Darkside of the Pale Moon

[DeeMal]

1. Clicked on Palemoon from menu, still nothing, no change.

What happens when you run Pale Moon from the command prompt?

On this 32-machine here my command is:

Code: Select all

run-as-spot /opt/palemoon/palemoon --private

spot and private aren't necessary, but the full path might be.

First;
No such file or directory

Then searched for directory:
/opt/palemoon: Is a directory

Then inputed;
run-as-spot /opt/palmoon
ash: exec line 4: /opt/palemoon: Permission denied

[mow9902]

Hi - I don't know if this helps you - but I was a bionic32 user for a long time, then onto bionic64 and now fossapup64.

On all platforms I use Palemoon as the default browser. This is how I run it:

1. download the latest version of palemoon from the website. Select the "xz-compressed tarball" from the link shown, and choose the package to fit your system ie Download_x64-GTK3 tarball OR Download x64-GTK2 tarball

2. create a folder somewhere outside of your save folder. (I keep all of my programs on a separate USB stick. )

3. open the downloaded tarball - and inside you will find a folder called "palemoon". Copy that folder to your USB stick (or wherever you want to hold programs outside of your save file)

4. From your puppy menu - navigate to "Setup -> Default Applications chooser". Scroll down to "Web Browser" and insert the path to your new palemoon installation. On my system it looks like this - /root/my-applications/programs/palemoon/palemoon

That's it. Now when you click on a html link this version of palemoon will be launched. If you want you can place an icon onto the wallpaper and provide a suitable palemoon icon.
The original version (whatever it is) remains unchanged. If you launch a web browser using the puppy menu - it will use the original version.
If you want to go to the trouble to replace that with the new version you can do so, but I got tired of doing that everytime I updated; so now I just leave the original as it is.

[JASpup]

1. Clicked on Palemoon from menu, still nothing, no change.

What happens when you run Pale Moon from the command prompt?

On this 32-machine here my command is:

Code: Select all

run-as-spot /opt/palemoon/palemoon --private

spot and private aren't necessary, but the full path might be.

First;
No such file or directory

Then searched for directory:
/opt/palemoon: Is a directory

Then inputed;
run-as-spot /opt/palmoon
ash: exec line 4: /opt/palemoon: Permission denied

If /opt/palemoon is a directory the command to execute an installed version of Pale Moon should be in it, even if it's read-only.

There can be conflict when palemoon is a script in the path that does not execute the available version, which is why you may need to specify the exact location of the executable.

When you learn how to do this, you can run a newer version of Pale Moon standalone without touching the builtin version.

[DeeMal]

What happens when you run Pale Moon from the command prompt?

On this 32-machine here my command is:

Code: Select all

run-as-spot /opt/palemoon/palemoon --private

spot and private aren't necessary, but the full path might be.

First;
No such file or directory

Then searched for directory:
/opt/palemoon: Is a directory

Sorry about that, the first result of executing the way you asked was "No such file or directory."

Then inputed;
run-as-spot /opt/palmoon
ash: exec line 4: /opt/palemoon: Permission denied

If /opt/palemoon is a directory the command to execute an installed version of Pale Moon should be in it, even if it's read-only.

There can be conflict when palemoon is a script in the path that does not execute the available version, which is why you may need to specify the exact location of the executable.

When you learn how to do this, you can run a newer version of Pale Moon standalone without touching the builtin version.

run-as-spot /opt/palemoon/palemoon --private
Sorry about that, the first result of executing the way you asked was "No such file or directory." Would your last answer here still be the same?

[JASpup]

run-as-spot /opt/palemoon/palemoon --private
Sorry about that, the first result of executing the way you asked was "No such file or directory." Would your last answer here still be the same?

Yes, the answer is the same, but that doesn't explain what happened to your Pale Moon.

You can't execute a directory, so the 3rd won't work.

You should be able to see if palemoon exists/is visible in pfind. Do a system search.

