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GNU IceCat is the primary target for the LibreJS extension, making it a stable platform for running that extension.

So, I'd like to install Ice Cat on my Debian-based systems (running Debian, Ubuntu and PureOS). How can I do this? I'm happy to do crazy things up to and including using the Guix package manager, as long as I can launch the browser in a regular GNOME/Wayland session.

lofidevops
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  • consider https://askubuntu.com/a/830386/7146 – lofidevops Oct 31 '17 at 10:59
  • To my knowledge GNU Icecat is not maintained anymore. You only get ancient versions with known security issues. I have adjusted the build scripts for some newer builds but they need much more work for the newest versions of Mozilla Firefox. Building Icecat with such a script is a cumbersome and lengthy process. – Ned64 Oct 03 '21 at 21:20

3 Answers3

5

Download the latest version from ftp.gnu.org unpack it then create a symlink to run Icecat from the terminal:

wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuzilla/52.6.0/icecat-52.6.0.en-US.gnulinux-x86_64.tar.bz2
tar xvf icecat-52.6.0.en-US.gnulinux-x86_64.tar.bz2
sudo ln -s $PWD/icecat/icecat-bin /usr/bin/icecat
icecat

Using the guix pacakge manager:

$ guix package -i icecat

The binary should be set under /home/$USER/.guix-profile/bin/icecat. (see 3.2 Invoking guix package).Assuming guix is correctly configured and the $USER/.guix-profile/bin is in your $PATH , you can start the browser from the terminal through:

$ icecat
GAD3R
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2

Sparky and Trisquel already contains the .deb package of icecat.

apt-key adv --fetch-keys https://sparkylinux.org/repo/sparkylinux.gpg.key

echo 'deb http://sparkylinux.org/repo testing main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sparky.list

or

apt-key adv --fetch-keys http://packages.trisquel.info/trisquel/trisquel-archive-signkey.gpg

echo 'deb http://packages.trisquel.info/trisquel/ flidas-updates main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/trisquel.list

Notes

  • If you wanna use with older distribution, then look at trisquel distro names which is the closest for yours.
  • WARNING: This may also update existing packages, install new packages or suggest removing important packages (for example with apt dist-upgrade). Note, though, that it will not automatically remove packages.
lofidevops
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Ipor Sircer
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2

The GNU Guix package manager is a great way to get IceCat on any GNU/Linux distribution. Download and install Guix, then run: guix install icecat.

Guix also has a whole lot of other relatively new versions of software, so can be a great way to install packages such as NodeJS on top of stable versions of Debian.

Ben Sturmfels
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