3

I just installed Firefox 57 on my Ubuntu 17.10 box. Firefox came as an tar.bz2 file, so I extracted it and are able to start Firefox by issuing this command: /path/to/firefox.

Is it possible to start Firefox from the GNOME search box, as I could when I installed older Firefox instances by the use of .deb files?

pomsky
  • 68,507
kenneho
  • 31
  • 3
  • Firefox 57 has been released and the Firefox 57 update can be installed using the Software Updater application. – karel Nov 16 '17 at 08:39

1 Answers1

0

You'll have to create a .desktop file for Firefox 57 (say firefox57.desktop) in ~/.local/share/applications. You may use the following format:

[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Launch Firefox 57
Terminal=false
Name=Firefox 57
Exec=full/path/to/firefox-57
Type=Application
Icon=firefox

Now if you search for "Firefox 57" in GNOME search box, it should appear.

Notes:

  • Provide the full/path/to/firefox-57 in the Exec= line (i.e. put /home/YOUR_USER_NAME/Downloads/... instead of ~/Downloads/...)
  • This Firefox 57 launcher will use the Firefox icon specified by your icon theme. You can use a custom icon (preferably a .png or .svg image) by specifying its full path in the Icon= line.
pomsky
  • 68,507
  • Thanks for the reply. I just came across https://itsfoss.com/firefox-quantum-ubuntu/, and decided to install Firefox beta using PPA, so I won't need to set up the launcher after all. But thanks for the information anyway, I'm sure it will come in handy later on. – kenneho Nov 15 '17 at 19:10