug-in-gmp.so mplayerplug-in-wmp.xpt mplayerplug-in-gmp.xpt mplayerplug-in.xpt mplayerplug-in-qt.so I haven't touched that folder but have insttead installed java and flash manually here: $ ls .mozilla/plugins/ flashplayer.xpt* libjavaplugin_oji.so@ libunixprintplugin.so* libflashplayer.so libnullplugin.so* All plugins work ok. Didn't know about /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ until now. Edited January 16, 2007 by Mhn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted January 16, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 So I removed my rpm for flash-plugin, and tried to install it via urpmi, but it's not found. I have plf-free and plf-nonfree configured but I can't see any flash-plugin rpm in the directory listings at ftp://ftp.easynet.fr/plf/mandriva/2007.0/ either. So maybe it's just for paid-up club members in special repositories maybe. So I installed my downloaded rpm again, and it says Registering flashplayer as a XPCOM component in/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.6 Registering flashplayer as a XPCOM component in /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.7 Registering flashplayer as a XPCOM component in /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.8 Registering flashplayer as a XPCOM component in /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.9 Setup is complete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Well whatever works has to be just great. AFAIK I downloaded from flashes own website and installed driectly into the afore mentioned folder. Sorry I was a bit short sighted about other users as I live on my own, am retired so no-one else uses the 'puter . Thinking about my arrangement though you could have different users with own ~/home and their own plugins. Also whenever I install a new release the old plugins/settings are retained as I don't format the ~/home partition. That's just my way. But as I said whatever works for you that's just great. Linux is marvellous isn't it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 My original flash was from the 2006power pack rpms. I install it in 2007 and then urpmi update to get the latest version. That way I don't have the crappy business of "being in the Club". :D :D Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagwah Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 Linux is marvellous isn't it. Absolutely magnificent !! Well whatever works has to be just great. Spot on, if it works for you . I usually just install Firefox, and Flash manually, I put firefox in usr/local/firefox, and just download the flash plugin from the official site, and extract the file libflashplayer.so to the usr/local/firefox/plugins folder, works just dandy. Any updates to firefox/flash, I just replace the required files, and keep on marchin' . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted March 21, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2007 So I did some playing around, and indeed it does seem that Firefox looks in several places for its plugins. The mistake I was making was that I thought if I didn't have a /usr/lib/mozilla directory, then there would be no point in putting plugins in there. And likewise for ~/.mozilla/plugins. So I moved my plugins out of /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.10 and into ~/.mozilla/plugins (after creating this directory) and they still worked. And then I moved them again into /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and it still worked. Strange that this isn't written down somewhere explicitly. So anyway. Just to set the record straight, I'd say that the best place to put the plugins is /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins because then it doesn't get ignored next time there's a little patch to firefox, and it's not just restricted to a single user - so all users get the same plugins, including newly-created users. And yeah of course if you're manually installing to /usr/local then do that, but I'm talking about standard rpm installs for a standard Mandriva setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scythe Posted March 22, 2007 Report Share Posted March 22, 2007 Maybe not exactly on topic, but... There is an RPM for Firefox 2.0.0.1, just in case you didn't know. Search for it in the MCC updates and it should be there :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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