FF for Solaris

[Frank Winkler]

Hi there !

On my Solaris 11 workstation, I'm currently using FF 52.0.2, which is
also still the latest version I can find on

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

The problem is that the number of web sites which are no longer working
with this old release is growing day by day. Didn't I look deep enough
or it that really the latest "contrib" build for Solaris? The "ls-lR"
file which could easily answer that question has also vanished away long
time ago ...

What will be the next version with "contrib" support?

And why is FF that much slower on Solaris than it is on any other OS?
The machine isn't really slow, FF is the only application with quite a
poor performance - at least after running some time. I've been
experiencing this for many years on SPARC and on x64 as well, even of
really fat machines.

TIA

fw

[YTC#1]

> Hi there !
>
> On my Solaris 11 workstation, I'm currently using FF 52.0.2, which is

I take it you are not using S11.4 ?

The latest FF on that is 60.7ESR

> also still the latest version I can find on
>
>     http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

No one is independently compiling it for Solaris any more. The last
person was doing it as a hobby and was found to be surplus to requirements.

Fortunately we occasionally get fresh ESRs with S11

>
> The problem is that the number of web sites which are no longer working
> with this old release is growing day by day. Didn't I look deep enough

Upgrade to S11.4

Although I hate Gnome 3 (I have my desktop running S11.3 still and load
FF from a zone on my S11.4 server :-)

> or it that really the latest "contrib" build for Solaris? The "ls-lR"
> file which could easily answer that question has also vanished away long
> time ago ...
>
> What will be the next version with "contrib" support?

When can you do it ? :-)

>
> And why is FF that much slower on Solaris than it is on any other OS?
> The machine isn't really slow, FF is the only application with quite a
> poor performance - at least after running some time. I've been
> experiencing this for many years on SPARC and on x64 as well, even of
> really fat machines.

Me too, I just learned to live with it.
Solaris is not a desktop OS, FF is supplied 'cos so many apps need it
locally.
>
> TIA
>
>     fw



--
Bruce Porter
"The internet is a huge and diverse community but mainly friendly"
http://ytc1.blogspot.co.uk/
There *is* an alternative! http://www.openoffice.org/

[Frank Winkler]

On 07/25/19 01:12 PM, YTC#1 wrote:

>I take it you are not using S11.4 ?

No, I'm still on 11.2. I once gave 11.3 a try but I had issues with the
video driver and ended up in a poor resolution.

>Fortunately we occasionally get fresh ESRs with S11

Can I get it separately?

>Upgrade to S11.4

see above

>Although I hate Gnome 3

ACK

>Me too, I just learned to live with it.

:(

>Solaris is not a desktop OS

In 2.x times, it was - but what happened now that should prevent it from
being used on the desktop?

Regards

fw

[Calum]

On 25/07/2019 12:22, Frank Winkler wrote:

> In 2.x times, it was - but what happened now that should prevent it from
> being used on the desktop?

Oracle happened, and decided Solaris on the desktop was not contributing
to their bottom line. So the Solaris desktop team was disbanded and
dispersed, and what gets delivered now is as close to the original
upstream code as possible, as there's nobody around to make
Solaris-specific improvements any more.

[YTC#1]

On 25/07/2019 12:22, Frank Winkler wrote:

> On 07/25/19 01:12 PM, YTC#1 wrote:
>
>  >I take it you are not using S11.4 ?
>
> No, I'm still on 11.2. I once gave 11.3 a try but I had issues with the
> video driver and ended up in a poor resolution.

Solution 1) Get a compatible driver :-)
Solution 2) Ask around here, I too had issues but was directed to how to
tweak the Nvidea drivers.

>
>  >Fortunately we occasionally get fresh ESRs with S11
>
> Can I get it separately?

Doubt it.