You can also search via command line. Unmount all partitions (so they are not searched) and run:

Code: Select all

find / -name "*palemoon*" > ~/palemoon.txt

If you post the contents of the .txt file in your /root directory, anyone here should be able to tell you whether it is present or not / available to run.

[DeeMal]

No problem in taking your suggestion but are we saying here that because the directory exists, it could mean that the program has somehow disappeared during the update? Because we know for sure that Pale Monn existed before the update and the directory still exist now.

[mikewalsh]

@DeeMal :-

If you'd still prefer to use Chrome, take a look at the Chrome 'bug thread', here:-

viewtopic.php?p=48480#p48480

We think we've found the cause of the crashing. It's a conflict between Puppy's window compositor, and some of the many GPU 'tweaks' Google have recently been making in Chrome. The answer is to disable the 'compton' window compositor, which appears to do the trick....

Let us know if that fixes it for you, please?

Mike.

[DeeMal]

@DeeMal :-

If you'd still prefer to use Chrome, take a look at the Chrome 'bug thread', here:-

viewtopic.php?p=48480#p48480

We think we've found the cause of the crashing. It's a conflict between Puppy's window compositor, and some of the many GPU 'tweaks' Google have recently been making in Chrome. The answer is to disable the 'compton' window compositor, which appears to do the trick....

Let us know if that fixes it for you, please?

Mike.

YES, seems to do the trick although I have decided to go back years and consider portable apps (Chrome) as well with Puppy. I do have Nvidia drivers which can be a hassle as well but didn't think that mattered with this issue.

So I am down to one issue which is Pale Moon. But if that is not resolved, I can live with that as well now.

THANKS SO MUCH! This is the issue I was most concerned about of the 3. You guys/gals rock!

[DeeMal]

Check that, I would have to use Wine in order to use Portable Apps. Forgetaboutit.

[mikewalsh]

@DeeMal :-

Thank HerrBert, not me. He's the one who actually found the fix.

I do a 'portable' version of Linux Chrome, specially packaged for Puppy. Annnd.....I've even built an updater for it.

You can find it here:-

viewtopic.php?t=146

IF you look further through the 'Browsers & Internet' section, you'll find I've done portable versions for several of the Chromium-based 'clones'; Iron (with updater); Slimjet; Opera; Ungoogled-Chromium.....even a portable of the Linux build of M$ Edge. With the exception of Ungoogled-Chromium, these will ALL let you sign-in to a Google a/c.

I've never been able to get any of the 'clones' to function when run as a Windows 'PortableApp'. Firefox WILL fire-up, but it's dreadfully 'buggy' and 'crash-prone', so.....it's not really a viable proposition, TBH.

There's also 'portable' versions available for Firefox, Firefox ESR.....and even PaleMoon. There's a portable Thunderbird, too.

There's choice aplenty. Ya just gotta search the Forum to find 'em......there's a ton of portables for other apps which I've also built, scattered around the forum in various locations. It's a build-format I'm heavily invested in, simply because I truly believe it's a very good fit with the way Puppy works.....not that I expect everyone to agree with me. Many still prefer the traditional, click-to-install .pet package, and Puppy's native 'special', the SFS package.

Many of these are very much a community, team effort; plenty of folks have chipped-in with ideas for improvements, snippets of code to make things work better, etc. The only thing I'll take credit for is putting the packages together and making them publicly available.

I believe in providing maximum choice, y'see. It's up to the individual what they decide to use; the choice IS there.

Mike.

[DeeMal]

Good stuff Mike!

I like choice!

Enjoying some Anita Baker on Puppy and soon will have my Avatar playing the piano later today. I certainly will take a look at your Chrome portable especially since it can update without issue.

[mikewalsh]

@DeeMal :-

BTW, you're running almost the mirror of my own old rig (which died exactly 2 years ago). It was a Compaq Presario SR1619UK desktop from 2005, with an Athlon64 X2 3800+ and 3 GB DDR1 RAM. Brilliant Puppy box, if I'm totally honest.

