Since Mozilla Firefox understands how to use SOCKS proxies, you can configure it to go through the SOCKS proxy. You can configure it to use a SOCKS proxy by clicking on Edit, then Preferences, and then the Network tab. Click on Settings and then select Manual proxy configuration. For a SOCKS proxy, put the address of the SOCKS proxy server in the SOCKS Host field and the port that is being used on that server in the Port field.

If I establish a SOCKS proxy server using the ssh command, e.g. ssh -D 8055 jdoe@192.168.1.1, then I'm tunneling connections to the SOCKS proxy through the encrypted SSH connection and I will use 127.0.0.1 in the SOCKS host field and 8055 in the Port field, rather than the default SOCKS proxy port of 1080.

After downloading the proxychains package with Mozilla Firefox, aka iceweasel, I used dpkg to install it.

root@Knoppix:/home/knoppix# dpkg --install proxychains_2.1-5_i386.deb 
Selecting previously deselected package proxychains.
(Reading database ... 0 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking proxychains (from proxychains_2.1-5_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of proxychains:
 proxychains depends on libc6 (>= 2.3.2.ds1-21); however:
  Package libc6 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing proxychains (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 proxychains

Proxychains looks for its configuration file in the following order:

1. ./proxychains.conf
2. $(HOME)/.proxychains/proxychains.conf
3. /etc/proxychains.conf

I copied the sample file /etc/proxychains.conf.dpkg-new to /etc/proxychains.conf.

root@Knoppix:/home/knoppix# cp /etc/proxychains.conf.dpkg-new /etc/proxychains.conf

The following default information appears in that file:

# ProxyList format
#       type  host  port [user pass]
#       (values separated by 'tab' or 'blank')
#
#
#        Examples:
#
#               socks5  192.168.67.78   1080    lamer  secret
#               http    192.168.89.3    8080    justu   hidden
#               socks4  192.168.1.49    1080
#               http    192.168.39.93   8080    
#               
#
#       proxy types: http, socks4, socks5
#        ( auth types supported: "basic"-http  "user/pass"-socks )
#
http    10.0.0.5 3128
http    10.0.0.3 3128
http    10.0.0.5 3128
#socks5 192.168.1.4 1080
#socks4 10.5.81.143 1080
#http   192.168.203.18 8080

I commented out the http lines with the 10.0.0.5 address by placing a "#" at the beginning of the line. I then removed the "#" from the socks5 line and changed the address from 192.168.1.4 to 127.0.0.1, since I was establishing a socks proxy using the ssh command. I changed the port from the default SOCKS port of 1080 to the one I used when I established the SOCKS proxy with ssh -D 8055 jdoe@192.68.1.1, i.e. port 8055. I then had the following lines in proxychains.conf.

# http  10.0.0.5 3128
# http  10.0.0.3 3128
# http  10.0.0.5 3128
socks5 127.0.0.1 8055
#socks4 10.5.81.143 1080
#http   192.168.203.18 8080

I also commented out "random_chain" and "chain_len" and uncommented "strict_chain".

I was then able to use proxychains with gpg to import a public key for a package repository into the public keyring for the root account.

root@Knoppix:/home/knoppix# proxychains gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net --rec
v-keys 9AA38DCD55BE302B
gpg: requesting key 55BE302B from hkp server wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net
ProxyChains-2.1 (http://proxychains.sf.net)
random chain (1):....127.0.0.1:5555....194.171.167.98:11371..OK
gpg: /root/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key 55BE302B: public key "Debian Archive Automatic Signing Key (5.0/lenny) 
<ftpmaster@debian.org>" imported
gpg: no ultimately trusted keys found
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1  (RSA: 1)

I was also able to use proxychains for apt-get update by using proxychains apt-get update.

References:

1. ProxyChains - README (HowTo) TCP and DNS through proxy server, HTTP and SOCKS
   ProxyChains

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