How-to add Steve Pusser's MX Linux build of Pale Moon to a Debian-based distro

[andyprough]

This is for anyone who wants to use Steve Pusser's builds of Pale Moon that he builds specifically for MX Linux. These builds should work on most Debian-based systems, as MX is simply Debian plus some homemade programs and configurations. At its core MX is just Debian, and in fact MX directly uses the Debian repositories for most of its software.

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Step 1 - Determine which version of Debian is compatible with your distro. You have two choices here:
a) MX version 23 is based on the newest Debian 12 (Bookworm). This should generally be compatible with distros like Ubuntu 24.04 and 24.10, Linux Mint 22, and other recently released Debian-based distros.
b) MX version 21 is based on the prior Debian 11 (Bullseye). This should generally be compatible with slightly older distros like Ubuntu 22.04 and 22.10, Linux Mint 21, and other Debian-based distros that were released a couple of years ago

=========================================hat this apt-pinning step is MANDATORY==================================

Step 2 - Fast and Dirty method for installing Steve Pusser's build of Pale Moon - for those people who JUST want to install Steve Pusser's build WITHOUT adding the MX repo and without doing auto-updates in the future

a) Navigate to the Pale Moon Contributed Builds page - http://www.palemoon.org/contributed-builds.shtml
b) Look for the link for "Pale Moon for MX Linux by Steve Pusser", which will take you here - https://mxrepo.com/
c) Select the link for your version of Debian compatibility
- if your distro is compatible with the latest Debian 12, then click on the "MX-23 Packages" link lower on the page - https://mxrepo.com/MX23packages.html
- if your distro is compatible with the earlier Debian 11, then click on the "MX-21 Packages" link lower on the page - https://mxrepo.com/MX21packages.html
d) Search for "palemoon" on the next page
e) Download the version of your choice (amd64 or i386) to a folder such as ~/Downloads/, or run a terminal command to download it, such as the following command for downloading the MX21 amd64 build:

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wget https://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/p/palemoon/palemoon_33.3.0-1mx21_amd64.deb -P ~/Downloads/

f) Install Pale Moon with a terminal command such as:

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sudo apt install ~/Downloads/palemoon*.deb

g) Remove the downloaded .deb file to keep your system clean for future Pale Moon installations. Use a terminal command such as:

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rm ~/Downloads/palemoon*.deb

That's it, Pale Moon should be installed and running. Next time a new version of Pale Moon is released, repeat these steps to upgrade your version, unless you want to add the MX repo and signing key as per the instructions below for auto-updating

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Step 3 - Longer and more Complex method for installing Steve Pusser's build of Pale Moon - for those people who WANT to automatically update from the MX repository.

[NOTE - Ensure that you do Step #3f below - apt pinning - if you skip Step #3f you could BRICK your distro making it UN-BOOTABLE]

a) Navigate to the Pale Moon Contributed Builds page - http://www.palemoon.org/contributed-builds.shtml

b) Look for the link for "Pale Moon for MX Linux by Steve Pusser", which will take you here - https://mxrepo.com/

c) Select the version of MX to use based on your distro's Debian compatibility
- if your distro is compatible with the latest Debian 12, then use the "MX-23" instructions in this How-to
- if your distro is compatible with the earlier Debian 11, then use the "MX-21" instructions in this How-to

d) Download and import the MX Linux signing key -
- for MX 23, the command will be:

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wget -O- http://teharris.net/mx23repo.asc | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/MX23-archive-keyring.gpg

- for MX 21, the command will be:

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wget -O- http://teharris.net/mx21repo.asc | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/MX21-archive-keyring.gpg

e) Add the MX repository to your apt sources -
- for MX 23, the command will be:

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echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/MX23-archive-keyring.gpg] http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx23.list

- for MX 21, the command will be:

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echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/MX21-archive-keyring.gpg] http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ bullseye main non-free" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx21.list

f) Create an apt pinning file to ONLY allow your system to use the Pale Moon package from the MX repo.
[NOTE - Do NOT skip this apt-pinning step - mixing other packages from the MX repo with a non-MX distro could BRICK your entire OS and cause you to lose data. You have been warned.]
- for either MX 23 or MX 21, the terminal command will be:

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cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/pin-palemoon
Package: *
Pin: release a=mx
Pin-Priority: -1 

Package: palemoon 
Pin: release a=mx
Pin-Priority: 700
EOF

Copy that code as one block of text, and you can paste it as a block into your terminal with the Ctrl-Shift-V keyboard combo, then hit the Enter key. You need to have the blank line in the middle, or it won't work.

g) Update

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sudo apt update

h) Check the upgradable packages, make sure none of them come from the MX repo:

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sudo apt list --upgradable

If you see any upgradable packages from the MX repo, then DELETE the MX repo from your system:

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sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx2*.list

and then STOP this Step 3 procedure here, go back and install via Step 2 instead. You have a non-standard Debian-based distro that does not safely conform to these instructions.

i) Check the apt policy for palemoon, you should now see an installation candidate from your MX repo:

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apt policy palemoon

i) Install Pale Moon

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sudo apt install palemoon

[Moonchild]

Very nice write-up! Thank you.

[Night Wing]

Maybe think about making this topic a "sticky". If not, eventually it will scroll off the first page and land on the second page. A sticky would make it easier to find "if" users actually search for it.

[andyprough]

Maybe think about making this topic a "sticky". If not, eventually it will scroll off the first page and land on the second page. A sticky would make it easier to find "if" users actually search for it.

The MX repos change every two years, so this post will have to be updated more frequently than it would take for it to fall off the front page of How-to's. We've got How-to's from 2018 on the front page still. Which is normal - How-to's have been added fairly slowly in any forum I've seen.

Plus, that first post has a lot of commands. We'll have to do some discussion and updating in this thread as the smarter and more experienced GNU/Linux users give me corrections to some of those commands, or if they point out that some of the commands have to be worded differently for some distributions.

[andyprough]

There's a new repository with .deb packages based on the official Pale Moon GNU/Linux packages by Veit Kannegieser that appears to be superior to Steve Pusser's repository in nearly every way, so I'm recommending that people with Debian-based distros not follow this How-to and instead that they add Veit's repository.

Here's the thread where Veit announces the repo: viewtopic.php?p=254376#p254376

And here's Veit's repo and instructions for how to add it to your Debian-based distros: https://kannegieser.net/palemoon/

[Veit Kannegieser]

It is faster to create, only ~74 seconds per variant on a Athlon(tm) II X2 245, since it is just a repack.
Steve Pusser's deb files have the advantage to be build without updater, so there will be no update failed..missing permissions.. error dialog when detected as superseded version.
I will try to keep it updated. I have no plan to keep a history of old versions, they will be purged.

[moonbat]

It is faster to create, only ~74 seconds per variant on a Athlon(tm) II X2 245, since it is just a repack.
Steve Pusser's deb files have the advantage to be build without updater, so there will be no update failed..missing permissions.. error dialog when detected as superseded version.
I will try to keep it updated. I have no plan to keep a history of old versions, they will be purged.

Thank you for doing this
It's great to be back to an integrated package based install.

[andyprough]

Steve Pusser's MX package of Pale Moon was updated to 33.3.1 yesterday. Not too bad, not nearly as slow as his old OpenSUSE Build Service repository. Veit's repo is still faster so far though, having uploaded the 33.3.1 package on the same day it was released Sept. 10th.