Were you aware that it's possible to make the Athlon64 more responsive, with a simple tweak in the BIOS?

Mike.

[DeeMal]

@DeeMal :-

Were you aware that it's possible to make the Athlon64 more responsive, with a simple tweak in the BIOS?

Mike.

By responsive what do you mean? But ain't no screwing with BIOS as I am happy with it. If anything, I will look around the house or online for a min. extra two gigs of RAM, for a total of 4.

[wizard]

@mikewalsh
What's the tweak, I still have a couple of them.

@DeeMal
Just to be sure we are on the same page, Puppy uses save file/folders to save your files,
installed apps, and any other changes to your drive,

save file = fixed size, can be on ext, fat, or ntfs partitions
save folder = variable size self adjusting, must be on a Linux ext partition.

Save folders are more desirable, especially for new users.

Puppy can also use a swap file which extends the ram on low memory machines.

Now with that out of the way, here is a test I ran.

computer = HP desktop
cpu = AMD athlon 64 x2 4200+
ram = 2gb

booted Bionic64 8.0
-inserted 4gb USB flash drive
-click Menu>Setup>BootFlash install Puppy to USB
-click OK
-click Create grub4dos USB
-click EXT4 partition + grub4dos

When complete:
-boot from USB
-set up networking
-reboot
-select save folder

After reboot
-open Palemoon and tell it to update = OK
-close
-click Menu>Setup>Quickpet>Browsers>google-chrome>download chrome
-select 64bit.deb>Accept and Install
-choose Save File>OK
-save to root/Downloads directory

After download
-reboot, without this step I got the same error that you did
-open /root/Downloads
-click the google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb and install

This all worked

wizard

[mikewalsh]

@wizard :-

@mikewalsh
What's the tweak, I still have a couple of them.

????? Problems...?

Let's have the details, then...

Mike.

[wizard]

@mikewalsh

Mike, no problems, was referring to this

Were you aware that it's possible to make the Athlon64 more responsive, with a simple tweak in the BIOS?

Recently had two Athlon 64 x2 computers given to me and was curious about your tweak.

Thanks
wizard

[DeeMal]

@mikewalsh
What's the tweak, I still have a couple of them.

@DeeMal
Just to be sure we are on the same page, Puppy uses save file/folders to save your files,
installed apps, and any other changes to your drive,

save file = fixed size, can be on ext, fat, or ntfs partitions
save folder = variable size self adjusting, must be on a Linux ext partition.

Save folders are more desirable, especially for new users.

Puppy can also use a swap file which extends the ram on low memory machines.

Now with that out of the way, here is a test I ran.

computer = HP desktop
cpu = AMD athlon 64 x2 4200+
ram = 2gb

booted Bionic64 8.0
-inserted 4gb USB flash drive
-click Menu>Setup>BootFlash install Puppy to USB
-click OK
-click Create grub4dos USB
-click EXT4 partition + grub4dos

When complete:
-boot from USB
-set up networking
-reboot
-select save folder

After reboot
-open Palemoon and tell it to update = OK
-close
-click Menu>Setup>Quickpet>Browsers>google-chrome>download chrome
-select 64bit.deb>Accept and Install
-choose Save File>OK
-save to root/Downloads directory

After download
-reboot, without this step I got the same error that you did
-open /root/Downloads
-click the google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb and install

This all worked

wizard

Thanks Mike, good stuff as I never knew there was another way to save other than a file.

[mikewalsh]

@mikewalsh

Mike, no problems, was referring to this

Were you aware that it's possible to make the Athlon64 more responsive, with a simple tweak in the BIOS?

Recently had two Athlon 64 x2 computers given to me and was curious about your tweak.

Thanks
wizard

Gotcha. We-e-ell, you know these were the first ever commercial CPUs to have the memory controller "on-board" (as opposed to being part of the northbridge), yes? This is the HyperTransport Link that's mentioned in the specs.

