Can't get firefox to install

[Mazate]

Let me apologize in advance for my vague explanation of my problem. I'm actually at work and don't have access to some of the errors and such that I'm getting. I will add them when I get home but that will still be several hours yet.

First off, let me say that 13.04 looks fantastic. It's very impressive and nice to look at.

Ok, here's my problem. This actually started in 12.10. I did a fresh install and went to install Firefox. It went to download the file and then began the process of installation. About half-way through it started giving me an error. I don't have the exact verbiage of the error (one of those things that I'll add later) but the general idea seemed to be that firefox was already installed. I looked for it in the menu but it wasn't there. Anyway, I installed 12.10 twice and got this error both times. So, I decided to upgrade to 13.04 and see if that helped me any. I did that and it still won't install. I went to the software center to install it there and it showed that it was indeed already installed even though I hadn't installed it successfully yet. I went into the KDE menu system again and typed "Firefox" but it wasn't there. I uninstalled it in the software center and then tried to reinstall. It went through downloading the file again and tried to install... again half way through the install it just stopped and went back to the normal menu in the software center showing firefox as available to install.

Sorry for the vague explanations. I'll try to show what is happening with some screenshots when I get home. I was just hoping someone had experienced this before and could know how to resolve it. I also tried to install in the terminal and got a similar error there stating something about it already being installed.

Thanks for the help.

[vinnywright]

yes please show the error from the terminal including your install command ,,,, this is not the norm.

VINNY

[Mazate]

Post #2

[Mazate]

Post #3

[Mazate]

Sorry, I can't post code without having 3 posts under my belt. Here's what I get when trying to install Firefox at the command line:

(Edit) Sorry, this was my install command: sudo apt-get install firefox

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
  latex-xft-fonts firefox-gnome-support
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  firefox
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/24.8 MB of archives.
After this operation, 55.2 MB of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 105936 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking firefox (from .../firefox_20.0+build1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/firefox_20.0+build1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop', which is also in package kubuntu-firefox-installer 13.04ubuntu2
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/firefox_20.0+build1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
david-kublaptop@david-kublaptop-Satellite-L645D:

[sithlord48]

ok so by default kubuntu ships with a program called the firefox installer (its there to make it easer to install firefox..) its just a simple front end that basicly gets the firefox package and installs it for you . the idea being you find it in your menu and use it to install because your new to kubuntu/ linux in general and don't know to look in your package manager to install it. the firefox installer created a file firefox.desktop (basicly a shortcut) in your applications folder /usr/share/applications/ folder. this folder is a place that shortcuts to programs are placed so that your desktop enviroment can use it as the base for its program list (like in your K menu). Naturally when you install firefox it has its own firefox.desktop to put in this folder, BUT it can't because there is one already and it was not made by an older version of the package your installing so the installer ends up unable to create one of the files for its correct install and it bails.
not to worry you have choices:

you can remove the package kubuntu-firefox-installer , and install the firefox package as you were trying. this will also remove the meta package kubuntu-desktop and could affect future distro versions upgrades (ie. 13.04 -> 13.10)

you can use the firefox installer and have it install firefox (it might fail as well). oddly enuff you should be able to find it in the k menu by typing firefox. you can find it in your K menu as Applications->Internet->Mozilla Firefox Browser Installer. (or the command muon-installer --applications=firefox). but since it will essentually do the same thing as apt-get install firefox you will have a problem.

this is a packaging bug on the part of the kubuntu-firefox-installer package(bug#717666) is the old bug for natty

and bug#1165652 is the new one for raring i just reported.

[Mazate]

Actually I used the installer first thing and it did fail. So, I think that my only remaining option is to uninstall the installer and then install Firefox manually. Do you have any instructions that I could use to uninstall the Firefox installer?

[sithlord48]

well you can use muon to uninstall it by searching for the package kubuntu-firefox-installer
or you can use the command (in konsole)
sudo apt-get remove kubuntu-firefox-installer

[Mazate]

well you can use muon to uninstall it by searching for the package kubuntu-firefox-installer
or you can use the command (in konsole)
sudo apt-get remove kubuntu-firefox-installer

It worked great and Firefox is up and running. Thanks for the help.

[Mazate]

Ok, I'm just adding to this thread since I'm having the same issue. I reinstalled Kubuntu and am having the same problems but this time around I"m having a lot of problems. First off, when I go to uninstall the firefox installer, this is what I get:

david@david-Satellite-L645D:~$ sudo apt-get remove kubuntu-firefox-installer
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 firefox-globalmenu : Depends: firefox (= 20.0+build1-0ubuntu0.12.10.3) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

Any ideas?

[SteveRiley]

First, let's look at what you have. Please show the output of

dpkg -l | grep firefox

[Mazate]

Ok, here it is:

david@david-Satellite-L645D:~$ dpkg -l | grep firefox
ii  firefox-locale-en                               16.0.1+build1-0ubuntu1                    amd64        English language pack for Firefox
ii  kubuntu-firefox-installer                       12.04ubuntu1                              amd64        Mozilla Firefox installer for Kubuntu

[SteveRiley]

Hm, that's surprising. I was expecting to find an unconfigured package in there someplace.

What's the output of:

apt-get -s -f install

[Mazate]

david@david-Satellite-L645D:~$ apt-get -s -f install
NOTE: This is only a simulation!
      apt-get needs root privileges for real execution.
      Keep also in mind that locking is deactivated,
      so don't depend on the relevance to the real current situation!
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  liboil0.3
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove it.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 354 not upgraded.
david@david-Satellite-L645D:~$

[SteveRiley]

Oh, this is a new install (you did mention that). Looks like you need to bring it up-to-date first.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade