Installing Flock on Ubuntu is easy. However, there is not .deb file yet. So, we will have to use the terminal to install it. This is no sweat though.
Go ahead and download the Flock installer for Linux which is called:
flock-0.7.10.1.en-US.linux-i686.tar.gz
With the terminal open, navigate to the folder which the file is in. If this has been downloaded to your desktop, then type:
cd Desktop
From there we will type the following to extract (or install) the Flock tarball to the /opt folder.
sudo tar -C /opt -xzvf flock-*.linux-i686.tar.gz
Next, we will create a symbolic link:
sudo ln -s /opt/flock/flock /usr/bin/flock
Now we will create a menu entry:
sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/Flock.desktop
Add this to the new file:
[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Flock Web Browser
Exec=flock
GenericName=Flock Web Browser
Icon=/opt/flock/icons/mozicon128.png
Name=Flock
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=0
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=
Categories=Network;Application;
Finally, refresh the Gnome Panel:
killall gnome-panel
Or, if you are using Kubuntu:
dcop kicker Panel configure
That’s it! Now you have installed Flock in Ubuntu Linux. Enjoy.
edit: To enable multimedia plugins, see this follow-up article.
To uninstall Flock, type the following (as if you will actually ever want to!):
sudo rm /usr/bin/flock
sudo rm /usr/share/applications/Flock.desktop
sudo rm -rf /opt/flock
killall gnome-panel
I just want people to be aware that just because the title says Ubuntu, does not mean that it won’t install on whatever Linux distro you are using. This will install Flock from a tarball to the /opt directory, so it will be similar no matter what. The only difference might be with your Window Manager. I have give instructions for Gnome and KDE. If you use something other than this, such as XFCE or something else, you will have to figure it out for yourself. Google it.
If anyone wants to share instructions for any other Window Manager than that which I have provided, as far as creating menu items for this, please share. I will be happy to include it in this post.
50 Comments
Thank you for the instructions.
You are quite welcome. I’m glad I could help
What do you think of Flock? I think it’s alright, but it lacks a few features like saving as a draft. It is great for blogging on the go, and I like the Technorati tags generator, built right into it.
I think it is a real innovative bit of software.
Yeah , but it hogs on memory. Just like Firefox.
Thank you to share it!
Hey Brent,
Thanks for writing this post on installing Flock in Ubuntu. I was on Ubuntu before I switched to OSX about year and a half ago, looks like it’s getting pretty sweet now.
You can save blog posts as draft, btw. Ctrl-s will save the post and you should be able to open it later through the File menu.
Cheers,
Will Pate
Communnity Ambassador, Flock
Thanks Will. It was my pleasure to provide the guide.
I only consider myself a messenger. You guys are the ones who did all of the actual work.
I’ve been using Ubuntu for about a year. Before that, I had a little bit of experience with Mandrake 9, and Red Hat 7 and 8, while in college.
I’m happy to share with the world, what I am learning, in terms of Ubuntu hacks, as well as other things which I think are cool.
Sharing with the world, what I think is cool, is what blogging should be all about, imho.
By the way, I saw that you can save drafts, but this only saves a local file right? I meant, that I wish that it could save a draft to my blog. But don’t worry, I have found a decent solution (for now at least).
I followed all this and it seemed to go as planned…but I can’t find a link to lauch the Flock browser anywhere.
@ kyle: Fixed dude, so try again., or add
Categories=Network;Application;to the last line of the flock .desktop file. That should do the trick. I just forgot to add it there in the instructions, but I’m glad that you pointed it out.
Doesn’t ubuntu have the flock (file lock) command already? I’m not an ubuntu user myself, but my distro has flock, which is used extensively, and I’m sure my system would break if i mv’d it. Just a cautionary note
No, not without my help!
The only browser installed with Ubuntu is Firefox.
I imagine that it is only a matter of time before Flock is available in the official or unofficial Ubuntu repositories. Flock is still beta, I believe.
I provided the instructions, because i did not find any other instructions available, so i figured that i would share what I learned/figured out, with the rest of the world, for the benefit of all. I’m cool like that, man!
Dear God! What is wrong with you? Ubuntu rocks!
Which distro do you use? Slackware or Gentoo? Suse, Fedora, Mepis, Linspire? Just curious. Ubuntu is sort of minimalist. The entire distro is only one disc.
Flock is good for blogging, but I still prefer to use Firefox for my everyday browsing needs.
(sorry Will. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Flock, in fact, you guys should give me a job!)
great how to, I found few so clear
Worked first time on my Ubuntu Edgy 6.10. Thanks.
Everything worked fine on Ubuntu 6.10 until I “Installed Missing Plugin” Adobe reader. Then flock just quit. I restarted and it came on for about a second then quit. I uninstalled, rebooted, reinstalled, started flock then it quit. Help!