They will run at a max speed of 1 GHz, but if your BIOS is set anything like mine was, they're normally set-up to run at 800 MHz OOTB. I forget how this worked exactly - it's at least 2 years ago now since she pegged out on me - but if you go into the BIOS (normally Phoenix on these old birds) and have a poke around, you'll find there's a setting for adjusting the speed of the HyperTransport Link. If yours is at 800 MHz - maybe, maybe not.....but if it IS - then raising it to the 1000MHz max will give you a useful 25% speed increase.

This isn't the CPU speed we're talking about, but the memory access speed. It's worthwhile looking into, because it does give a noticeable increase in responsiveness. At least, it did for me.

You can pull this tweak on the original single-core Athlon 64s, the dual-core Athlon 64 X2s, and I believe it was also possible on the next-gen Athlon X2s and Phenom X4s as well....

Mike.

[DeeMal]

@mikewalsh

Mike, no problems, was referring to this

Were you aware that it's possible to make the Athlon64 more responsive, with a simple tweak in the BIOS?

Recently had two Athlon 64 x2 computers given to me and was curious about your tweak.

Thanks
wizard

Gotcha. We-e-ell, you know these were the first ever commercial CPUs to have the memory controller "on-board" (as opposed to being part of the northbridge), yes? This is the HyperTransport Link that's mentioned in the specs.

They will run at a max speed of 1 GHz, but if your BIOS is set anything like mine was, they're normally set-up to run at 800 MHz OOTB. I forget how this worked exactly - it's at least 2 years ago now since she pegged out on me - but if you go into the BIOS (normally Phoenix on these old birds) and have a poke around, you'll find there's a setting for adjusting the speed of the HyperTransport Link. If yours is at 800 MHz - maybe, maybe not.....but if it IS - then raising it to the 1000MHz max will give you a useful 25% speed increase.

This isn't the CPU speed we're talking about, but the memory access speed. It's worthwhile looking into, because it does give a noticeable increase in responsiveness. At least, it did for me.

You can pull this tweak on the original single-core Athlon 64s, the dual-core Athlon 64 X2s, and I believe it was also possible on the next-gen Athlon X2s and Phenom X4s as well....

Mike.

Interesting.

[JASpup]

@DeeMal you mentioned increasing your personal storage.

That's how a Puppy user would know you're frugal - the pupsave.

You installed from a DVD to a USB, right?

When you are frugal, the Pale Moon that was builtin in isn't going anywhere. Meaning, you can update, cut, copy, paste, and delete all you want, it isn't going anywhere unless you extricate it like surgery.

This is why it's hazardous to update it. Smartly it is left alone by non-surgeons.

Sometimes we successfully install a newer version of an app over an existing one, but the old one is still there. Browsers will send you into the abyss... The Darkside of the Darkside

[JASpup]

NEW TRICK

I am in 32Tahr but I booted 64Bionic just to advise:

When you boot Bionic, when you get the splash screen choose ram mode. It should boot fresh like the first time you booted.

Chrome 70 is the Bionic version when is was newly released.

Update your Puppy Package Manager repositories.

I still see Chrome 70, but Chromium is updated to 97.

If you still want Chrome, best bet is the website. The Browsers tab in Quickpet will take you to it. I use Chromium.

The Chromium 97 package is 2 dependencies for 121MB.

Whichever you install, save a new pupsave when you shutdown. It's better to keep their size down. I never go bigger than 512MB.

When you reboot, you should get a choice of your current headache pupsave or the new one you just created.

You can have access to multiple pupsaves in the same installation with this method.

The new trick should also restore your Pale Moon.

[DeeMal]

Hi - I don't know if this helps you - but I was a bionic32 user for a long time, then onto bionic64 and now fossapup64.

