On linux, how does firefox find your installed plugins if running from the tar.gz archive?
I am on Debian Linux 6. The only version of firefox it supports is version 3.6. Rather than trying to actually install firefox 9, I instead just unzipped the tar.gz. It runs, and it found my old settings and history, and my 'little' addons like "save as PDF" but there are a couple of problems.
One, it cannot find my installed flash plugin. I know where the 'properly installed' version keeps its plugins, and could copy the flash plugin symlink into the new one's plugins folder if I could find it, but I can't find it. It's not just the flash plugin either. It can't find the MPlayer plugin either, or my Java plugin.
Also, it does not integrate with my GTK theme I am using the way the 'properly installed' version did, making it a tad ugly. I could live with this, my more serious problem is definitely the plugin problem.
All Replies (4)
Common places are /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ and /usr/lib/browser-plugins/
I know that my plugins from the properly installed firefox 3 are in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins.
What I'm saying is that the firefox 9 that I unzipped from a tar.gz can't find them even though they are there. And I can't find a plugin folder in where I unzipped FF9 to to copy them into.
I unzipped it into $HOME/Downloads/firefox, and there, in what your link would call program_directory, was no 'plugins' directory in with everything else like there was supposed to be. I created one, and copied my plugins into it, and restarted firefox, but it still said that there were no plugins installed, and Youtube videos still gave the 'missing plugin' message. I don't get it.
Hm? here's something interesting. In my profile directory, I found a file called 'pluginreg.dat'. It contained this data:
Generated File. Do not edit.
[HEADER] Version:0.15:$ Arch:x86-gcc3:$ [PLUGINS] [INVALID] /home/neil/Downloads/firefox/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-wmp.so:$ 1267896942000:$ /home/neil/Downloads/firefox/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-rm.so:$ 1267896942000:$ /home/neil/Downloads/firefox/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-dvx.so:$ 1267896942000:$ /home/neil/Downloads/firefox/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer.so:$ 1267896943000:$ /home/neil/Downloads/firefox/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-qt.so:$ 1267896942000:$ /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-rm.so:$ 1267896942000:$ /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.26/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so:$ 1304498979000:$ /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer.so:$ 1267896943000:$ /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-qt.so:$ 1267896942000:$ /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-wmp.so:$ 1267896942000:$ /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-dvx.so:$ 1267896942000:$ /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so:$ 1309501243000:$
Does this mean that it knows where they are, but does not consider them valid?
Modified by cor-el
Did you install a 64 bit Firefox version or a 32 bit Firefox version?
A 64 Firefox version will only work with 64 bit versions of plugins and a 32 bit Firefox version will only work with 32 bit versions of the plugins and programs.
So you may have to install a 32 bit Firefox version if you currently have a 64 bit Firefox version but do not have all plugins in 64 bit version or the other way around.
It should work if both are the same version.