Just for everyone’s sake, I have not tried this in Edgy yet, since I do not have it installed. However, the instructions should apply the same way.
damnhappy, did you follow my instructions carefully? Did you follow the link to install multimedia plugins, as stated in the instructions?
Let me ask another thing. Is Adobe Acrobat installed already for use in Firefox? If so all you have to do is link those plugins to the Flock plugins folder from the mozilla plugins folder, as stated in the link.
The command is quite simple:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* /opt/flock/pluginsHi! Thanks for the info. But on Ubuntu Egdy Eft, I installed Flock as you stated, it went wrong.
Well, not exactly wrong. Installation seems to went fine. But flock won’t start.
In task tray, it says Flock is running, but nothing happened after that.
Any help on this?
@Yuya Saito,
Just for the record, I have installed and ran this in Edgy, without a single problem.
So, if you follow my instructions exactly as I have written them, it will work. If something else has gone wrong, I cannot help you.
To be clear, this works in Ubuntu Edgy, and should also work flawlessly for ANY Linux-based distro out there which runs Gnome or KDE. As far as other Desktops, I cannot confirm this, since I don’t use them. If you have confirmed this for XFCE, etc, I would appreciate your link to the instructions. It will install fine, but I am not aware of the procedure for adding links in the menu for XFCE, since again, I don’t use it at all.
Hello I tried it on Firefox. Everything looks fine till this line:
sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/Flock.desktop
It is giving some protocol error:
[Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified]
Can you help me for fedora.
Thank You.
Fedora does not use sudo as far as I know. You must login as root.
su rootIf you do not know this, you have no business using a confusing operating system like Linux. You are better off using Windows, a far more user-friendly operating system for desktop users.
I just shared this knowledge for my friends who have also felt the urge to experiment with Linux.
I want folks to know that this is not a Linux blog. I do not really even use Linux much.
I can say that all of this Linux-user-traffic has inspired me to add some Windows tweaks.
I usually do not answer questions like this here, especially about things that I never write about like Fedora. So stop asking me questions. Google it and find out for yourself, just like everyone else.
Consider yourself lucky for me sharing my valuable knowledge, free of charge.
You are welcome.
Thanks! now I’m standard across all my platforms! For those who want an alternative, try epiphany
Is Epiphany available across all platforms?
I personally don’t care much for it.
Well I tried to install it that way, I just with there was a RPM version of it. Anyway, the way I did it was easy. I just extracted the compiled .gz and use the terminal and went to the flock directory on my Desktop and used the command “./flock” and it installed itself and I just moved the flock directory to an Apps folder I had made and it works like a charm (of course I made a panel button for it too so I don’t have to look for it). Maybe this isnt the correct way but it works just as good.
This post is about the official release of Flock from flock.com.
It shows users how to install the official version of flock easily, with zero problems.
Besides, the title is about Ubuntu, which does not use the .rpm packaging system. However, you can install the tarball package on other distros, which is why I mentioned that.
The version you have is from an rpm repository, and I assume that you are not using Ubuntu, but probably Red Hat/Fedora, Suse, Mandriva or another such .rpm based system.
If Ubuntu had a .deb for Flock in it’s repositories, then this post would be redundant. Eventually, this will probably be the case, but Flock is still a beta application.
Also, the way that I posted about is how to install Flock globally, not for a single user. Also, this way will allow you to use the multimedia plugins simply by creating logical shortcuts from your Mozilla plugin folder so you don’t have to install java or flash twice for instance.
Trust me folks, this way is much better, and as a veteran geek, I would highly recommend this technique for installing the official version of Flock.
Even Will Pate, Community Ambassador of Flock, would concur.
No I am using Ubuntu, I downloaded the flock file from their website and it is a tar.gz file, all I did was extract it and browse to the flock directory using Terminal and upon in the directory I used “./flock”.
Unfortunately I was unable to get your method to work and by chance I had tried this method because I knew that the file named flock in the flock directory, after extracting the tar.gz, was an executeable of some sort and it worked.
I don’t mean to discredit you in any way but this was the only method that worked for me. I am an only user on this machine so it works like the windows version does for me.
Whatever floats you boat dude, but I assure that this method works. As long as you are satisfied, that’s all that matters though.
But you originally said that you used an .rpm, which as it turns out is not true. It is called a tarball.
If you follow my directions exactly as they say, it will work.
What did it say when you tried it my way? Did you get an error? Did you check the /opt directory to see if it is installed? In order for this to work, according to my instructions, you have to follow them exactly as I have said. You cannot add your own things or anyone else’s.
Since I and thousands of others have been able to do this, I can guarantee you with my life, that you didn’t follow my directions properly.
So it is not my directions that are flawed. It is your ability to follow them.
Sorry, but that is how it is.
Excellent post! Worked like a charm even to upgrade. All I had to do was the extraction part.
Thanks.
Cool Tony. I’m glad to have been of assistance.
