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Introduction
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Skipstone is a Gtk+ web browser that embeds the mozilla HTML rendering agent Gecko.  It aims to be light, fast, and resource friendly, and is currently under heavy development.

Installation has been made much easier with the new configure script.  There are three different methods for installation, and each is outlined in this file so you can compare and choose the one that is most suitable for your needs and current configuration.

The three options are:

1. Use a binary skipstone build with either a source or binary mozilla build
2. Use a source skipstone build with a binary mozilla build and mozilla header files
3. Use a source skipstone build with a source mozilla build

The details of each installation follow, with pros and cons of each mentioned.  Some of the sections will rely on information provided in others, so if you have any difficulties, scan the other sections as well.

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Use a binary skipstone and binary or source mozilla build
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You need mozilla installed on your computer in some form before you can run skipstone.  skipstone uses mozilla files and software, and will not work if mozilla is not installed on your system.

If you already have mozilla installed, make sure it is version 0.9.9 or higher.  Previous versions will not work with the current version of skipstone.

If you do not have an appropriate version of mozilla, go to www.mozilla.org and get the latest one.  Installation of a binary is usually as simple as untarring it to the directory in which you want it to reside (often /usr/local/mozilla) and possibly altering system paths.  You can also use mozilla source code and create a binary from it.  This is outlined in the 'source skipstone/source mozilla' section of this file.  However, This file does not deal in depth with the mozilla installation, so please come back to it after mozilla is installed.

You will now need a skipstone binary build.  This is a compiled program that is intended to run 'from the box.'  There are rpm and debian bulds at the skipstone website (www.muhri.net/skipstone/).  If your system will handle either of these, download one and use the relevant package manager to install.  If there are problems, you may be able to puzzle them out through finding the required dependencies, etc.  Otherwise, you will have to try one of the other methods or the precompiled tarball described next.

The precompiled tarball was (as of this writing) compiled on a mandrake 8.1 system.  You can try it by downloading the binary, unzipping and untarring it, and then installing the binary:

tar xfvz skipstone-0.8.1-bin.tar.gz
cd skipstone-0.8.1-bin
make install

If this doesn't work, you'll have to try the RPM or debian build, of suitable for your system, or compile skipstone yourself using one of the following methods.

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Use a source skipstone build with a binary mozilla build + appropriate mozilla header files
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Using source skipstone and binary mozilla with mozilla headers is the most common and most recommended option.  You must first download and install a binary mozilla build, if you don't have one that is compatible with the current version of skipstone.  Then you will need a file that contains the mozilla headers.  An rpm can be found at http://download.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla0.9.9/Red_Hat/7x_RPMS/RPMS/i386/mozilla-devel-0.9.9-0.i386.rpm.  There is now also a tarball of the mozilla headers located on the skipstone website.  Installing the file should be fairly straightforward.

Once you have the mozilla binary and headers installed, you can begin the compilation of skipstone.  Untar the source and cd to the directory.  Type './cofigure' to configure the compilation. './configure --help' will list the options you can pass the configure script.  Here are some of the more common common ones you may need:

--prefix=/path
This is the path where skipstone is to be installed.  The default is /usr/local which puts the binaries in /usr/local/bin, the libraries in /usr/local/lib, etc.

--with-mozilla-includes=/path/to/includes
If configure complains about not being about to find the mozilla includes, you will have to pass their location to it manually.  Use this option to do so.  You should know where they were installed if you installed them manually.  Configure will automatically check the locations that the rpm package installs them to by default.

--with-mozilla-libs=/path/to/binaries
If configure cannot find the location of the mozilla installation, use this option to tell it where they are.

After successful configuration, type 'make'.  Then type 'make install' to install skipstone to the prefix directory.


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Use a source skipstone with a source mozilla
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This is quite similar to the procedure outlined above.  There are a few points to add when using mozilla from source.

After compiling mozilla, you may wish to create a binary mozilla package so you can delete the large mozilla sources from your computer.  To do this, configure and make mozilla.  Then cd to the mozilla/xpinstall/packager directory and type 'make'.  This will create a binary mozilla tarball in mozill/dist, which you can then untar to the directory where you want the mozilla build to reside.

Now, untar skipstone and cd to the source directory.  type './configure'  The chances are good that configure won't be able to find the binaries or includes.  You will have to pass the includes to configure with the --with-mozilla-includes= option.  With source Mozilla, the includes are located in mozilla/dist/include.  You may also have to tell configure where mozilla is installed using the --with-mozilla-libs= option.  If you created a binary mozilla, this will be where you untarred the binary to.  If you choose, for whatever reason, to run mozilla directly from the compilation directory, use mozilla/dist/libs.

After successful configuration, type 'make' and then 'make install'.

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Running skipstone
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Make sure the skipstone script is in your path and type 'skipstone' at the prompt.  This should run the browser.  If you get an error concerning MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME, you will have to specify the path to the mozilla installation using:

export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/path/to/mozilla/binaries

If you installed or made a binary mozilla you will know where the mozilla binaries are.  If you installed from source, they are located in mozilla/dist/bin.

You may want to add the export line above to your ~/.bash_profile (assuming you use bash), or to your /etc/profile.
