How do you download, install, and run Firefox from Linux command line with Lighweight Ubuntu desktop
Hi all, I have a docker container which is running Ubuntu 20.04 and the lightweight desktop GUI. I need Firefox up and running in order to access the application for which was the intended use of this container. However the lightweight desktop apparently doesn't have some of the services running like systemd and snap. There is a binary named "Firefox" already installed at /usr/bin/firefox but I've tried "systemctl start firefox" but that didn't work. Any ideas on how to get Firefox up and running? Thanks Norm
Chosen solution
Go to the Firefox download page https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release and get the Linux version. That is a tar.bz2 archive which contains a directory called firefox. Extract that to a directory somewhere of your choosing and then type WhereYouPutIt/firefox/firefox. On my computers I've put it in ~/.bin so to run it from a command line I'd type ~/.bin/firefox/firefox
All Replies (4)
The obvious answer is to type /usr/bin/firefox at the command prompt. In fact if the PATH is set properly just firefox should do it.
This is what I get when I try that.
root@6f0fdab71a2f:/# /usr/bin/firefox
Command '/usr/bin/firefox' requires the firefox snap to be installed. Please install it with:
snap install firefox
root@6f0fdab71a2f:/# snap install firefox error: cannot communicate with server: Post "http://localhost/v2/snaps/firefox": dial unix /run/snapd.socket: connect: no such file or directory
Chosen Solution
Go to the Firefox download page https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release and get the Linux version. That is a tar.bz2 archive which contains a directory called firefox. Extract that to a directory somewhere of your choosing and then type WhereYouPutIt/firefox/firefox. On my computers I've put it in ~/.bin so to run it from a command line I'd type ~/.bin/firefox/firefox
The Firefox GUI is up and running in the container now. After playing around with it a little bit I also found a way to fix the concern using the Dockerfile that is used to build the container. Your answer was helpful as well. Thank you for taking the time to post an answer.
Modified by mmcap64
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