In C. we extesively use lxd images as wlsupport workhorse, and our distribution of choice is Ubuntu.

Ubuntu images comes with snapd installed, and since few ubuntu versions ago, this was not a problem at all.

Lately, ubuntu switched some .deb packages (including firefox) to snap version, leaving a firefox placeholder in apt sources, that just install the snap version of firefox.

This decision is quite fine on a desktop installation, but gives problem with LXD containers: the snap version of firefox doesn’t work, and it needs to install the firefox PPA to fix the problem.

Let’s fix it.

Add firefox PPA

You can just add this line entry to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/mozillateam/ppa/ubuntu/ jammy main

or add automatically with the command:

add-apt-repository -y https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/mozillateam/ppa/ubuntu/

APT pinning

We need to give higher priority to firefox .deb package:

Package: firefox*
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001

We need also to ensure not to install snapd packages anymore:

Package: snapd
Pin: release a=*
Pin-Priority: -10

Container clenup

Finally, we can clear the firefox snap (with its dependency):

for p in firefox gnome-42-2204 gtk-common-themes core22 bare snapd
do sudo snap remove --purge $p
done

After that, we need to delete the snap firefox placeholder (and also snap, just in case)

sudo dpkg --purge firefox snapd

Install firefox

Now we can easily install firefox, being confident that it will not be overridden in the future:

apt install firefox