Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

[Maki]

Why is firefox 2 stable set as firefox-2 and firefox 3 BETA 5 as firefox?
It's insane.

Seriously.

A stable version should be preferred as standard because of the fact it's, guess what, stable.

I am truly appalled by the fact that when I sudo apt-get install firefox, I get a BETA version delivered to my system instead of the stable version.

I suggest this be altered in the repositories so that firefox points at firefox 2 stable instead of firefox 3 BETA which is looking plain awful.

But yeah, people are probably going to throw bricks at me for this. I know forums. >_>
It's just plain normal and simple and all that that BETA programs are for those of us wanting to experiment and not for those of us just wanting a STABLE release version of programs they prefer using.

It truly is completely insane. And I know insanity. Heck, I LIVE insanity daily. You want insanity? I got it. But I'm not the one throwing an unstable BETA release version at people as the standard. >_>

[wmrobins]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

I could not agree more. I have two Hardy 64 bit installations. Both had Firefox 3b5 and both would not run flash correctly so I knocked it back to V2. Hardy is a lot more hardy when the apps are hard er.... stable.

wmrobins

[Teunis]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

I would agree with you but for the fact that for the majority 3b5 is just plain more stable and especially faster than v. 2.

Besides, it's mentioned on the front page and easily avoided.

[jlr]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

I also have to agree with the original poster. It really surprised me, but I gave it a shot and found it to have problems (don't remember exactly what now). "More stable for most people" doesn't strike me as the proper criterion for inclusion in a stable release. Isn't the idea that it's supposed to work for everyone?

[Davka]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

I'm on board with this one. Beta is, um - not the final distro? Any1 notice that? It's like, the version still in beta testing? Hello?

And I've found the beta to have glitches as well. I didn't sign up as a beta tester, I really think this decision was a bit foolish, people.

[RJ Hythloday]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

It's been known since hardy was in early alpha. I like ff3 except some of my fav plugins aren't supported yet.

[finifly]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

Ditto this. Nothing really works in FF3 yet so why it would be released in the final distro version is beyond me. I tried about 8 different things to try and get Java working and when that failed I reverted back to FF2. Then there were issues in installing add-ons which I fixed.

On a side note, (but still speaking of default software) can anybody confirm that on a fresh install of Hardy that OpenOffice Math does not install by default? Because I just encountered this and for some reason or another I cannot add the OpenOffice Math package by itself. I have done fresh installs of Edgy, Feisty, Gusty and Hardy and this is the only one in which this package was not installed by default.

[Maki]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

I would agree with you but for the fact that for the majority 3b5 is just plain more stable and especially faster than v. 2.

Besides, it's mentioned on the front page and easily avoided.

It's mentioned on the front page of what exactly?
If you install Hardy and then run a Konsole to do 'sudo apt-get install firefox', I can assure you, good sir or madam, that it is not mentioned anywhere.
And in my case 3b5 gave me more errors than I could handle, so I dumped it.

[Maki]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

It's been known since hardy was in early alpha. I like ff3 except some of my fav plugins aren't supported yet.

And for those of us who haven't been keeping up with development since we basically only keep up with when there would be the next stable release since we're too busy working, it is not known, nor mentioned anywhere that by 'sudo apt-get install firefox' we would get a beta release.

Now it would've made more sense to have had to do 'sudo apt-get install firefox3b5' so we would at least know it was beta, and then have 'sudo apt-get install firefox-2' for the stable release, but even then I have to put questionmarks to why anyone would make a stable release fail to work when trying to execute 'firefox' on the command line and only work when executing 'firefox-2'.

Truly it warps my mind trying to figure out how this came to be.

[Maki]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

Furthermore: The stable version runs into problems now since it's executed with firefox-2 and not firefox.
A rather odd occurance that makes me cringe.
Whyfor is a stable version pushed out of the mainstream user group by preferring the beta version exactly? Tell me your reasons and I will tell you how they are wrong.

NEVER should a beta version be forced upon the userbase. It reeks like Microsoft pushing their beta releases of Windows at the masses, claiming them to be full fledged stable releases but then coming with Service Pack after Service Pack to fix the problems they put in their OS themselves.
And it was that behavior I tried to escape by moving to Linux.

Truly, can we trust the Kubuntu development team from now on? Cause this trust has gotten a bit of a dent by this odd behavior. There is no reason why I would prefer an unstable beta release over a stable release version.

[jlr]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

Well, I don't think it's worth questioning the trustworthiness of the Ubuntu team based on a single poor decision. If you dumped distros every time a silly decision was made, you'd be awfully busy re-installing...

But, I certainly never received warning that 3b5 was going to be installed, and I can't find a "front page" listing anywhere either. And me-too on the /usr/bin/firefox-2 binary name breaking things...

[Maki]

Re: Firefox 3b5 standard instead of firefox 2 stable?

Well, I don't think it's worth questioning the trustworthiness of the Ubuntu team based on a single poor decision. If you dumped distros every time a silly decision was made, you'd be awfully busy re-installing...

But, I certainly never received warning that 3b5 was going to be installed, and I can't find a "front page" listing anywhere either. And me-too on the /usr/bin/firefox-2 binary name breaking things...

Teehee.. running 49 hours without sleep can make me say weird things, sorry.