Unable to install other browsers in S15Pup32

[nwpnr]

I have tried to install the Firefox and Palemoon browsers into my S15Pup32, but both give me this error: "No internet access to Sourceforge - exiting". I am using the Internet - Get web browser menu item. I have internet access because I can use the Light browser, but it does not have the ability to handle the newer web sites.

I am using S15Pup32 22.12 i686 from a frugal installation on an USb stick. I installed S15Pup32 to the USB using Frugalpup on a session with Slacko 7.0.

My PC has a Pentium 4, 3 GHz processor with 512 mB of RAM.

I know very little about Linux, but I am learning more every day.

[mikewalsh]

@nwpnr :- Hallo.....and to the "kennels".

O-kay. 32-bit.....with a Pentium 4. Right....

The big drawback with 32-bit under Linux, of course, is that nearly all of the major browsers have now migrated to 64-bit ONLY. Most used to supply builds of both arches, but many developers have been dropping support for 32-bit wholesale in recent years. From what I understand, it's even getting harder to find 32-bit stuff for Windows, too.

I suspect the problem with the built-in installer may simply be that peebee, who released the S15 Pups, no longer has those specific browser builds in the repo at Github. Because the installer can't find an exact match, it won't connect.....or something along those lines.

For most browsers, I - along with help from various other members - developed a whole series of 'portable', self-contained builds for Puppy.....and these are what we tend to recommend these days. Many will either auto-update from the built-in update mechanisms, or else we've included updater scripts which you run manually.

The 'portable' builds can be run from literally anywhere.......even from a flash drive, if you want to.

----------------------------------

Mostly, for 32-bit, you're looking at the 'zilla-based browsers; Firefox itself (mainline or ESR), SeaMonkey, or Pale Moon. I believe peebee provides a 32-bit build of the Chromium browser - this is the open-source equivalent of Chrome.

I don't know where to find the 32-bit Chromium package, but you can find the 'portable' builds at the following links:-

32-bit Pale Moon - viewtopic.php?t=709
32-bit Firefox (mainline & ESR) - viewtopic.php?t=4083
32-bit SeaMonkey - viewtopic.php?t=1640

Instructions for use are included in the first post of each thread.....and these all have built-in update mechanisms. The versions in the repo may not be bang up-to-date, but it won't take long to get them there....

Hope those are of some use. If you're interested, you can find my post detailing all the 'portables' I've produced at the following link:-

viewtopic.php?t=5104

There's a number of 32-bit packages here.

Mike.

[mikeslr]

I only remember that to obtain one of peebee's web-browsers I have to follow the link from "Announcements" to his repositories on Sourceforge, then Click 'Parent' and work down. Eventually I get to here, https://sourceforge.net/projects/lxpup/ ... /chromium/. But using 'Light', you're likely to run into the same problem you reported.

Suggest trying this work-around if you want chromium: download one of MikeWalsh's portables, then use it to download a chromium. But 512 mB of RAM may not be sufficient to run it. FWIW, seamonkey makes lower demands than the others on my computers.

Strongly recommend that you look into upgrading RAM. Even someone like me <all thumbs> has been able to do it on both desktops (easy) and laptop I've had to not only dissemble but put back together. Look to Youtubes for guidance; and take notes and photos so you'll know what goes where.

p.s. to the Forum.

[nwpnr]

@mikewalsh : I will give your portables a try tomorrow when I have more time. I did try one of your portables in Slacko 7 without success. I think it failed due to lack of sufficient memory.

I found Firefox 115.3.1esr in the puppy package manager and tried to install but it complained about insufficient memory and suggested I make a swap file or folder. So I ran pupswap from a terminal and when the gui opened it would not let me change the destination directory. I went ahead and accepted the only directory it offered (initrd something) and ran it, then rebooted, but I still got the same error. I need to learn more about swap to hunt the problem down.

@mikeslr : I thought of trying Chromium but I tend to steer away from it because it phones home to Google (am not sure about this) I think your are right about getting more RAM which willl be the next step if I can't get an advanced browser to run in Puppy on my current memory.

Thanks to both of you for your help.

