Including RPM's for older versions of firefox (and other applications)

[Andrew Farris]

John Reiser wrote:
> Rodd Clarkson wrote:
>> Can we do better, by offering installs of older browsers that can be run
>> in parallel to make it easier to test browser based development?
> 
> If the .rpm is relocatable, then there is almost nothing to do:
> get the other .rpm and install it in a non-default place.
> If the .rpm is not relocatable, then there is almost nothing
> that _can_ be done.  From the beginning the upstream project and
> the packager must design for multiple concurrent installations and
> concurrent yet separate dynamic invocations, and _test_ them.

Well with the upstream binary tarball you can run them separately, but not at 
the same time.  When you run FF2 via the ./firefox shell script, while you have 
FF3 open, it will just launch a new window of the currently running FF3.  But it 
seems to work fine when both are not open at the same time.

I created launcher for each using the -P profilename option and started them up 
a few times after each other.  If you did use the same profile for both you'd 
probably see some weird behavior though (I know it will seasaw back and forth on 
trying to update your addons each time you launch the other version).  Looks 
like the big issue would just be moving the files location to something like 
/usr/lib/firefox2/ and renaming the files in /usr/share and /usr/bin/.

-- 
Andrew Farris <lordmorgul at gmail.com> www.lordmorgul.net
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No one now has, and no one will ever again get, the big picture. - Daniel Geer
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