On all platforms I use Palemoon as the default browser. This is how I run it:

1. download the latest version of palemoon from the website. Select the "xz-compressed tarball" from the link shown, and choose the package to fit your system ie Download_x64-GTK3 tarball OR Download x64-GTK2 tarball

2. create a folder somewhere outside of your save folder. (I keep all of my programs on a separate USB stick. )

3. open the downloaded tarball - and inside you will find a folder called "palemoon". Copy that folder to your USB stick (or wherever you want to hold programs outside of your save file)

4. From your puppy menu - navigate to "Setup -> Default Applications chooser". Scroll down to "Web Browser" and insert the path to your new palemoon installation. On my system it looks like this - /root/my-applications/programs/palemoon/palemoon

That's it. Now when you click on a html link this version of palemoon will be launched. If you want you can place an icon onto the wallpaper and provide a suitable palemoon icon.
The original version (whatever it is) remains unchanged. If you launch a web browser using the puppy menu - it will use the original version.
If you want to go to the trouble to replace that with the new version you can do so, but I got tired of doing that everytime I updated; so now I just leave the original as it is.

Good info! Thanks.

[mikewalsh]

If you still want Chrome, best bet is the website. The Browsers tab in Quickpet will take you to it. I use Chromium.

Uhh.....sorry; nope. Not for us, here in Puppyland. Not unless Google have suddenly changed the way they build their Linux packages.

The Linux Chrome package has been built to work with the standard multi-user/'home' directory/limited permissions model of the traditional mainstream. On top of that, Google refuses to let you run-as-root, unless you pull some developer-related 'tweaks'.

If you never print, or do certain other related activities, you'd probably not notice this, but.......installing the Chrome .deb package direct from the website, without 'tailoring' it for Puppy first, results in CUPS being 'broken'. Why? Because the Chrome installer changes permissions on the /initrd/pup_rw layer of the file-system, to suit what IT expects to be a 'normal', 'limited' user, without 'root' privileges.

Which in Puppyland, kinda messes things up! This is why many of us have expended a lot of time & effort over the past several years to develop ways to run Chrome under Puppy without breaking anything. Only the uninitiated will use the Chrome .debs directly, because they don't know any better.....

I don't build the Chrome packages just for my amusement, y'know! There IS "method in the seeming madness"....

Mike.

[DeeMal]

If you still want Chrome, best bet is the website. The Browsers tab in Quickpet will take you to it. I use Chromium.

This is how I initially installed it. Sigh. Opera installed with no issues. I am not really interested in Firefox since after Opera it is number 3 of the browsers I like most.

[mikewalsh]

@DeeMal :-

mow992's advice is sound, especially the bit about leaving the original version alone.

I always find the best way round this business of the built-in packages is a very simple one; if you want to run a newer version of a built-in package, ignore the original, and set-up your newer version to run from a completely different location. Hence why mow and I both run stuff from separate directories in a different, unrelated part of the filesystem. It may not be the technically-satisfying, proper, "correct" way of doing things, but it sure as hell is a lot simpler.

That's the nice thing about the Linux file-system. Yes, the OS knows about the 'standard' $PATHS and where things should be located.....but a self-contained package will run from anywhere, especially if you 'point' to it with the 'full' $PATH whenever you run it.

And that's why I build the portable packages. Yes, I admit it; I was inspired by the Windows PortableApps, because my last ever re-install of XP, nearly a decade ago, used almost nothing BUT 'portables'. And it all functioned very, very well.

You can put any of my portables you want to use onto a flash-drive.....and they'll run from there quite happily. It's just another option in the Puppy arsenal. And that's another plus-point for the community. My motto, where Puppy is concerned, has always been "Choice in all things"; which is why I package/create as much stuff as I do.

Mike.

[DeeMal]

@DeeMal :-

mow992's advice is sound, especially the bit about leaving the original version alone.

I always find the best way round this business of the built-in packages is a very simple one; if you want to run a newer version of a built-in package, ignore the original, and set-up your newer version to run from a completely different location. Hence why mow and I both run stuff from separate directories in a different, unrelated part of the filesystem. It may not be the technically-satisfying, proper, "correct" way of doing things, but it sure as hell is a lot simpler.

That's the nice thing about the Linux file-system. Yes, the OS knows about the 'standard' $PATHS and where things should be located.....but a self-contained package will run from anywhere, especially if you 'point' to it with the 'full' $PATH whenever you run it.