[OscarTalks]

I have just upgraded my (for testing) frugal install of S15Pup32 to latest github version 231001 and can confirm that I too am seeing this error message popup of "No internet access to Sourceforge - exiting"
Perhaps there is something (like a URL) in the script /usr/bin/lx_sfs_mgr which needs to be modified?

I can download Firefox (as .sfs) from the links in the post here:-
viewtopic.php?p=295#p295
using a browser and then load the .sfs in the normal way

[bigpup]

With only 512MB of RAM.

For Internet browsing, anymore that is like not having any RAM.

This will help you on RAM usage.

Boot a frugal install using the lowest possible amount of RAM memory
viewtopic.php?t=1854

[Wiz57]

@nwpnr
For Pale Moon, I use Steve Pusser's builds, he maintains 32 bit builds in addition to 64 bit. I'm
currently on my old Acer Aspire One w/1 gig RAM, running an older release of peebee's ScPup 32 bit
from 2021. Anyhow, here's the link to Steve's builds, I choose the ones for Debian, earlier version 10
builds, i686 GTK2 (Puppy works best with GTK2 software).
https://software.opensuse.org//download ... e=palemoon

Download your choice, save it, then click on the DEB file in Rox Filer and "install" should get it in your
Puppy...thankfully Slackware based pups know what to do with Debian DEB packages.

Regarding swap space, if you are running from frugal install to hard drive, choose at least 512 meg size,
and note that with version 5 kernels I experienced SEVERE speed reductions in ScPup, so much so I
swapped the kernel for an older version 4, something to do with the NTFS driver in version 5 (my
frugal pups are installed in folders on a Windows XP dual boot setup, hard drive formatted NTFS).
The "target" you noted is normal (initrd) as Puppy runs entirely in ram.
Wiz

[nwpnr]

@mikewalsh

I went to the mega.nz site (using Light browser) where you placed your portables, but it wouldn't load because it complained the browser was out of date. I'll try later from Slacko7 which has a Firefox 68.12esr browser to see if it will load.
I found you had put a portable up here: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/iqdq9l ... kalphbj21h
Would this be usable to me?

Thanks

[Wiz57]

@nwpnr
Using portables IIRC requires a Linux formatted partition, I couldn't get them to work on
my netbook with NTFS format. How is your Puppy installed? Also, if installed to a USB
thumb drive, chances are pretty good Puppy will try to create a swap file on the USB
thumb drive as well...with some thumb drives this results in slow performance as well
as reduced life of the thumb drive.
Wiz

[nwpnr]

@Wiz57

I have a frugal install onto a USB stick with 2 partitions. Partition 1 is a 300 mB FAT32 with the boot stuff and partition 2 is about 56 gigs, formatted ext3, with the installation files. I used Frugalpup to install and created a folder named S15pup to place the installation files in.

I used pupswap, launched from a terminal command, to make a swap file. Pupswap did not give me a choice of destination, so I accepted the default in the GUI. It placed a file named pupswap.swp on the USB outside the S15pup folder: initrd/mnt/dev_save/pupswap.swp. This file has the gear icon which puzzles me because I would not expect a swap to be an executable. But, I know very little about Linux so maybe that is expected? The initial creation of the install on the USB with Frugalpup(version 20 in Slacko7) did not create a swap file.

So now I need to find a portable version of Firefox to download and test, but the link to the ones MikeWalsh made will not let me on with the Light browser I am using on S15Pup.

Thanks

[nwpnr]

@OscarTalks

I went to the link you suggested and downloaded the firefox.sfs which ended up in my Downloads folder. When I clicked on it, it gave me the option to view it or install it. I canceled because I wasn't sure where it would be installed.

using a browser and then load the .sfs in the normal way

What do you mean by the normal way? I am a newbie to Linux, so if you could explain it would be most helpful. I would like to get it installed on the USB if possible.

Thanks

[OscarTalks]

What do you mean by the normal way? I am a newbie to Linux, so if you could explain it would be most helpful. I would like to get it installed on the USB if possible.

