Flock on OpenSuse 11.0

I recently decided to start using Flock for my everyday web needs. Flock 2.0 is based on Mozilla Firefox 3.0 which means that I am going to have the same great surfing experience but spiced up with the web 2.0 feeling.

On one hand Flock is really easy to install in Windows and Mac OS X since it comes with the traditional Setup.exe for Windows and the .dmg image for Mac. On the other hand they have made a very strange choice with the Linux distribution. I have not been able to find the source files to compile (well, I did not spend to much time on it anyway) or any .rpm, .db files at all.

The installation on Linux is very straight forward, but nevertheless not the usual one, in case anyone out there is too lazy to find out by themselves, here is how to do it.

1. Download Flock from here

2. Extract the file doing (I always do it in a two step process, but it can be done in one)

   cd /path/to/download/
   bunzip *bz2
   

   and

   tar -xvvf *tar
   

3. Login as the root user and move the newly extract flock folder to /opt by using:

   su
   passwd
   mv flock /opt/
   

4. The next step is to create a quick launch icon by creating a text file on the desktop called flock.desktop and copy pasting this code:

   [Desktop Entry]
   Version=1.0
   Encoding=UTF-8
   Name=Flock
   Comment=Flock Web Browser
   Exec="/opt/flock/flock-browser"
   GenericName=Flock Web Browser
   Icon=/opt/flock/icons/mozicon128.png
   Path=/opt/flock/
   StartupNotify=true
   Terminal=false
   TerminalOptions=
   Type=Application
   X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
   X-KDE-Username=
   Categories=Network;Application;
   GenericName[en_US]=Flock Web Browser
   

After following the instructions you can use flock and launch it from you desktop, you can also drag&drop the icon to you Computer menu