Backporting flashplugin-nonfree from unstable sid to testing lenny

This article talk about how you may need to backport the flashplugin-nonfree from unstable (sid) to testing (Lenny). As the flashplugin-nonfree isn't available for testing (Lenny) at the time of writing this article. The way we use to backport this package is the same for other packages.

Introduction

Since some months, the nonfree flashplugin isn't available anymore in the testing (Lenny) release of Debian. To get this package, you need to backport it from the sid release. Don't worry, this is very easy to do.

In this article i will show you how you may backport the flashplugin-nonfree package. You can use this guide to backport any other package. When backporting some packages, it will be useful to do this on a "dedicated" system. As there's a need to install some additional tools which are required to compile some stuff from sources, but also some required tool that the package we want to backport require. As "dedicated" system, you can use a chroot. See the debian debootstrap article.

Backporting flashplugin-nonfree from the unstable release

As first, create some directory somewhere where you go to place all the files you will download and create:

mkdir -p ~/sources/my-backports/lenny/flashplugin-nonfree
cd ~/sources/my-backports/lenny/flashplugin-nonfree

Log now in as root user:

We now need to modify the /etc/apt/sources.list and add the sid (unstable) source line:

deb-src http://ftp.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib

Use your local mirror for the source line!

Update the packages list:

aptitude update

After you have done the whole setup, don't forget to comment this source line with putting a '#' in front of the line. Update then again the package list

All the required tools to build packages, compile stuff from source needs to be installed:

aptitude install build-essential fakeroot

Some packages require extra tools to be installed if you want to be able to compile it from source:

apt-get build-dep flashplugin-nonfree

Exit the root session an now log in as normal user:

We can now create the debian deb file based on the source we got. As normal user do:

apt-get -b source flashplugin-nonfree

This create a directory and some files:

flashplugin-nonfree-1.7.2/
flashplugin-nonfree_1.7.2_i386.changes
flashplugin-nonfree_1.7.2.tar.gz
flashplugin-nonfree_1.7.2.dsc

Log in as root user:

Install the resultant debs:

dpkg -i flashplugin-nonfree_1.7.2_i386.deb

You can now leave the root session. Close Iceweasel (Firefox) if needed and start it again. All should be ok now.

You can now eventually cleanup the downloaded/created files. I recommend to keep the deb file if you need to reinstall this on your computer or want to install it on another computer of the same architecture.

See also

• See the debian debootstrap article.

Comments leaved by users (total: 0)

Add a comment

Name: Email: Comment: Captcha:

Do you know that you may use some special markup syntax to create header, italic, bold, styling and links and much more. See the sandbox for the markup language. Do you need some other help?