Reading your earlier post it seems you have S15Pup32 installed on a usb stick with the installation files in a sub-directory in an ext3 partition.
Move the firefox.sfs into that same sub-directory along with the installation files (could also be put in the root of that partition, but with the installation files is neater).
Then you have 2 options, if you use Menu > Setup > SFS-Load you should find that the firefox.sfs is available to select. Follow the steps to load it.
Alternatively, if you right-click on the firefox.sfs file (still best to move it first) it should offer you SFS-load as one of the possible actions, then the steps to load it would be the same.
If ever you want to unload it, open SFS-Load from the menu again and follow the steps.

[mikewalsh]

@nwpnr :-

@mikewalsh

I went to the mega.nz site (using Light browser) where you placed your portables, but it wouldn't load because it complained the browser was out of date. I'll try later from Slacko7 which has a Firefox 68.12esr browser to see if it will load.
I found you had put a portable up here: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/iqdq9l ... kalphbj21h
Would this be usable to me?

Thanks

Mm......I believe it will, yes. That was uploaded sometime around 6 months ago, so probably FF102, 103? Somewhere around there.

The reason you can't download from Mega.nz is, I believe, two-fold.

One; from what I understand, that build of the 'Light' browser wasn't in existence for very long, and was based around a late-40s FF......48, 49? That being the case, it's currently somewhere north of 65+ releases BEHIND the current one, So, yeah.....it's "out of date".

Two; I didn't realise it when I opened the MEGA.nz a/c, but Mega are very fussy with respect to browsers being up-to-date before they'll let them download anything. I've had the MediaFire a/c a lot longer, and occasionally upload stuff there when folks like yourself are having 'issues'! Even so, I've never tried using a browser that old to download stuff, so I can't say if it will actually work.

-------------------------------

At the end of the day, though, you're largely going to have the same issue. 512 MB RAM, for a modern OS, really isn't enough to play with. Modern browsers are RAM-hogs, yet most folks wish to get online, so a browser is a must-have item.

That 512 MB not only has to run the browser, allowing around 60-100 MB per tab (for graphically-intensive sites), it also has to run the OS as well.... You do the maths, and you'll see the sums just don't "add-up".

(Early days of Puppy, 15 yrs ago or more, the OS itself was smaller, dependent libraries were smaller, applications were far lighter, and the web was generally a much nicer place to be & was a hell of a lot less demanding. 512 MB was, in those days, a good amount to have, and was plenty in the way of resources.)

Now, a single application can be upwards of 700MB+ - something like FreeCAD, for example - the average 'mainstream' distro needs between 12-15 GB of disk space, and requires a minimum 4-8GB RAM to run. Current 'guidelines' say that 4 GB RAM is barely adequate, and you really need at least 8 GB for a lightweight system. The biggest driver behind all this is the loss of skill when it comes to coding; years ago, it was a point of pride to keep code lean & tight, and it took skill and a fair amount of dedication to write it. Now, "developers" have access to any dev language they want, there's a web site for everything, templates to give you examples, and even AI to actually write it for you! And among all this is woven the unspoken assumption that everybody is running a top-end system with massive amounts of resources.....and those resources are simply there for developers to use up as they see fit. The result is lazy, untidy, bloated code that occupies enormous amounts of RAM & disk-space, yet doesn't actually achieve anything 'extra'.

Sorry to run on, but it's a pet niggle of mine (and this from someone with 32GB RAM and 5TB+ of storage. Sounds hypocritical, doesn't it?) Well, I used to have an ancient 2002 Dell lappie that originally came with just 128MB RAM, so trust me, I know ALL about making the most of minimal resources.....

Ultimately, to get a reliable system you're going to need more RAM. P4-generation, it'll be either DDR1 or DDR2. DDR2 shouldn't be TOO much of a problem to get hold of, but DDR1 is getting to be as rare as hen's teeth.....and as hard to find. AND quite expensive, 'cos there's no call for it any more.

Mike.

[nwpnr]

@OscarTalks

Thank you very much for the clear and concise instructions. I did get Firefox.sfs 118.0.1 to run, but it took me an hour to get one web site to mostly open! Obviously it wants more memory than I have to give.