By the way, I love your blog. Looks good, and I think I found something new and fresh to add to my feed reader.
Stay cool dude!
What I meant in my original post was, yes it was a typo, I wish that it was in RPM. I would be able to use alien to convert it over to DEB. Life would be so much easier that way. Unfortunately I am unable to tell you the error messages it gave me at this time.
You can compile to source to a .deb with checkinstall if you know how to. I just think this way is the easiest way, especially since Flock does not make a .deb, but with these instructions, it isn’t necessary. It works flawlessly, as long as you follow these instructions exactly as I have said.
Thank you so much! It has been a while since I have used linux and my experience is more with Server distros. All of this is starting to come back to me now!
I am running Ubuntu Edgy Eft, dual-boot w/ XP and am slowly converting over to Linux. I hope to get the following working to completely abandon XP (except for a virtualized version for .net stuff) after I get the following working:
Exchange client solution (working on Evolution and/or Outlook 2007 over wine)
iTunes solution
Activesync solution
An ActiveSync solution ain’t gonna happen dude.
If you are using iTunes to purchase content, it ain’t gonna happen dude.
There is no better software for Exchange than Outlook. Even Outlook Live is better than Evolution –I would know, I use it everyday at work.
I’m sorry to have to put it to you that way.
What I do not understand is why people feel the need to want to “completely abandon XP“. Personally, I have no choice. All of the most important software that I must use, is on the Windows Platform. I happen to not mind that, and will continue to use what works for me.
Linux is cool, but I consider it a hobby OS, not one which I could be productive on. Not at all –not even close. And why run wine? It sucks. Why not just run Windows?
Besides the ability to use productive software, there is no reason to run ANY certain OS.
In other words, if you are using your PC for business, and want to use an exchange server, sync with Windows Mobile devices, use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, use Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Swish, Cool Edit Pro….get the point? If you want a machine that can do ALL of that, and for a very reasonable price, guess what OS you will be using?
But I’m glad I could help you with your hobby OS.
By the way, any Linux distro can be considered a server distro. Just install what server daemon you want to run on it.
Thank you! It was of great help.
sweeeeet dude you are awesome
thankkkks
you made it such a breeze
The most clear, noninsulting, instructions for installing something via the terminal. Thanks.
Thanks dude i u the man
Thanks, it worked for me.
Thanks for the tip - but be careful: if you install Flock in a non-writable directory, auto-update will not work. Install it in your home directory, or change the permission to have the flock directory writable for your main user.
Otherwise, make sure to check Flock.com to see if you have the latest version!
The point is to not do auto-update. That kind of defeats the purpose of the security that Linux provides.
I did all the above, but Flock crashes on start when launching from the menu….
Hey,
I’ve just finished installing 7.10 gnome and would really like to install flock. There is only one problem. Edgy comes installed with a /usr/bin/flock (is part of the util-linux package). Do you have a tip how to install the very nice Flock browser with this other flock file already installed?
Thanks!
Okay. Followed Directions with install on Ubuntu. But i can’t find an icon for Flock. Did I miss something in the directions?
I followed the instructions a few times but could not get it to launch, except by manually clicking on the Flock icon in the opt directory. Another method worked in the end, though, so thanks anyway for the inspiration.
Pretty easy, very good instructions. Thank you!!!
thanx!!!!
Thanks for this tutorial - you frakking ROCK!
I successfully install flock browser. but i can’t not start from Applications->Internet-<Flock. I only run it in terminal as : sudo /opt/flock/flock.
It is not necessary or recommended to run Flock in sudo.
Just use the command:
/opt/flock/flockor
/usr/bin/flockor
flockYou could just manually make the menu entry to the path shown above by right clicking on the applications menu in Gnome and selecting edit. It’s pretty self explanatory from there.
@Thao it might be that you already had a “flock” command in /usr/bin
My install has failed here
sudo ln -s /opt/flock/flock /usr/bin/flock
ln: creating symbolic link `/usr/bin/flock’ to `/opt/flock/flock’: File exists
It seems I have a flock cmd (from util-linux-ng 2.13), also no idea what’s its use is.
I simply replaced the link with :
sudo ln -s /opt/flock/flock /usr/bin/flock-browser
And then the desktop conf:
Exec=flock-browser
thank you!
i ve installed Flock.. its show entry in Internet menu.. but when i open it a new window in taskbar shows “Flock Starting”.. but nothing starts.. the window then vanishes.. what the problem..? can anyone help me out please..?
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[...] I do want to make one comment of appreciation to Brent Roos for the invaluable assistance he provided when he described how to Install Flock on Ubuntu back on July 24, 2006. Like almost everything else, if you know how, it’s simple but if you don’t, it’s an unsolvable mystery. I was able to follow Brent’s instructions and, thanks to the ability to copy and paste, get the package installed. So now I’ll be able to compare how Flock runs on Linux with the experiences I’ve already had running it on Windows XP. [...]
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