#15

Upstream Firefox is now looking at official Flatpak support, so it’s probably best to wait for that as it’s likely going to use the Freedesktop SDKs.

1 Like
#16

[citation needed]

#17
1 Like
#18

In Firefox-Flatpak from the Fedora registry I cannot play all videos (YouTube’s VP9-encoded videos work, but Facebook’s for example don’t). org.freedesktop.{ffmpeg,openh264} are installed. Any ideas?

#19

It’s probably not possible. These extensions are for the freedesktop-runtime while Firefox is using the fedora-runtime. This really is a major annoyance.

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#20

Ah bummer, that renders the Flatpak-version pretty unusable…

#21

https://firefox-flatpak.mojefedora.cz/

#22

That one is not updated afaik. There is one being worked at flathub and the codecless version in fedora repos.

#23

I’ve spent a long time trying to figure this out and the only way to have media codecs in Firefox right now is Fedora’s regular, RPM based, containerless version that is preinstalled.

Your options are basically:

  1. :frowning_face: The unofficial Firefox flatpak repository: unmaintained and stopped working for me a few weeks ago. Does not run on FS31, at least not on my two laptops.
  2. :slightly_frowning_face: Fedora Container Registry: Flatpak but without codecs. Ignores layered codecs (as it should), but also Cisco’s H264 Flatpak extension. Apparently built by Red Hat using the “wrong” base image so that’s not going to be solved any time soon.
  3. :neutral_face: RPM: not a Flatpak but does work with layered codecs (installed using rpm-ostree)
  4. :roll_eyes: Firefox official: An official, multilocale Flatpak is in development at Mozilla but then again… it has been for months and we have yet to even see testing builds so don’t hold your breath!
4 Likes
#24

firefox flatpak from fedora should be able to use ffmpeg runtime from flathub, when installed …

#25

It doesn’t work for me. I have tried it with the flatpak from the Fedora Registry.

#26

You are correct. I thought it was originally but after carefully reading the description at the Fedora wiki I realized that it is analogous to the FreeDesktop Runtime, that is subtly different.

#27

Seems Mozilla are working on creating an official Flatpak for Flathub publication now (progress tracked in a new bugzilla thread).

(Looking forward to this. Really want to ditch layered Chrome entirely, but codecs are holding me back. If this can get working nightlies back too, that would be amazing.)

#28

About time…

Work on this by Fedora seems on and off. People got really active all of a sudden and now once again almost 2 weeks without any news. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Them choosing Flathub is a real plus for a united community though. All these organizations like Fedora, Endless and others creating their own repository is just not helping…

#29

There’s generally a lot to be done, and a lot of it also depends on Mozilla doing their own backend work, e.g. recently there was the wait for their backend infrastructure to be set up to automatically build Flatpaks.

At minimum, Endless has involvement with the upstream Flatpak, and I’d believe Fedora does as well.

#30

It’s not just the delays from waiting on internal infrastructure changes. The last comment is a month ago, which discusses permission settings in the Flatpak manifest. That post is full of questions, which seem kind of fundamental and haven’t even been replied to. So either they took the discussion to a direct chat, or all involved are working on other stuff again.

I’d expect the manifest itself to be figured out by now and this just being about getting the CI/CD workflow implemented. I’d also expect Mozilla to make Flatpak a major priority, since:

  1. Application sandboxing will contribute to better security and this is kind of important for webbrowsers; and
  2. When they have Flatpak and Snap they could easily get rid of RPM’s, DEB’s and other Linux package formats and declare these the only two supported ways to run Firefox on all Linux distributions, which would probably simplify their CI/CD, testing, packaging, distribution and support significantly and permanently!

Or is this just me…?

1 Like
#31

@toMeloos Totally agreed. But I think as Mozilla is on it’s downfall they try to squeez stuff out of the various snap flatpak blocks (the last replies are from people related to flatpak) in indirect or implied form whether in material or intellectual form.
A friend who is not technical (previously Mac now Windows user) at all I mentioned “Firefox”.
The reply you get is: “Wasn’t this the old browser? The one before Chrome?”.
And I have to say it’s very accurate.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-waits-for-subscription-products-to-generate-revenue/

But I would be more than happy to have a legacy browser ready to install via flatpak. (equally happy about firefox as flatpak or internet explorer as a flatpak, a real benefit would be to have “current” browser availalble as flatpak) #Lowzilla

#32

Mozilla Firefox is the current browser. Google’s Chrome is proprietary
software. So is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which does not run on GNU/
Linux.

#33

Than there was chromium. Usage statistics are the most valueable thing to indicate what the current browser is. And I actually tried to switch to Firefox a couple of months ago, I gave it a go for a month. No way. Hope you don’t work for them!

#34

Please all stop getting off-topic. Let’s not start this silly off-topic discussion about “What is the best browser” or “I use this browser, because…”. And talking about what is “current” is ridiculous.

I’ve reported these posts as off-topic, maybe they can be split or so.

This thread here is, by it’s title, about H264 and other codecs that e.g. do have problems in the Fedora Flatpak Firefox.