It’s definitely hot news today: firefox 3.5 was released – you can finally stop holding your breath!

Also checkout the release notes or get an overview on what is new in this great release.

So after all the partying, you might end up wondering: “Great, Where can I get it for ubuntu now?”

As usual, the answer depends on what Ubuntu version you are running:

Karmic and Jaunty users:

• just install the currently available firefox-3.5 package from universe and wait. The final bits will be there really soon.
• If you want to have them earlier, enable ubuntu-mozilla-security PPA where the bits will land first. Enabling this PPA also will help us test security updates before they get rolled to the masses in future; so if you don’t mind a slightly increased risk of breakage keep this enabled; in the unlikely event that you see a regression from this archive, instantly report them to the ubuntu mozillateam.
• If the security PPA is still not bleeding edge enough for you, go for the daily PPA, a great service that is run by ubuntu mozillateam for quite some time now.

Hardy or Intrepid users:

• stay tuned and wait for further announcements. We haven’t decided where to make the bits available yet.
• In any case, if you don’t mind running daily builds you can use the ubuntu-mozilla-daily PPA now.

Some might have noticed, but I think its still worth to bloggonouce that packages for connman and connman-gnome are available in the jaunty universe now.

Remember that its a good idea to stop NetworkManager

and restart connman before testing this.

Hi,

thanks to Fabien we have now a daily PPA for bleeding edge mozilla packages set up and running.

A main reason to track those daily builds is to notice packaging or upstream regressions as they come. Its much easier and more efficient to fix bugs if we have a narrow regression window than debugging something whose commit we cannot easily spot.

To get things started we added firefox-3.1 (xulrunner-1.9.1) and firefox-3.2 (xulrunner-1.9.2) to our daily build bot for now; more packages will be added based on demand and time.

Fortunately, the ubuntu mozillateam uses packaging techniques having backporters in mind and hence can easily provide the same builds for all “current” ubuntu releases (meaning: hardy, intrepid, jaunty are supported for now).

If you are curious and want to track daily builds, subscribe to the “ubuntu-mozilla-daily” PPA: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-daily/+archive.

Feel free to spread this around and encourage advanced users and mozilla fans to track that PPA, but remember that the daily packages are auto built without much testing and hence you might end up in unexpected bugs. So, be prepared to downgrade to the previous daily when that happens.

Also keep in mind that you shouldn’t file regressions of those daily packages in launchpad. Instead come to #ubuntu-mozillateam and let us know directly (alternatively send a mail to mailto:ubuntu-mozillateam@lists.ubuntu.com).

Enjoy!

Ever wondered how to get your plugin in the ubufox plugin finder wizard? Or ever asked yourself, what the Xb-Npp- fields mean that most plugin packages have in their debian/control entry? Even wondered which directory to link your plugin .so files to in order to make them available for all the packaged mozilla apps?

To give you some answers, there finally is a wiki page about the most important packaging magics you should remember when dealing with mozilla plugin packages in ubuntu:

Read: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins

Just ask if there are open points you would like to see addressed or clarified. We obviously can populate that wiki page with even more valuable content. Or just do it yourself

Please forgive that these go out so late … but as a matter of fact I tried to be on vacation .

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Meetings/Minutes/2008-11-02

Note that we have quite a few open Actions; so enough food for anyone who wants to help out in ubuntu mozillaland.

on friday, the great fta uploaded xulrunner-1.9.1 and firefox-3.1 to the ubuntu universe archive (jaunty). It took the weekend to get archive admin attention, but now it seems like it will show up on your mirror quite soon (hugs to all involved here).

Similar to what we did for firefox 3.0 in gutsy, we allow you to install this package next to your “production” firefox 3.0 install. This is done, by creating a copy of your existing firefox-3.0 profile the first time you start firefox-3.1. So don’t be scared to test this, just because you fear to bust your profile. Once 3.1 is final we will present you with a choice again where you can decide which profile to use in future.

A few more words on bugs:
If you have pending firefox-3.0 bugs that you feel would be important to get fixed for 3.1, please add the firefox-3.1 target to your bug and state which package version you are using.

From now on we will update the firefox-3.1 and xulrunner-1.9.1 package quite frequently, so if you file bugs, remember to check if they still apply if you receive an update.

Also to make bug triaging more easily, I would like to remind everyone that mozilla packages have a normalized bug description format ... which will allow us to swiftly forward your bugs to upstream on your behalf.

Enjoy!

Last week the Ubuntu Mozillateam had a scheduled meeting in #ubuntu-meeting on freenode.

During that meeting we mostly defined the ACTIONs and outstanding mozilla tasks for intrepid.

Thanks to Sasa Bodiroza (jazzva), the Minutes are now available for public consumption.

One of the important features we want to support in intrepid is out-of-the-box 3g support.

Now that Network Manager 0.7 has entered the archive, I’d like to to ask you to test your 3g hardware with it and report your findings to the 3G Hardware page on the wiki. We want to hear about all results – good and bad ones. Just remember to open a bug in launchpad and link it to your result on that wiki page.

How to test

If you are running intrepid, you just need to apt-get upgrade to get the current network-manager 0.7. Alternatively, you can also use the Network Manager PPA which usually has even more recent snapshots in it.

If you are using hardy, the PPA is currently the only source to track network manager 0.7 progress in ubuntu.

