So, should I drop T-Bird by the same reasoning I dropped Firefox yesterday?
Oh I will miss the functionality by going to some other client.
Changes planned for Thunderbird: https://www.ghacks.net/2021/02/10/thunderbird-team-outlines-plans-for-the-email-client/
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Computers can be so much fun (can’t they)…
After considering the buster-backports suggestion from @Quarnero (who was kind enough to send some additional info about that option via private message), and then considering byzantium (which some on this forum seem to think relatively stable now), I was leaning toward just switching to byzantium.
However, I decided to reach out to support about the firefox-esr update issue first. After a few messages back and forth, @mladen indicated that there was an issue and they wouldn’t be able to update firefox-esr, at least for the time being. He suggested the switch to byzantium was probably the best option for me.
So after a back up, I finally updated my sources.list file, replacing “amber” with “byzantium”. Running sudo apt update said there were 1812 packages that could be upgraded. Then things went downhill…
$ sudo apt full-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Error!
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libc6-dev : Breaks: libgcc-8-dev (< 8.4.0-2~) but 8.3.0-6 is to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
A search led me to this:
So I tried the accepted answer… 
$ sudo apt install gcc-8-base
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
gsettings-desktop-schemas : Breaks: mutter (< 3.31.4) but 3.30.2-9~deb10u1 is to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
Which led me to go read the comments on that answer… the last of which points to this page:
It tries to explain the problem and offers a workaround… that I’m not sure I’m ready to dive into (at least not right now).
As near as I can tell, nothing was actually upgraded/installed from byzantium, so for now I think my sources.list is going back to amber, and I will switch back to my old computer 
… at least for general browsing.
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@FileNotFound, I’ve just checked on my Mobian (should work now for everyone on PureOS as well) installation. But amd64 related here is output from my Debian 11 (bullseye), 64-bit PC:
sudo apt list firefox-esr -a
Listing… Done
firefox-esr/testing 78.11.0esr-1 amd64 [upgradable from: 78.10.0esr-1]
firefox-esr/stable 78.11.0esr-1~deb10u1 amd64
firefox-esr/now 78.10.0esr-1 amd64 [installed,upgradable to: 78.11.0esr-1]
and after sudo apt upgrade:
sudo apt list firefox-esr -a
Listing… Done
firefox-esr/testing,now 78.11.0esr-1 amd64 [installed]
firefox-esr/stable 78.11.0esr-1~deb10u1 amd64
As included within PureOS repo:
firefox-esr_78.11.0esr-1_amd64.deb 19-Jun-2021 02:45 53M
firefox-esr_78.11.0esr-1_arm64.deb 19-Jun-2021 02:45 49M
Edit: both above packages are missing ~deb10u1_amd64.deb extension, and therefore not working (perhaps not allowed to be apt upgraded) properly (just my guess). @mladen, if helps (in short) with sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade renaming of those to firefox-esr_78.11.0esr-1~deb10u1_amd64.deb and firefox-esr_78.11.0esr-1~deb10u1_arm64.deb? Also, if PureOS Maintainers doesn’t agree for some reason(s) to make this name of package change (rename), I cannot help here any further.
I am sorry to be jumping in the middle here, especially after you tried other things.
I had an issue with updating too. I tried running apt update, etc. After thinking the version of the package was simply unavailable, debugging left me with a disconnect between my package list and what was actually in the amber update database. (The full thread on the PureOS Tracker is here.)
The net:
I was finally able to make this work by erasing repo.puri.sm_pureos_dists_amber_main_binary-amd64_Packages in /var/lib/apt/lists and then doing the ‘apt update.’ I am not sure why this did not work by simply doing apt update, but it seems to have gotten stuck somehow.
After doing this, I discovered there were numberous updates I had not seen.
From the discussion, I am not sure if this is what you are also seeing with firefox-esr, but I thought I would chime in.
PS. Mine also started as a “file not found” issue.
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I gave this a try, but it didn’t help. I also tried deleting the amber-security file as that’s where firefox-esr is for amber, but that didn’t work either.
I wasn’t surprised as it seemed all these files had to be downloaded again when I changed my sources.list back to amber.
I had been hoping @mladen might see and comment on Quarnero’s question (was posted over the weekend… so Mladen probably hasn’t had a chance yet) 
I actually chose my forum name long before I ran into this issue, but had not made the connection here until I saw this.