[mikeslr]

A couple of Gbs of both ddr1 and ddr2 RAM can be found on Amazon, ebay and elsewhere for under $25. But that requires figuring out which version of RAM your computer can use. A better option might be to obtain a 'Certified Refurbished' computer such as this one via Amazon for $125, https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-T430-LED- ... 6%3A-12500 that already has 8Gbs of RAM and can pretty-much run whatever Puppy you choose to install.

I've had pretty good luck with 'Certified Refurbished' computers via Amazon and 'Seller Refurbished' computers with free return policies or from 'Top Sellers' via ebay. Reputable Sellers want to maintain there reputations.

[peebee]

Seems to be a certificates issue:

# curl https://sourceforge.net/projects/lxpup/ ... s/download
curl: (60) SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate
More details here: https://curl.se/docs/sslcerts.html

curl failed to verify the legitimacy of the server and therefore could not
establish a secure connection to it. To learn more about this situation and
how to fix it, please visit the web page mentioned above.

[fernan]

I have a slow 32 bit machine, with 2gB of RAM, probably with a faster processor than yours, and firefox is barely usable. VIVALDI browser runs a bit better, lower RAM usage. But processor speed is still a limit to browse the Internet in 2023.

[mikeslr]

Sleeping on it generated this idea:

I may have mentioned that the web-browser requiring the least RAM is Seamonkey. I think S15Pup32's glibc is new enough that it can run the latest version. You can get it here, https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/. Remember to use the 'Down-Arrow' where --at the top-right you're asked which operating system-- to select Linux-x86. DON'T LEFT-CLICK THE DOWNLOAD BUTTON. Rather do the following:
Open Menu>Internet>Uget.
Now RIGHT-Click the Seamonkey Download button and from the Pop-Up Menu select 'Copy Link Location'. Switch to Uget's GUI and Select 'New Download". Seamonkey['s Download's URL should now appear in Uget's URL box:

Uget GUI.png (32.07 KiB) Viewed 1278 times

Doh't Click the OK button yet. Uget's default download location is /root. which under your system is in RAM. You may have sufficient RAM. It's only a 53 Mb download. But it's worth trying to change the download location to the partition on your USB-Stick. Click the 'File-Icon' on the Folder Line, and from the GUI which opens select mnt>home. Double-Check that a URL still appears in Uget's URL box. If not, Right-Click Seamonkey's Download button again. Now click Uget's OK button.
When Uget finishes you should be able to file-browse to the partition on the USB-Stick and find a file beginning with firefox and ending with tar.bz. Right-Click that file and from the pop-up menu Select UExtract or pExtract or XArchive-Manager to extract the files. [I'm not running S15pup just now]. A folder just named Seamonkey will be generated. [It may be in a folder named seamonkey..extracted.

That folder constitutes a portable version of Seamonkey. Viewing that folder as a folder in Rox, your file=manager, RIGHT-CLICK the up-arrow at the far left of Rox’s tool-bar. Another Window will open to the parent folder of folder you started with. If necessary, click Rox’s Up-Arrow in that Window until you come to a folder with the title dev_save or home. You now have two folders open: one at dev_save/home and the other showing the seamonkey folder. Left-press, then hold the seamonkey folder, then drag it into the dev_save/home folder and select Move.

The portable Seamonkey folder will now be at the top of your Puppy’s Home partition which is always mounted when you boot-up.

Download the Extralibs32.tar.gz from here, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 470#p42470. Follow the instructions on that post. You now have a ‘fully’ portablized version of the latest Seamonkey. Being ‘fully portablized’ web-cache would accumulate in RAM.

I have to 'break for breakfast'. But I'll return to explain how to create a menu entry. Until then, you can use your portable seamonkey by file-browsing into it and Left-Clicking the smky script.

[peebee]

The certificate issue is not present in S15Pup64 (or LxPupSc32) but both S15Pup32 and S15Pup64 have the same:

ca-certificates-20230721|ca-certificates|20230721|1_slack15.0|Filesystem;filemanager|370K|patches/packages|ca-certificates-20230721-noarch-1_slack15.0.txz||PEM Files of CA Certificates|slackware|15.0||

so I don't understand what is happening!!

