3.7a on Linux: A few install notes and problems

Bert Freudenberg bert at impara.de
Mon Jun 28 09:04:02 UTC 2004


Am 28.06.2004 um 10:05 schrieb muyuubyou:

> I installed the Debian packages first, and then the plug-in.
> Installing the plug-in broke my previous debian installation and I had
> to reinstall.

How did you install the browser plugin? What broke? Which debian 
packages did you use?

> Also, first thing it asks when using the plug-in is to upgrade (from
> within the browser). That caught me for a while, hanging my browser.
> Reason: I was running the browser as non-root (for security reasons,
> this is a good idea, and sometimes not an option if you're running a
> multi-user environment).
>
> So basically you CAN'T update the plug-in if the browser is run as
> non-root, and the user has to figure this out

Yes, you CAN. ;-) In fact, this is how it was ever intended.

I assume you mean the popup menu from within Squeak in the browser that 
asks if you want to install updates? That should definitely work! You 
install the plugin as root, and it puts the plugin image under 
/usr(/local)/lib/squeak. When you run your browser as non-root (which 
is indeed the only sensible way to run a browser), the plugin will copy 
the image to your $(HOME)/.npsqueak/ directory on first run. This is 
done by the "npsqueakrun" script in the VM version subdirectory. This 
is the image that gets updated and saved, and of course it should be 
writable by the user.

> (my guess is many will be clueless and dissapointed).

Unfortunately, I think this is true, nevertheless. When I wanted to 
install Squeak on the SkoleLinux system at LinuxTag, it took *me* like 
an hour to get everything nicely together (3.6 VM, working plugin, 
German default image for use by inisqueak). Granted, it was the first 
time I installed Squeak on a Debian system, but still ...

One problem, for example, was that the npsqueak.so plugin file did not 
have the executable flag set, which caused the npsqueakregister script 
(the one registering the plugin with all the browsers) to fail.

I tried the plugin with Mozilla and it works fine. It does not work 
with Konqueror because Michael's server-side platform-detection logic 
(project.jsp) does not even show the plugin page. Michael: maybe it's 
better if you just assume it might work and display the Mozilla page on 
anything unix-y?

- Bert -




More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list