The next UNIX Web Browser
John Bartelt
old and Netscape is not issuing new security fixes for it. We are
considering a switch to supporting Mozilla in the near future, and
plan to remove Netscape from the system in a few months time (or
sooner if serious security problems arise).
Mozilla (version 1.0) has been installed for Solaris 8 and Linux
(RedHat 6.2 and higher). It can be invoked as 'mozilla-1.0' on either
platform, or simply as 'mozilla' on Solaris 8. (To avoid conflicts
with locally installed versions on Linux desktops, we have not
installed the 'mozilla' alias on Linux; this might change in the
future.)
Mozilla and recent versions of Netscape-6.x both use a directory
called $HOME/.mozilla, so you should not run them both at the same
time. The first time you run either Mozilla or Netscape-6.x, your
Netscape-4.7x bookmarks and preferences will be imported from your
$HOME/.netscape directory; but the latter will not be disturbed so
you can go back to the older version of Netscape if necessary.
The latest versions of Netscape 6.x have also been installed. On
Solaris, that is netscape-6.2.2 and on Linux it is netscape-6.2.3.
The command netscape-6.2 will work on either platform.
The following problems with Mozilla have been reported so far:
* When importing user's netscape bookmarks, there were two with the
same name, but pointing to different URLs. Mozilla apparently
discarded one.
* When trying to add a plug-in, the plug-in downloaded but then
failed to install. Unable to determine where it was trying to
install.
* Occasional freezes when trying to follow certain links.
Please try out Mozilla now so that you can help us identify any
problems before Netscape 4.7x is removed. If you do find problems,
please report them to both the 'unix-admin' and 'comp-l' mailing
lists. The latter is intended for general discussion of computing
issues at SLAC and we encourage you to contribute your views on UNIX
Web browsers for SLAC (to subscribe, send mail to 'majordomo'
containing 'subscribe comp-l' in the body of the message).
You may also wish to come to the next WWW-Tech meeting, Wednesday,
August 7th, 3-5pm, in SCS Conference Room B (3rd floor of building
50), where we will discuss migration issues and time scale.
NOTE: For MS WINDOWS at SLAC, Internet Explorer is the supported web
browser. Mozilla is available for testing on the Windows X drive
(X:\Applications\Unsupported\Mozilla), but support and applying
patches are the responsibilities of the user.
Our apologies if you received more than one copy of this message.
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John Bartelt bar...@SLAC.Stanford.edu
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center 650-926-4591
MS 97, P.O. Box 4349
Stanford, CA 94309 office: SCS room 380