[peebee]

I may have mentioned that the web-browser requiring the least RAM is Seamonkey.

Seamonkey for S15Pup32 is available from:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/lxpup/ ... /browsers/

[OscarTalks]

The certificate issue is not present in S15Pup64 (or LxPupSc32) but both S15Pup32 and S15Pup64 have the same:

ca-certificates-20230721|ca-certificates|20230721|1_slack15.0|Filesystem;filemanager|370K|patches/packages|ca-certificates-20230721-noarch-1_slack15.0.txz||PEM Files of CA Certificates|slackware|15.0||

so I don't understand what is happening!!

Running the command:-
update-ca-certificates --fresh
creates all those (nearly 300) symlinks in /etc/ssl/certs
The browser downloader script GUI then works
I was able to use it to grab the seamonkey.sfs

[nwpnr]

@mikeslr

Regarding Seamonkey: I do not have Uget in the menu. I do have "Pwsget secure file downloader" Would it serve the same task? I am going to try Seamonkey eventually.

Regarding memory: I have searched for DDR memory for this PC (Dell) in the past and did find some for sale. I believe the board on this PC can accommodate up to a gig of RAM. But I am curious why my swap file won't take up the slack when RAM runs low. I probably did not install it correctly on my USB or I am expecting it to do something it was not intended for. When I run the free command in a terminal it shows I have swap, but I have seen it show swap for my Slacko7 (on CD) which I never understood.

[mikeslr]

Downloading the seamonkey sfs for which peebee has just provided a link would be the easiest way to obtain that web-browser. Just two things.
It's an SFS. In case you didn't know, you don't install SFSes. You merely load them by file-browsing to them, Right-Click and select SFS_Load or open Menu>Setup>SFS-Load on the fly and browsing to them. SFS-Load is a toggle: repeat the process to unload. Unloaded SFSes require no RAM.
But even before you download you can reduce your RAM needs this way. Most web-browsers (create and) use a Download folder which under Puppys would be at /root/Downloads. /root always occupies RAM. So what you can do is move the /Download folder out of /root to your Home partition and 'symlink' it back. Open one rox-Window to /root and another to your Home partition. The quick way to open a window to your home partition is Left-Click it's Drive-Icon on your desktop. If you have an icon named home or files on your desktop it will open to /root. Otherwise when you open rox. clicking the "house" will open to /root.
You should now have two rox-windows open.
If you see a folder named Downloads in /root, Left-Press, hold, then drag the Download folder to the other window and select Move. Then Left-Press, hold, drag it back into /root and select Link(relative).
If you don't see a folder named Downloads in /root, start with the other window. Right-Click an empty space and from the pop-up Menu select New>Directory and name it Downloads. Left-press, hold then drag the Downloads folder into /root and select Link(relative).

Web-browser will still see the Download folder as being in /root. But as the actual folder is on your Home partition downloaded files end up there and use very little RAM while being downloaded.

Once you have Seamonkey, it's new enough that you should be able access websites to download other web-browsers, if you want. The Download-symlink will work for them as well.

I'll defer further information about using portable seamonkey via my previous post until you ask.

[nwpnr]

@mikeslr

I got the Seamonkey sfs from the PeeBee site and ran it. It would not let me on the mega.nz site where MikeWalsh has placed his portables. But it seems like a very responsive browser, so I will play with it some more.

I think Seamonkey is built with the old Gecko engine from Mozilla, which can not handle the newer scripts on some of the recent web sites.

Thanks for your help.

[mikewalsh]

@nwpnr :-

Did you try that Firefox-portable from MediaFire?

If you let me know which browser(s) you're interested in, I'll upload copies to MediaFire, if that's easier to access. I've only just discovered myself that Pale Moon - which I was going to recommend you try for accessing MEGA.nz - will now no longer connect for me, either. Something's changed - either with MEGA's site OR with Pale Moon. It could be either; Pale Moon's Goanna rendering engine is based on Gecko, but they've been steadily diverging from the standard FF code-base for some years.......and they're unapologetic about it.

Moonchild, the lead PM dev, is very deliberately treading his own path.......and for anyone who doesn't like it, that's their problem.

