Steps To install Firefox Developer Edition on Linux Ubuntu

Firefox developer edition is specially built for Web developers that comes preloaded with many web developers tools such as WebIDE and Valence which allows developers to debug other browsers and apps directly from within the Firefox developer edition. By using Firefox  Developer Edition, you also gain access to tools and platform features at least 12 weeks before they reach the main Firefox release channel.

The developer edition of Firefox is available for most of operating systems like Windows, Linux, and MAC OS. And the latest edition includes a “next-generation CSS engine, “the entire suite of “Firefox DevTools,” a “Shapes Editor,” “Fonts Panel,” and much more! In this post, we go through the steps to install the Firefox developer edition on Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux.

Uninstall Traditional Firefox

Before we begin, install the Firefox dev edition, first uninstall the Traditional Firefox installation to avoid conflict.

Ubuntu uses: sudo apt remove firefox
Debian users: sudo apt-get remove firefox-esr
Arch Linux users: sudo pacman -R firefox
Fedora Users: sudo dnf remove firefox
OpenSUSE users: sudo zypper remove firefox

Install Firefox Developer Edition on Linux

Firefox Developer edition can be downloaded for Linux at this link. Once downloaded, extract the downloaded “tar.bz2” file and move it to the home folder with the file manager.

launch a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T, or by browsing for it.

Now access the Download folder using CD ~/Downloads Then run tar command tar -xvf firefox-*.tar.bz2 to extract the TarBZ2 archive

Once the files are fully extracted, move them to /opt folder. However, before we can move the files to this directory, you’ll need to elevate your command-line session from a standard user to Root, using the su or sudo -s command.

Now that there is Root access in the terminal use the mv command to place the Firefox system files in the /opt directory of your Linux PC’s filesystem.

Note: Change “username” in the command below with the username on your computer, or the files will not move.

mv /home/username/Downloads/firefox /opt

Firefox Developer Edition’s files are in place in the /opt directory on your Linux PC. Still, you won’t be able to launch the browser app or use any of its functions, as the binary isn’t in the right place.

To set the binary in the right place, you must make a symlink from the   /opt/firefox/ folder to the /usr/local/bin/ folder using the ln command.

ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox

Create desktop shortcut

After putting the Firefox binary in the /usr/local/bin, you’ll need to set up a new desktop shortcut by using the touch command.

touch /usr/share/applications/firefox-developer.desktop

With the new desktop file made, we can start editing the shortcut. To modify the file, you must open it up in a text editor.

nano /usr/share/applications/firefox-developer.desktop

With the desktop shortcut open in Nano, paste the code below inside of the editor.

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Firefox Developer
GenericName=Firefox Developer Edition
Exec=/usr/local/bin/firefox
Terminal=false
Icon=/opt/firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default48.png
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Network;X-Developer;
Comment=Firefox Developer Edition Web Browser

Save the edit with Ctrl + O and exit with Ctrl + X. Then update the permissions of the file with chmod.

chmod +x /usr/share/applications/firefox-developer.desktop

With the permissions updated, you’ll be able to access the Firefox developer edition in your application menu under “Internet.