14 DAY TRIAL // The guys over at Mozilla have been working hard for a long period of time now for the release of a mobile version of Firefox into the wild, codenamed Fennec. The development of the mobile software solutions has advanced to the extent that now we already have a Beta 5 flavor of the browser available on for Maemo-based handsets, as well as an Alpha 3 variant for Windows Mobile-powered phones. Since Mozilla is hard at work aiming at delivering a final version of Fennec as soon as possible, they have introduced recently a new feature for Maemo phones, namely nightly updates.
What the nightly builds are all about includes the availability of new updates for the browser as soon as they are developed. The option has been introduced for a long time for the desktop flavor of the software, and now it also comes to the Maemo variant, though there are some differences. Those who would like to get nightly updates installed on their Maemo device should follow the following instructions: - Go to the nightly repository. The repository is basically a large file server with folders for each combination of source code branch and language localization. - Choose the branch you want (trunk == mozilla-central / 1.9.2 == mozilla-1.9.2). Fennec 1.0 is being released from the Mozilla 1.9.2 source code branch, so you probably want to use “1.9.2_*” branch. - Choose the locale you want. You probably want the multi-locale bundle (”*_multi”), but you can choose a different one. - Click on the “*_nightly.install” file in the appropriate repository. This should automatically start the Application Manager on your Maemo device and Firefox for Maemo will be installed.
The Application Manager is set to announce users on new versions of the nightly builds and enable them to install the updates. “When we have release packages in those repositories, there will be a second .install file (with no “_nightly” in the name) that points to the release section rather than the extras section. But if you install that, you won’t get nightly updates for those,” is what Mark Finkle from Mozilla states on his blog.
One other thing that he notes about Fennec for Maemo is that the installation location for the browser has been changed with the release of the Beta 5 version. While with the Maemo-based N810 the software was set to be installed in the root file system in the /usr folder, the Nokia N900 needs it in the /opt folder, mainly due to a larger amount of space available there than on the root file system partition (1Gb vs 100Mb). Since Fennec Beta 5 for Maemo arrived, the browser "now installs to /opt in nightly versions,” something that also results in faster response time.