• InstallationUnix

These instructions pertain to Unix-like operating systems other than Mac OS X. For Mac OS X instructions, read InstallationOSX. There are also simpler instructions available for OSes that use Debian-style packaging, like Debian and Ubuntu. For those operating systems, read InstallationDebian.

Install XULRunner

Conkeror depends on XULRunner 1.9 or higher. If you are running a recent Linux distribution such as Debian unstable, Fedora 9, or Ubuntu 8.04 or higher, you should be able to install it from your distribution's software repositories. For Debian or Ubuntu:

apt-get install xulrunner-1.9

or for Fedora:

yum install xulrunner

Then continue to Install Conkeror below.

If your distribution doesn't have xulrunner 1.9 or greater, you can obtain compiled binaries from http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/xulrunner/releases/1.9.0.1/runtimes/

Download an archive appropriate for your operating system. Conkeror does not require the SDK package, and these instructions describe the steps appropriate for the non-SDK package.

Unpack the archive somewhere, and then enter the new directory in a shell and type the command:

./xulrunner --register-user

Note: the commands above register XULRunner in your user account. If you want to register this copy of XULRunner for all users, use --register-global instead of --register-user while logged into the administrative account.

Install Conkeror

You can obtain Conkeror either with git or by downloading a snapshot archive.

git

To use Conkeror from the git repository, first clone the repository, using the command:

git clone git://repo.or.cz/conkeror.git

Later on, when you want to update:

git fetch
git log HEAD..origin  #optional, shows you the changes
git merge origin

`conkeror-spawn-helper`

If you want to be able to edit web page text fields in an external editor, you will need to build the included program, conkeror-spawn-helper. Please read ConkerorSpawnHelper for more details.

Last step

Due to recent changes in XULRunner, there are two alternate methods for putting a conkeror launcher in your executable PATH.

New way

If you are using a distro-installed 1.9 release, you should use this method. Simply create a symlink from /path/to/conkeror/contrib/run-conkeror to your desired executable location. For example:

ln -s /usr/local/lib/conkeror/contrib/run-conkeror /usr/local/bin/conkeror

Old way

If you installed your own xulrunner binary, you should use this method. Copy¹ xulrunner-stub from your xulrunner installation directory² into the Conkeror directory, and optionally rename it to something informative like conkeror. That executable will launch Conkeror. You can create a symlink to it, or write a short launch script to change directories and run it, in for example, /usr/local/bin/. Note: In some cases, this method may not work, and you will need to use the above method.