Edit: Finally, the latest daily intrepid livecd’s come with NetworkManager 0.7. Please test them as well.

Known issues

1. We have dropped all driver tweaks for now. This means you most likely see regressions with orinoco and madwifi/ath drivers.
2. /etc/network/interfaces is currently not recognized. Better remove all entries (except the “iface lo” one) from it to avoid confusing behaviour. The long term idea is to provide legacy backend for network-manager that parses your /etc/network/interfaces as good as possible. If thats not enough for some you probably will have to uninstall network-manager. In case our legacy backend will not reach a stable enough state for intrepid, we might go back to the dumb “blacklisting” approach we used in hardy.
3. network manager applet has no UI to disconnect a particular interface. So do not get confused if you suddenly are connected to wired and wireless at the same time.
4. VPN plugins are not yet available. I added an initial package for the openvpn plugin to the Network Manager PPA (intrepid only) for now. Once I have good feedback I will do the same for the other vpn variants and eventually upload those packages to the real archive.

How to report bugs

To file a bug, please follow the instructions below and file a bug using this link.

In general, Network Manager 0.7 bugs should have the word “0.7” in their bug summary, so I can easily filter them out.

If you encoutner connectivity issues with Network Manager 0.7 and your wifi/wired setup, please attach your complete syslog taken after you reproduced your issue.

If you are having 3g issues, please attach the complete output of lshal as well.

Please remember to search the current network-manager bugs to avoid filing duplicates. However, if in doubt, open a new bug rather than adding information to potential duplicates. Just name the bug you think you might see a dupe off in your new bug; we will sort them out properly.

A few days ago, the ubuntu mozilla-extension-dev team published their first monthly report for Jul 08.

Thanks for all contributors that helped us to get where we are.

If you are interested in helping out on extensions, read the extensions team wiki page and start to lurk on #ubuntu-mozillateam on irc.freenode.net, our team will be surely be happy to help you and answer your questions.

Hi again,

first I would like to thank all that helped out testing the ffox 2.0.0.15
security updates a few weeks ago. We now have new batch of firefox
security updates going out soon. Please help testing them and give us
feedback through the mozilla qa tracker (http://mozilla.qa.ubuntu.com).

As usual, we need testers for all supported ubuntu releases. Those are:

+ dapper – firefox 1.5 + feisty – firefox 2 + gutsy – firefox 2 + hardy – firefox 3

To participate, visit the mozilla qa site (http://mozilla.qa.ubuntu.com)
and click on the package version you want to test and submit results for
the test-cases listed there.

The built packages are available from my PPA and you can find
instructions and the sources.list entries required on top of the
mozilla QA tracker page.

If you don’t have a native install of the above ubuntu releases, using a
VM or chroot is perfectly fine as well. Instructions on how to setup
VirtualBox can be found at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VirtualBox.

As usual we expect it to be quite difficult to find testers for dapper,
feisty and gutsy. So if you have a few spare cycles and want to make a
difference, jump in, setup a VM and help out!

As always, in case you have questions or run into issues, feel free to
ask on #ubuntu-mozillateam or #ubuntu-testing on irc.freenode.net.

Thanks in advance for your help and happy testing!

– Alexander (asac)

NetworkManager 0.7 is back. So far I received good feedback on this snapshot, so I thought it was time to get more testers involved.

To get the packages, add the network-manager team PPA to your sources.list and upgrade your system:

https://launchpad.net/~network-manager/+archive

Enjoy and remember to let me know what works and what doesnt!

Update: If you end up having two wpa_supplicant processes running (after resume) just sudo killall wpa_supplicant and all should be back to normal.

mozilla is preparing an update for their firefox 2.0 product and the Ubuntu MozillaTeam [0] needs you to test the ubuntu candidate builds [1].

The testing is done by running a test plan [3] and submitting the results to the mozilla QA site [1]; in addition, just use the builds and look for regressions while doing your daily work.

If you need help, just join #ubuntu-testing or #ubuntu-mozillateam on irc.freenode.net and ask your questions.

Thanks a lot!

– Alexander

Note: We are looking for new testers on all supported ubuntu releases. That’s currently dapper, feisty, gutsy and hardy. In particular we have a lack of dapper and feisty testers and your contribution on testing those releases would be highly appreciated. So, if you want to help, but don’t have such a system installed (anymore), consider to setup a chroot or a VM (try virtualbox [2]).

[0] – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/
[1] – http://mozilla.qa.ubuntu.com
[2] – virtual box instructions are https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VirtualBox and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/VirtualBox
[3] – Testplan: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/QA

UPDATE: – I found out, that this mail went out to much more than just those who previously have contributed to the ubuntu QA tracker. I am sorry and apologize for hitting the wrong button. To compensate you for this minor annoyance, I offer free hugs in #ubuntu-mozillateam (just today) to everyone who received this mail by accident and shows up

Hi,

I feel thrilled to re-announce that we have a Ubuntu MozillaTeam meeting in #ubuntu-meeting on irc.freenode.net today!

The meeting starts at 1800 UTC and we have a proposed Agenda. If you have anything mozilla related you would like to discuss during the meeting, go ahead and add your agenda item to that list.

cu in a few.

In case you didn’t notice: firefox 3 was just released to the world and to hardy-updates.

Champagne!