How to install Zotero Everywhere tar.gz in linux Mint 9

[abhitux]

I have been searching everywhere but it's impossible to find a solution and their forum members are neither the brightest specks in the sky or even close to being helpful.

They have released a stand alone reference manager called as Zotero Everywhere apart from the Firefox extension that was already implemented. Most of the users (like me) are not avid fans of Firefox; hence I needed a way out to install their .tar.gz format.

I have tried by using terminal (checkinstall) to convert this into .deb format but to no avail. There is no ppa available either making it useless.

Although, as per the the developer, it's easy to untar it and run zotero from the package, it would set up a folder called as /zotero in the file system (his claims); however there was no word on subsequent releases. Neither there is any indication of the commits or the direction subsequent releases would see. There is no changelog (!) and neither there is any discussion on how best to integrate with Chromium and Open Office (very confusing hierarchy of documentation). I guess they need their users to be of above average IQ (which I am not) and hence help me to INSTALL an excellent product in the desktop.

Needless to say but thanks in advance!!

[adam.smith]

For those interested, here is the exchange on the Zotero forum, where we tried to help this user to get this early alpha(!) release of Zotero standalone to work and got abuse in return.
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/159 ... buntu-1004
There is, of course, a changelog, but since this is essentially the first alpha release, there isn't much in it:
http://www.zotero.org/support/standalone_changelog

[abhitux]

God!! You must be tracing me all over the Internet!! And then register on the forums to rebut.

Anyway, Zotero's implementation is not up to the mark. And their understanding leaves much to be desired.

1) Being able to run something from an executable does not mean that it is INSTALLED. This is plain English.

2) I choose something because it works. Zotero is steadfast on it's Firefox extension for their own reasons; and trying to get away by claiming it's "alpha".

3) Read carefully Mr. Adam.Smith. I have asked for a ppa (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+ppas) which stands for Personal Package Archive. Sorry guys; if you are more smarter than all of us, I'd expect you to just "search". Oh well, there's Google

4) I did try and convert this in .deb through Alien. But of course, it does nothing Wherein, someone from your place decides to put this forward because it does not "package" properly.

5) Nothing is perfect; Chromium nightly builds crash on me often, there is no "forum support" per se but then it works and the updates get streamed in the notification every other day. The least I could have expected (instead of tracing down to keep the criticism in check) is to read and then react.

Zotero is a good idea, users swear by it but for most of the "new users" Firefox is a no go for many reasons to be enumerated. Most of the users would be happy if there is a proper installation, updates and a proper extension. If you are doing something, it is not much to be asked for.

Trust me, I stand for Open Source and I don't abuse the developers. But it doesn't help the cause when someone turns apologetic.