Tux Machines

Firefox in EasyOS and Debugging Firefox on Android

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Feb 08, 2023

Fix for Firefox getting deleted when SFS layers change

Forum member Caramel installed the 'firefox-skel-ask' PET, which has a menu entry "Internet -> Download latest Firefox".

I have already posted how this has been properly internationalized:

https://bkhome.org/news/202302/ff-download-improved.html

However, Caramel then added an SFS onto the layers on the main desktop, and after rebooting, Firefox was deleted.

There are different ways that Firefox can be installed; via easy.sfs, via the 'firefox-skel-ask' PET, via a FF package in PKGget (PPM), or via a FF SFS. This may cause a conflict if two FFs are installed via these different ways. To fix this, there is a script in the initrd, /sbin/fixlayers, that tries to detect conflicts.

I found the problem in /sbin/fixlayers script and applied a fix:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/e6b1eb44a499fa6cdc8fc552b2c22d3d22e33536

I probably should put in similar code for Chromium. The Kirkstone-series has Chromium in easy.sfs, but there are also Chromium SFSs����

Debugging Firefox on Android

I just figured out how to get my Android phone recognised by Android Debug Bridge (adb) on my MacBook, which finally allowed me to remote debug websites on Firefox Android. Just so I don't forget what I did, this is a short documentation of the steps needed to get everything to work. Hopefully it will stay relevant for a good while.