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How to update browsers from official installation script?
Once you have installed Chrome or Firefox via the installation scripts in the Fatdog menu, the menu options will simply open the respective browser but logically not re-run the installation script to fetch a fresh browser version.
Is there a way to update the browsers that have been installed in this way? Both Chrome and Firefox release updates almost on a daily basis.
Thanks for your feedback! 
Yes, the update scripts are here:
Greetings!
I've just installed latest Fatdog64 frugally, manually. I prefer chrome as browser. The menu led me to a screen to download the chrome browser package, and a copy of the package was in /root, and gslapt confirmed it was installed. How do I launch it?
If I click on Chrome in the menu it asks me if I want to download the browser or use seamonkey. If I use the terminal and type google-chrome-spot it does the same. If I right click on the package in /root to install it says it is installed already. I reinstalled and still no joy. I must be missing something. What?
2013 Toshiba chromebook, 2Gb ram, and SDcard 
There is an issue with chrome, sometimes it doesn't download, what is the size of the package in root? 536 bytes? You have to try some more times to get it, until the package's size is in the 90MB area, then it downloaded correctly and will install.
See also here: viewtopic.php?t=7276
Definitely challenging. Download chrome 10 times now. Each time only 536 bytes! I read comments from MikeWalsh and jamesbond in linked post. Download latest .deb from google. Then what? Couldn't convert to package so extracted to its folder, and converted folder to sfs. Breathe deeply. In terminal 'run-as-spot google-chrome-stable' , lots of Gtk errors but eventually a chrome welcome screen tries to open but only gets to large white rectangle, no borders at all, and hangs. Have to use xkill to get out. This way can't be right so am a bit frustrated.
2013 Toshiba chromebook, 2Gb ram, and SDcard
@Phil_54 :-
Purely FYI, the only bit that actually needs to be changed is the 'chrome' directory. Everything else is basically just 'generic' support structure. And installing direct from the .deb has the unfortunate side-effect of buggering-up permissions on the Puppy 'pup_rw' layer, disabling CUPS in the process. I don't know whether FatDog has issues in this area.
My updater simply d/ls the .deb, unzips it, extracts the 'chrome' directory, discards everything else, and just swaps the new directory for the old one. No big secret. Nearly 15 yrs of messing around with Chrome since the original 'beta' testing programme in Summer '07 has taught me a thing or two about dealing with the world's most popular browser..... 
Even Chrome is now somewhat more modular than it used to be in the early days. Back then, it was a bit of a mess, to be blunt about it.....
Mike. 
@Phil_54 Which version of FD are you having the Chrome install issue?
@Clarity I'm using Fatdog64-813 Final released on 7 October 2022.
@step Thanks for the PM. Tried but didn't work. Still got tcz package at 536 bytes.
@mikewalsh Thanks for reminding me of your portables. I updated a chrome portable copy in another puppy and place on shared partition accessible from fatdog partition. Launched using ./LAUNCH and it works! Latest version. Thank you for your work on these portables.
2013 Toshiba chromebook, 2Gb ram, and SDcard
@Phil_54: Do you have devx.sfs loaded? If not, the Busybox ar is used by the undeb script and it has problems recognizing this particular DEB, unlike the full ar, which is in devx.
A quick workaround would be to load devx.sfs and try again.
Greetings!
Yeah, this kind of cutback was prominent a decade or two ago. Not too much in today's PC RAM sizes and internet transports.
Maybe best for devs to evaluate if they should move it from the devx to the main distro as it would satisfy the needs of both type of users thereby reducing any future misbehaviors needing forum support.
Of couse this idea may be too simplistic where it overlooks something.
Just an idea
The portable-Chrome build does try to get around this business of 'ar' being in the Puppy devX.
Since they're pretty small, I've included the appropriate 'ar' binary and associated libs from Tahrpup64, Xenialpup64, Bionicpup64 and Fossapup64.....the last four 'buntu LTS builds, and by far the most widely-used across the community. When the updater is run, it detects the 'os-release' script in use and sym-links into position the correct set of files. It runs the operation, then un-links those files again.
It's not a perfect solution, but I settled on this way of doing things because research showed that all the tech blogs recommended the use of 'ar' directly even ahead of using 'undeb' itself; it was always the first choice on everybody's list of options. Hence this way of implementing the extraction process.
I'm no Bash guru, but it works pretty well for me.
Mike.
@JakeSFR "A quick workaround would be to load devx.sfs and try again"
Thanks Jake. It worked. For anyone reading this, I downloaded the relevant devx.sfs for fatdog64-813, saved it to an accessible partition on the same sdcard, loaded it, downloaded chrome browser via control panel, which installed chrome and made txz file in /root at 98M. Unloaded devx.sfs. Rebooted, and without reloaded devx.sfs, chrome was there, up to date, and posting from it.
2013 Toshiba chromebook, 2Gb ram, and SDcard
I posted a hotfix package for the undeb script here: viewtopic.php?p=68794#p68794
Greetings!
When you are trying to update the browser from the mentioned menu options in the control panel as a standard user (non-root), you're being asked the root password but then the update is rejected with a warning that you must be root.
Is there a way to update the browsers that have been installed in this way as a standard user from the terminal? Or do you have to log into the root account to update the browsers? 
That's not what I experienced in 901. When running as non-root, I'm not asked to be root, at all. Clicking on the update browser icon simply fails with the warning as you can't update unless you're root.
Is there a way to update the browsers that have been installed in this way as a standard user from the terminal? Or do you have to log into the root account to update the browsers?
Open terminal, then type run-as-root fatdog-control-panel.sh. This will run the control panel as root, and then you can update the browser. Or everyone's favourite: sudo fatdog-control-panel.sh. Note you need to run this from terminal, as "sudo" is not a GUI program.
I just booted a pristine 814 with pfix=nox. From terminal, I created a new non-root user (I called it fido). I pressed Ctrl-Alt-F2 to access the second virtual terminal which shows the login prompt. There, I logged in as fido. Still in that terminal. I run "xwin" to start the graphical desktop as "fido" (non-root). Once the desktop started up, I launched urxvt. The terminal prompt showed "fido$", a reminder that I'm running as "fido" and it's non-root. There, I typed the command I gave in the previous post. The control panel launched, no problem. When I clicked "Update Firefox" I don't get the warning about "not running as root". So it works.
If you have problems, that maybe due to your peculiar setup.
For chrome ...
https://www.google.co.uk/chrome/ and download the deb version
Once downloaded right click and 'extract'
Replace the /opt/google/chrome folder with the chrome sub-folder within that extracted set.
Code: Select all
#!/bin/sh
T=`mktemp -d`
cd $T
wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
ar x google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
tar xf data.tar.xz
rm -rf /opt/google/chrome
mv opt/google/chrome /opt/google/.
cd
rm -rf $T