Sorry that did not help. Mladen has always been a busy guy.
Unsure if there is some kind of repo hierarchy but very same .deb packages can by found under: https://mirror.fsf.org/pureos/pool/main/f/firefox-esr/. There are two same firefox-esr/stable ones as within other PureOS repos that I find as correct (upgradable) ones: firefox-esr_78.8.0esr-1~deb10u1_amd64.deb (2021-02-24) and firefox-esr_78.11.0esr-1~deb10u1_arm64.deb (2021-06-03). But @FileNotFound you can just download firefox-esr/testing one: firefox-esr_78.11.0esr-1_amd64.deb (2021-06-18) and do sudo dpkg -i firefox-esr*, until issue (perhaps with some good reason) solved.
P.S. Or just take (with dpkg --install _, up to your agreement) firefox-esr/stable package from current Debian repo!
@FileNotFound, looks like (to me) that firefox-esr_91.4.1esr will be available soon under PureOS (just current “weather forecast” from my side, another speculation of mine):
Also, as of Debian 11.2 released (December 18th, 2021) I see @guido.gunther question: “It seems security updates for bookworm aren’t currently synced to byzantium. Can that be enabled?” as correlated (remember it is just me, cannot explain this officially).
P.S. Mobian latest, as of today, is still 78.15.0esr-1~deb11u1.
EDIT:
sudo apt list firefox-esr -a
Listing… Done
firefox-esr/stable-security,now 91.4.1esr-1~deb11u1 amd64 [installed]
firefox-esr/stable 78.15.0esr-1~deb11u1 amd64
firefox-esr/oldstable 78.15.0esr-1~deb10u1 amd64
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still no firefox-esr 91 available:
$ apt policy firefox-esr-l10n-de
firefox-esr-l10n-de:
Installed: 78.14.0esr-1~deb11u1
Candidate: 78.14.0esr-1~deb11u1
Version table:
*** 78.14.0esr-1~deb11u1 500
500 https://repo.pureos.net/pureos byzantium/main amd64 Packages
500 https://repo.pureos.net/pureos byzantium-security/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
Am I missing a repo or is something blocking the build? firefox-esr 91 has been available in Debian bullseye for weeks now.
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Please take a look at this explanation: http://techrights.org/2021/11/10/firefox-esr-91-issues/ (not secure https link). Finally I can understand what described there, few related issues.
No, that blogpost from November doesn’t explain it.
As I already wrote, firefox-esr 91 has been available in Debian bullseye for weeks now via bullseye-security:
$ apt policy firefox-esr
firefox-esr:
Installed: 91.5.0esr-1~deb11u1
Candidate: 91.5.0esr-1~deb11u1
Version table:
*** 91.5.0esr-1~deb11u1 500
500 https://deb.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
78.15.0esr-1~deb11u1 500
500 https://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 Packages
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The old version 78.14.0esr-1~deb11u1
is still in byzantium/main and byzantium-security/main
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I just found/accepted this explanation:
That is not the issue. The problem is with PureOS repository.
Debian bullseye-security/main and bullseye/main contain newer package than
PureOS byzantium-security/main and byzantium/main.
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amber-security contains newer firefox-esr than byzantium-security
Why so?
https://software.pureos.net/package/bin/amber-security/firefox-esr
https://software.pureos.net/package/bin/byzantium-security/firefox-esr
Edit: found this: https://software.pureos.net/package/builds/firefox-esr/1
What is the problem with failed builds?
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looks like byzantium is missing (rust-)cbindgen >= 0.19 as build-dependency: https://software.pureos.net/package/builds/job/75163a5e-c53f-4503-99ba-a5ba15a01f4e
Debian is offering cbindgen 0.20 via stable-proposed-updates because of this:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1001692
https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/rust-cbindgen
and byzantium doesn’t
@mladen could you have a look into this?
Edit: Created a task in the PureOS tracker: https://tracker.pureos.net/T1101
3 Likes
A new version of Firefox is now available in PureOS, version: Mozilla Firefox 91.6.0esr
5 Likes
And if you can’t stand the new Proton UI: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/firefox-change-ui-tutorial.html
I created thread about how are packages merged to PureOS, could you look please? When are debian testing packages merged to PureOS 10 repo?