And that's why I build the portable packages. Yes, I admit it; I was inspired by the Windows PortableApps, because my last ever re-install of XP, nearly a decade ago, used almost nothing BUT 'portables'. And it all functioned very, very well.

You can put any of my portables you want to use onto a flash-drive.....and they'll run from there quite happily. It's just another option in the Puppy arsenal. And that's another plus-point for the community. My motto, where Puppy is concerned, has always been "Choice in all things"; which is why I package/create as much stuff as I do.

Mike.

I used portables through Windows many years ago Mike. I haven't an issue even though some of the packages were trash. Overall it was a good experience. However, I use Linux distros for my everyday computing and am not interested in having to use Wine in order to use them OR some solution that is not used widely and proven safe by a lot of users.

[mikewalsh]

@DeeMal :-

Oh, no. My 'Puppy-portables' are Linux, through & through. They are NOT Windows 'portables', and you do NOT need WINE to run them. And they all use 'proven' Linux apps at their heart; what I've done is to package them in such a way as to keep all the config stuff/settings (which any app will generate) self-contained, in one place, so it can be moved from one system to another.

I've always liked the 'portable' concept - AppImages, in particular, being a favourite of mine - but the one thing that's always niggled me is the way they generate yet another set of config files whenever you move them from one OS to another. It's this 'duplication' that I've sought to avoid; the Windows 'PortableApp' had this concept nailed-down many years ago, yet Linux developers can't seem to get their heads around it.

The portable-browser concept originally evolved in Puppy as a way of keeping the browser cache - which CAN grow to huge proportions, as you know - outside of Puppy's 'save'. However, it tended to be limited to a single, fixed location. I've simply taken it a step further, that's all, and made it truly 'portable'.

Each of my portables also offers the ability to add a MenuEntry from wherever they happen to be located. Or, they can always be run from their 'LAUNCH' scripts.

The choice is, as always, down to the individual user. Nobody's forcing ANYONE to use anything.....it's just another 'option'. I'm not holding a gun to anyone's head!

Mike.

[amethyst]

I always manually remove the builtin, old Pale Moon that comes with the distribution and then download the new tarball from the official site (which I re-pack as an sfs-addon). Have always done that. I don't update anything. Haven't had any problems ever.

[DeeMal]

I always manually remove the builtin, old Pale Moon that comes with the distribution and then download the new tarball from the official site (which I re-pack as an sfs-addon). Have always done that. I don't update anything. Haven't had any problems ever.

I like the advice except for the non-updating part. Even if I am fine with it, I have to think of those I advise.

[DeeMal]

@DeeMal :-

Oh, no. My 'Puppy-portables' are Linux, through & through. They are NOT Windows 'portables', and you do NOT need WINE to run them. And they all use 'proven' Linux apps at their heart; what I've done is to package them in such a way as to keep all the config stuff/settings (which any app will generate) self-contained, in one place, so it can be moved from one system to another.

I've always liked the 'portable' concept - AppImages, in particular, being a favourite of mine - but the one thing that's always niggled me is the way they generate yet another set of config files whenever you move them from one OS to another. It's this 'duplication' that I've sought to avoid; the Windows 'PortableApp' had this concept nailed-down many years ago, yet Linux developers can't seem to get their heads around it.

The portable-browser concept originally evolved in Puppy as a way of keeping the browser cache - which CAN grow to huge proportions, as you know - outside of Puppy's 'save'. However, it tended to be limited to a single, fixed location. I've simply taken it a step further, that's all, and made it truly 'portable'.

Each of my portables also offers the ability to add a MenuEntry from wherever they happen to be located. Or, they can always be run from their 'LAUNCH' scripts.

The choice is, as always, down to the individual user. Nobody's forcing ANYONE to use anything.....it's just another 'option'. I'm not holding a gun to anyone's head!

Mike.

Mike, i started a new thread on the subject of Portable Apps