Re: Installing Netscape with dpkg

[Derek Lee <dkklee@mit.edu>]

>On Wed, 14 Aug 1996, Ken Gaugler wrote:
>
>> Dpkg specifically asks for the beta 4 binary; can I get away with using
>> one of the newer binaries?  Do I need to tweak anything to get it to
>> install using dpkg?
>
>This is what I've done. I got the 3.0b7 binary from their site; then
>grabbed the 3.0b6 installer (source form) from ftp.debian.org (under the
>rex hierarchy) and slightly modified it to use the 3.0b7 package (I don't
>remember exactly the modifications, they were slight).
>Then it worked, and it didn't seem to break anything. I'll tell you when I
>upgrade Netscape again! <g>

To give more details:

If you don't want to wait for the beta7 package to be distributed, then you
have to make the package yourself. (Since the official 3.0 release
is coming out next Monday, you might want to wait till next week and
do this to the official version.)

The procedure is:
(1) Get the source code for the netscape installer from 
    debian/rex/source/net/netscape_3.0-beta6-1.tar.gz
(2) Unpack it (with 'tar xvfz' for example). The source will end up
    in a directory called netscape-installer
(3) Go to the netscape-installer directory and edit the top of the 
    debian.rules file to :
	nsdist  := netscape-v30b7-export.x86-unknown-linux-elf
	classes := "java_30"
	plugins := ""
	package := netscape
	version := 3.0-beta7
	debian  := 1
	arch    := i386
(3a) There is a small typo in Line 113 of debian.postinst where '$netscape'
     has been mispelt as '$netcape$'. You can edit that as well.
(4) Put the .tar.gz file you downloaded from Netscape Corp in /tmp
(5) do 'make binary'; this is build the debian package and put it in 
    the directory which also as netscape-installer as the subdirectory.
(6) Now you can use dpkg on this .deb package.

If you messed up, then you might want to rebuild the package with
	debian  := 2
so that dpkg would automatically recognize it as an upgrade. to the 
messed-up version.

I should say that you should not use the beta4 source file from
stable/source/net directory. One reason is that beta4 had a plugin
library which is no longer distributed. You should in fact remove the
library (libnullplugin.so or something like that) from
/usr/lib/netscape/plugins if it is there.

Good luck!
Derek Lee