>
>  >Upgrade to S11.4
>
> see above

Run S11.4 in a KZ, run the the binary from there ? (Ok, you will need to
chuck some RAM at it)

>
>  >Although I hate Gnome 3
>
> ACK
>
>  >Me too, I just learned to live with it.
>
> :(
>
>  >Solaris is not a desktop OS
>
>
> In 2.x times, it was - but what happened now that should prevent it from
> being used on the desktop?
>

Nothing, other than no new features/drivers, old drivers removed/not
supported (hence your graphics issues). I used to run it on my laptop,
but the "suspend" feature being removed was a PITA.

Oracle do not support development of desktop features, so if they are no
there then tough.

Despite that, my main desktop is still S11.3

[Nemo]

On 25/07/2019 08:06, YTC#1 wrote (in part):
> On 25/07/2019 12:22, Frank Winkler wrote (in part):
>> On 07/25/19 01:12 PM, YTC#1 wrote (in part):

>>
>>>Fortunately we occasionally get fresh ESRs with S11
>>
>> Can I get it separately?
> Doubt it.

Others have pointed to FF in userland
(https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland/tree/master/components/desktop/firefox)
but I have no time to investigate.

N.

[YTC#1]

I'd completely missed that.

[John D Groenveld]

# pkg info firefox
Name: web/browser/firefox
Summary: Mozilla Firefox Web browser
Category: Applications/Internet
State: Installed
Publisher: solaris
Version: 60.7.2
Branch: 11.4.11.0.1.3.0
Packaging Date: Mon Jul 01 23:38:01 2019
Last Install Time: Thu Mar 28 21:18:27 2019
Last Update Time: Wed Jul 17 00:50:33 2019
Size: 226.15 MB
FMRI: pkg://solaris/web/browser/fir...@60.7.2-11.4.11.0.1.3.0:20190701T233801Z
Project URL: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox
Source URL: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/60.7.2esr/source/firefox-60.7.2esr.source.tar.xz

about:buildconfig
| Build platform
| target
| x86_64-pc-solaris2.11
| Build tools
| Compiler Version Compiler flags
| /usr/gcc/7/bin/gcc -std=gnu99 7.3.0 -Wall -Wempty-body -Wignored-
| qualifiers -Wpointer-arith -Wsign-compare -Wtype-limits
| -Wunreachable-code -Wduplicated-cond -Wno-error=maybe-uninitialized
| -Wno-error=deprecated-declarations -Wno-error=array-bounds -Wno-
| error=free-nonheap-object -Wformat -Wformat-overflow=2 -m64 -O3
| -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fno-strict-aliasing
| -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-math-errno -pthread -pipe
| /usr/gcc/7/bin/g++ 7.3.0 -m64 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE
| -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -Wall -Wempty-body -Wignored-qualifiers
| -Woverloaded-virtual -Wpointer-arith -Wsign-compare -Wtype-limits
| -Wunreachable-code -Wwrite-strings -Wno-invalid-offsetof -Wc++1z-
| compat -Wduplicated-cond -Wimplicit-fallthrough -Wno-error=maybe-
| uninitialized -Wno-error=deprecated-declarations -Wno-error=array-
| bounds -Wno-error=free-nonheap-object -Wformat -Wformat-overflow=2
| -fno-sized-deallocation -m64 -O3 -Wno-invalid-offsetof -fpermissive
| -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fno-exceptions -fno-strict-
| aliasing -fno-rtti -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-
| exceptions -fno-math-errno -pthread -pipe -O -fomit-frame-pointer
| Configure options
|
| CONFIG_SHELL=/bin/bash --enable-update-channel=esr --disable-tests
| MOZILLA_OFFICIAL=1 CC=/usr/gcc/7/bin/gcc CXX=/usr/gcc/7/bin/g++
| --disable-debug-symbols --enable-jemalloc --enable-replace-malloc
| --enable-js-shell --enable-system-ffi --disable-crashreporter
| --enable-official-branding --enable-pulseaudio --enable-startup-
| notification --enable-system-pixman --enable-system-sqlite
| --disable-updater --libdir=/usr/lib --prefix=/usr --with-intl-api
| --with-system-bz2 --with-system-icu --with-system-libevent --with-
| system-zlib

The OpenIndiana port might also be helpful:
<URL:https://github.com/OpenIndiana/oi-userland/tree/oi/hipster/components/web/firefox>

John
groe...@acm.org

[Casper H.S. Dik]

Frank Winkler <use...@f.winkler-ka.de> writes:

>Hi there !

