On Fri, Sep 09, 2011 at 09:34:09PM +0800, yuanwei xu wrote: > 2011/9/9 Rob Hurle <rob1940@gmail.com>: > > On 9 September 2011 21:58, Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Question is: how can we upgrade to Iceweasel 3.6+ if we want to? > > I just download the .tar.gz file in the mozilla.com. And release the > package under my home dir, then add a "alias ..." statement in the > .bashrc. Now firefox can auto update to the last version. > > Sometime i guess why linux distributions need to maintain a large > number applications like firefox,libreoffice,but not let users to > download the package from the corresponding net and install them.One > reason I think it makes sense is that the package may not has the > needed package format like .deb or .rpm, and there may be some > security and stability problem. Yes. This is exactly the issue. Linux distributions basically do a number of things for you, so that you don't have to do them yourself: * Fetch the upstream source code * Patch any known security bugs which the upstream haven't yet * Make sure the source builds with the versions of the libraries in the distribution * Compile the source (which almost always requires different software to actually running it) * Pack the result into a convenient container for redistribution Incidentally, Mozilla object to Debian's policy of doing the second item there, judging it to be polluting the Mozilla brand. That is why Debian has Iceweasel. However, remember that this is the beauty of open source software. If you want to compile and install from upstream, you are always welcome to do so yourself. There is even software such as checkinstall to make your life easier in such circumstances by integrating third-party builds into the package manager. -- Darac Marjal
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