Dealing with Firefox language packs

[deleted]

Since Solus enables all Firefox language packs by default, the startup/closing time of Firefox gets extended a lot, especially on older machines. Could that be dealt in some other way, like enabling only language packs according to user(s) locale?

kyrios

[deleted] The package is unaware of the locales on the end user machine.
You can go in Add-ons -> Languages and disable the languages packs you don't need. It's annoying but you only have to do it once.
Same applies to thunderbird. I guess this is something that could be added on the help center.

Jacalz

It seems like a great idea in my opinion, especially if it is possible to do it in some way 👍

anika200

In the Firefox general preferences there is the language setting where you can set your preferred language and also under "set alternatives" you can remove all others.
Does this help?
Mine only has 3 languages listed.

[deleted]

anika200 Yes I'm aware of how to remove them

[deleted]

kyrios I know, that's why I asked whether that could be dealt with in a way or another, without user action

Justin

The only way to do that would be to include only one language and then separate the others into addon packs (huge mess) or have the user download them once they open Firefox (likely better).

[deleted]

Hi!

I went in the /usr/lib64/browser/extensions folder and deleted everything from there. After that, you will see, that all the unnecessary locales from Firefox are gone. However, please note, that if you would like to use spelling correction and other features related to it, you should keep at least the locale file for the language you are currently using your browser with.

JoshStrobl

[deleted] After that, you will see, that all the unnecessary locales from Firefox are gone.

These are just gonna be re-installed whenever Firefox updates you know, or you're just always going to have a "broken" Firefox package.

[deleted]

JoshStrobl I did a sudo eopkg check and it was really broken. I guess a few excess language packs are always better, than a broken package in the system. My idea was bad, sorry.

kyrios

@[deleted] as @JoshStrobl said they will be reinstalled everytime firfox is updated. What you can do though is to disable them from within Firefox (CTRL-SHIFT-A -> Languages). This is a one time operation it won't save disk space but it will speed up firefox opening/closing.

Sam apply to thunderbird if you use it.

fjaellraev

Recently I created a new Firefox profile using the terminal with firefox -P. In the new profile no language packs are set beside the english one, which obviously is the default in Firefox. So, to get back my language I added it in the 'general' section in the preferences of Firefox. However, with the yesterdays update to Firefox 75 the language pack wasn’t updating but Firefox instead said it’s incompatible with version 75. Adding it again via the 'general' section in the preferences get me the updated language pack.

I tried eopkg check which gave me some broken packages, but none of them was related to Firefox or language packages. Repeating the command as root interestingly showed no broken packages anymore.

However, I wonder if there’s an issue with the default language package behaviour of Solus when creating new Firefox profiles? And do I have to add the language pack every update again or can I restore the default behaviour of Solus anyhow?