>On my Solaris 11 workstation, I'm currently using FF 52.0.2, which is
>also still the latest version I can find on

> http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

The last version shipped with Solaris 11.3 is 52.9.0 and for
Solaris 11.4 it is 60.7.2 (if I can trust the "pkg" version)

Note that the FOSS shipped with Solaris can be found here:

https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland

>The problem is that the number of web sites which are no longer working
>with this old release is growing day by day. Didn't I look deep enough
>or it that really the latest "contrib" build for Solaris? The "ls-lR"
>file which could easily answer that question has also vanished away long
>time ago ...

Yes, that is certainly an issue when you are using an older version
of firefix; it is unfortunate that rather then warning you and
claiming that it may not work, they will just prevent using of the site.

>What will be the next version with "contrib" support?

I don't think we still do that.

>And why is FF that much slower on Solaris than it is on any other OS?
>The machine isn't really slow, FF is the only application with quite a
>poor performance - at least after running some time. I've been
>experiencing this for many years on SPARC and on x64 as well, even of
>really fat machines.

It might because of the Javascript engine but I'm not sure.

For somet time now, I'm no longer using a desktop (Solaris, MacOS
or Windows) for most webbrowsing; I'm either using my phone or a
tablet.

Casper

[Casper H.S. Dik]

Frank Winkler <use...@f.winkler-ka.de> writes:

>On 07/25/19 01:12 PM, YTC#1 wrote:

> >I take it you are not using S11.4 ?

>No, I'm still on 11.2. I once gave 11.3 a try but I had issues with the
>video driver and ended up in a poor resolution.

Hm . Ok. What type? FOr Nvidia drivers, there are some
versions we shop and the older version are either not installed
by default and enabled and those are needed for the older
video cards.

If you are adventures, you can build the latest using what we have
available in solaris-userland but it will likely not compile on
older Solaris (11.x) versions.

Casper

[YTC#1]

On 26/07/2019 13:12, Casper H.S. Dik wrote:

> Frank Winkler <use...@f.winkler-ka.de> writes:


> It might because of the Javascript engine but I'm not sure.
>
> For somet time now, I'm no longer using a desktop (Solaris, MacOS
> or Windows) for most webbrowsing; I'm either using my phone or a
> tablet.

Wow, you have Solaris working on a phone and tablet ? :-)

[Nemo]

On 26/07/2019 08:12, Casper H.S. Dik wrote (in part):
> Frank Winkler<use...@f.winkler-ka.de> writes (in part):
[...]

>> What will be the next version with "contrib" support?
>
> I don't think we still do that.

From the firefox-52.0ESR-Sol10sparc.README:

This directory contains Solaris builds of Firefox 52.0 ESR,
which are contributed by Oracle Solaris Desktop Beijing Team.
If you have any problem with these builds, please send email to
ginnchen at gmail dot com

This is the last contrib build before I leave Oracle.
My job is eliminated.
Thanks everyone for supporting me.
ginnchen at gmail dot com

N.

[Chris]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about the job, but just downloaded that
and is quite snappy on an M3000 with xvr300 graphics.
Probably even faster via remote vnc.

Older versions output loads of error messages, but none at
all from this. Still using 52esr on some older x86
machines, because of add on compatability issues.

Thanks a lot for all the efforts, not a trivial task for
a package like firefox, with so many dependencies...

Regards,

Chris

[Haritha Guda]

Hi,
Is it possible to intall Firefox 45 esr on Solaris 11.4?
I have a Solaris sparcX.64 11.4 .
The Solaris 11.4 has Firefox 68 installed. But my test code works for Firefox 45.