(*shrug...*)

Mike.

[nwpnr]

@mikewalsh

No, I did not try the Firefox on Mediafire because I think I just don't have enough memory to run Firefox. Thanks for your generous offer to upload more, but please don't for my sake.

I have another old PC with Windows XP on it like this one which will allow 4 gigs of RAM on its board but only has 256 mB in it now. I am considering wiping Windows off one of my PCs and putting a full install of Linux in. But I need to study my options a little more.

I agree with your sentiments about the bloatware in the newer web sites. When I discovered that Windows XP would no longer support newer browsers, I discovered Puppy Linux. I had been happily using Slacko7 for the last 6 months then all of a sudden the Firefox 68 on it could no longer access a site I needed. Thus I started looking at other versions of Puppy in hopes one would enable me to run a more recent browser.

I do not want to go back to a Windows system again if i can avoid it.

Thanks for all your help.

[mikewalsh]

@nwpnr :-

Heh. Yeah; see, you're in the same boat I was in with my old Compaq desktop some years back. It was a freebie, hand-me-down from my sister, running XP with a single-core Athlon64 and a 160 GB WD 'Caviar' Black; like most folks, she wasn't technically-minded, so just upgraded to Win 7 by buying a new machine with it pre-installed.....the route of least resistance for most.

It came with just 1 GB DDR1 RAM; didn't bother her, 'cos all she ever did with it was to play "The Sims"! I, however, quickly found out that it just wasn't enough to really DO anything with, so took the bit between my teeth and 'maxed it out' to the full 4 GB it could handle. Shortly after that, I took the plunge & also upgraded to a dual-core Athlon64 X2 I found on eBay, for all of GBP £6! This made a huge difference to multi-tasking, and transformed the system along with the extra RAM.

Older kit IS still perfectly usable with a modern OS, but you do have to be prepared to invest a bit of cash and a lot of TLC to get the best out of it. Additional RAM is the simplest, easiest way to improve performance. Swapping the 'plate-spinner' for an SSD is the next step - you CAN get SSDs that will work with the older IDE/PATA interface, if you don't have SATA - and if you're able to upgrade the CPU at some point, these can often be found for relatively small change on eBay, too. And older kit is worth doing this with, for the simple fact that the older your gear is, the better-built it often is. Planned obsolescence & flimsy construction has only really appeared in the last 10 years or so, and the vast majority of XP hardware is usually quite sturdy, and often still has years of life in it.

I only maxed this new machine all the way to 32 GB for two reasons; one, I never wanted to be constrained by lack of RAM again, and two, because like many of us, during the pandemic, with all the lockdowns, etc, I had a build-up of expendable income in the bank that wouldn't normally be there. So I decided to put some of it to good use; upgraded the RAM as far as it could go - found some really good bargains on Crucial RAM-kits at Amazon in December of 2020 - AND bought my first-ever discrete GPU.....luckily, I also managed to grab this before GPU prices went mental due to the 'crypto' craze.

It's a slow, steady process, but if you're able to do the work yourself - it's not hard, more or less like Lego for grown-ups! - it's very much worth pursuing. You don't HAVE to spend silly money to get a perfectly acceptable computing experience, despite what the enthusiasts would have you believe; with a wee bit of easy work, and minimal outlay, it's easily achievable by most folks......IF you don't mind "getting your hands dirty".

Mike.

[peebee]

Raised issue:
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... ssues/4158

[peebee]

Browser install issue (ca-certificates issue) is fixed with release-231004
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pb-gh-releases/files/

[nwpnr]

As a follow up I discovered something that finally allowed me to get an installation of the Pale Moon browser to work on some sites I couldn't access before. This may be useful to other beginners like me that are working from older systems with limited resources.

While studying the sysinfo report for my PC, it stated that my Pentium 4 processor was 64 bit capable. So I installed S15Pup64 frugally on my USB stick. Then I installed the Firefox sfs browser from the Peabee collection, but it would not perform. Then I installed the Pale Moon sfs (version 32.4.1) from the Peabee collection and it runs fine so far. It allows me to get onto several sites that were inaccessible from other browsers