[QF-Test] HOWTO: Set up and run a 32bit JRE and Firefox on Ubuntu 14.04 64bit

[Gregor Schmid <Gregor.Schmid@?.de>]

Hi everyone,

we know that it is becoming increasingly difficult to work with a
32bit JRE and Firefox on modern 64bit Linux systems. While we're
working on improving this situation, here's a short HOWTO for the
recently released Ubuntu 14.04.

Ubuntu now has a very good and clean solution for installing every
package in a 32bit version also, so fortunately the solution is
straightforward:

1. Installing a 32bit JRE
-------------------------

First you need to activate support for 32bit packages:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update

For a 32bit JRE you can either use apt to install the 32bit version of
OpenJDK

sudo apt-get install default-jre:i386

and switch to using this 32bit JRE as the default by typing

sudo update-alternatives --config java

and selecting the 32bit version.

Alternatively you can download and install a 32bit JRE or JDK from
Oracle, e.g. jre-7u55-linux-i586.tar.gz via

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Now create a directory and unpack and rename the JRE:

mkdir ~/jre32bit
cd ~/jre32bit
tar xfz jre-7u55-linux-i586.tar.gz
mv jre1.7.0_55 jre

If you only plan to install a JRE this way and nothing else you'll
probably need to install the libraries libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386
from list below.

2. Installing a 32bit Firefox
-----------------------------

If you install a 32bit Firefox with apt it will replace the 64bit
version instead of creating an alternative. Since it is preferable to
use different browsers for testing and personal use (auto-update
etc.) it is advisable to proceed as follows instead:

- Download a 32bit Firefox, e.g.

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/29.0/linux-i686/en-
US/firefox-29.0.tar.bz2

- Create a directory and unpack Firefox:

mkdir ~/ff32bit
cd ~/ff32bit
tar xfi firefox-29.0.tar.bz2

- Now you need to get the necessary 32bit libraries installed:

sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libxext6:i386 libxrender1:i386 libxt6:i386 libxtst6:i386 libxi6:i386 libgtk2.0-0:i386 libxxf86vm1:i386 libasound2:i386 libdbus-glib-1-2:i386

3. Running QF-Test
------------------

QF-Test will start with the 32bit JRE if you used the first approach
and installed a 32bit system JRE as the default alternative. Otherwise
simply start QF-Test with

qftest -java ~/jre32bit/jre/bin/java

Run the quickstart wizard for a web application in a browser and point
it to your 32bit Firefox for the Mozilla installation directory. Note
that you can't use ~ here so it has to be of the form

/home/<username>/ff32bit/firefox

Best regards,
    Greg

--
Gregor Schmid

E: gregor.schmid@?.de
T: +49 (0)8171 38648-11
F: +49 (0)8171 38648-16

Quality First Software GmbH | www.qfs.de
Tulpenstr. 41 | 82538 Geretsried | Germany
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