This guide describes step-by-step installation of GNU/IceCat web browser on Debian 6.0 “Squeeze”. At the moment there are no pre-compiled packages for a Debian so we are going to do this nicely from command line by compiling GNU IceCat 5 from a sources code.

Step 1: Pre-requisites installation

First we need to install all pre-requisites. As a root use apt-get to fetch and install all required packages:

# apt-get install libgnomevfs2-dev bzip2 python zip \
pkg-config libgtk2.0-dev libnotify-dev libgl1-mesa-dev \
libasound2-dev libidl-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libiw-dev \
libxt-dev build-essential

Step 2: Yasm ( Modular Assembler ) compilation

Although yasm is part of the Debian repository and it is available as a pre-compiled package GNU IceCat requires yasm >= 1.1.0. From this reason we will need to compile yasm from source.

First download yasm:

$ wget http://www.tortall.net/projects/yasm/releases/yasm-1.1.0.tar.gz

Extract tar file:

$ tar xzf yasm-1.1.0.tar.gz

Compile and install:

$ cd yasm-1.1.0
$ ./configure
$ make
# make install

Step 3: GNU IceCat 5 compilation and install

At this stage we can proceed with GNU IceCat 5 compilation. Frist download GNU IceCat tarball:

$ wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuzilla/5.0/icecat-5.0.tar.bz2

Extract tar file:

$ tar xjf icecat-5.0.tar.bz2

Compile and install:

The compilation can take some time so be patient.

$ cd icecat-5.0
$ ./configure
$ make
# make install

Step 4: Start using GNU IceCat 5

To start using IceCat 5 simply enter icecat on you command line. Now you should feel free since you are using GNU software and also you should feel good as you have made a correct choice.