Is Seamonkey buggy?

[bigpup]

Not sure you understand what I am saying by operational memory.

That is the memory holding the operating Puppy OS and all the stuff that completely makes it operate.
All the needed hardware support files, the core operating files, and programs.
Everything needed to get to a working desktop and then do stuff.

If you first boot and get to a working desktop. Do nothing else.
That is what I call operational memory in use.

OK using nocopy will still require loading in memory what is going to access the SFS's and un-compress and load stuff into memory when requested.

[bigpup]

Getting back on topic subject.

I seem to have a good working install of the latest Seamonkey.

I do think that what hardware it is running on may be an issue.
Based on the fact that I now have issues getting YouTube to run on a very low spec computer, that did work OK using Firefox.
Just had to use low quality settings for YouTube videos.
Now the videos are jerky and slow to play.
Only thing I have done is update to Firefox v102.9 oesr 32bit.

The Seamonkey version is 64 bit, that is working good on a much better spec computer.

32bit version or 64bit version of Seamonkey may be something to consider.

Isn't the Internet going full out to use 64bit for everything?

Anyone got a web site not working OK with Seamonkey?

Now I do access one specific web site, that will only correctly work, if I use Google Chrome browser.
No other browser will totally work on it.
But this one affects using any other browser.
They decided to only let it work correctly using only Google Chrome browser.

[amethyst]

Not sure you understand what I am saying by operational memory.

That is the memory holding the operating Puppy OS and all the stuff that completely makes it operate.
All the needed hardware support files, the core operating files, and programs.
Everything needed to get to a working desktop and then do stuff.

If you first boot and get to a working desktop. Do nothing else.
That is what I call operational memory in use.

OK using nocopy will still require loading in memory what is going to access the SFS's and un-compress and load stuff into memory when requested.

I think you don't understand yourself,then make up "terms" as you go along (but is incorrect).

[dimkr]

Based on the fact that I now have issues getting YouTube to run on a very low spec computer, that did work OK using Firefox.
Just had to use low quality settings for YouTube videos.
Now the videos are jerky and slow to play.

Browse to about:support and check if VAAPI and other hardware-accelerated video decoding features are disabled

It's a night and day difference on some computers. I've seen computers that struggle with 720p or even 480p unless this work is offloaded to the GPU.

[amethyst]

On hardware challenged machines, the better option is to use a slightly older Firefox which will still access all the sites you want but with much less strain on your computer. There's a massive difference between using the very latest Firefox (version 114) compared to version 89 for example which I'm using on my old machine. The latest Seamonkey is based on Firefox 91 but I'm pretty sure it does not have all the necessary stuff to access all sites as well as Firefox does. For 32-bit, Firefox is definitely the best way to go. I stream a lot now and streaming at 720P mostly works fine. The other thing you need to consider is to disable ALL updates of any kind in about:config. There are a zillion things which Firefox wants to update every time you access the web and this can take a toll on your old machine. I've also disabled automatic browser cache handling. It all works reasonably well for me now. There is no question however that the new browser versions are killing off old machines rapidly. It's just getting too heavy for old machines. Puppy's poor and inadequate handling of a swap file may be a contributing factor too.

[amethyst]

I am doing several hours of live HD streaming each day so my setup seems to be working okay now. I close the browser and restart it after a lengthy spell. Closing the browser clears the memory caches.

[dimkr]

Puppy's poor and inadequate handling of a swap file may be a contributing factor too.

What do you mean by that? What would you change?

[amethyst]

Puppy's poor and inadequate handling of a swap file may be a contributing factor too.

What do you mean by that? What would you change?

Although I have almost never used a swap file over the years, the times I've tried it, it just does not seem to work properly. For instance, after a lengthy spell where lots of memory have been used on this old machine with 2GB of RAM almost none of the swap file has been used, surely this can't be correct. It does not work properly, that's for sure. Waste of space. I have never used a swap partition, maybe that works better but swap file for Puppy is useless in my view.

[dimkr]

lots of memory have been used on this old machine with 2GB of RAM almost none of the swap file has been used, surely this can't be correct.

It is correct. Swap is slower than RAM, and applications become much slower when RAM is full and all memory they use comes from swap. Using available swap space when you still have free RAM is a waste of CPU cycles (and energy). You don't get any speed advantage by leaving more RAM free, if you use swap instead: it's a zero sum game. If applications use memory, let them use the fastest kind of memory you have available (= RAM, not swap). Extra free RAM won't make applications run faster.

Normally, the kernel starts moving things from RAM to swap long before all RAM is used, to leave some free RAM and prepare for out-of-memory conditions (even if they don't ever happen). This is good for servers, because this means they don't freeze or slow down in that moment when RAM becomes full and the kernel has to page out to swap before they're allowed to continue running. However, this "safe bet" is not ideal in many cases, including old computers with slow disks (= slow swap).

Puppy reconfigures the kernel (via "swappiness") so it uses RAM as long as it can, and starts using swap only when truly running out of RAM. I have two computers that freeze every once in a while and can't run a browser well once swap kicks in, because they use old mechanical drives and swap is extremely slow. Only when swap is used the Puppy way (unused until needed + fallback to zram whan no swap on disk), these computers work very well despite their age.

[amethyst]

Normally, the kernel starts moving things from RAM to swap long before all RAM is used, to leave some free RAM and prepare for out-of-memory conditions (even if they don't ever happen).

This doesn't happen for me. That's why I say it's not working properly. As I understand it, the default setting (swappiness at 60) is that the swap file comes into play when about 80% of the RAM is used . This definitely does not happen for me. It's ineffective, Windows has the swap file working superbly. Unfortunately can't say that for Puppy (or Linux in general, don't know if this is a Linux issue per se). Also, swap is slower but not suppose to be down to a crawl, one certainly does not experience extremely slow operation with Windows using the swap. Fact of the matter is that swap is extremely important for lower end machines and if it is not working properly you are bound to run into problems.
Edit: I've set swappiness to 10 after reading a bit up on it. This seems to be the preferred value running the bigger ubuntu releases. I can now see the swap in action with substantial values reported after heavy use. Let's see if this leads to better results.

[wiak]

dimkr is definitely correct... on old machines, and particularly those that use slow mechanical hard drives, avoid swap for as long as possible. If you have insufficient RAM to avoid such swap occurring (which can render an old system useless via slow-to-a-crawl effect) then definitely a good idea to include some zram swap. It is ok and even good to allow zram swap to be used quickly despite some CPU involved in compression/decompression (since zram is also actually in RAM and not so slow therefore) - the point remains to avoid using slow disk swap for as long as possible... So, personally, I would not encourage 'normal' swap to slow mechanical disk to occur... avoid that for as long as possible is better for most desktop users.

Each to their own, of course, but in terms of forum 'advice' above is my take on what is best anyway.

[bigpup]

Back to subject of this topic.

I am trying the latest version of Seamonkey the 64bit version.

On the really low powered computer, I was using the 32bit version of Seamonkey, having all kinds of issues with YouTube.

Using a 64bit version of Puppy and a 64bit version of Seamonkey.

That seems to have fixed the issues with using YouTube.

Note:
Could have been the specific 32bit version of Puppy trying to use the 32bit version of Seamonkey.
I am using a completely different Puppy version(32bit) and completely different Puppy version(64bit).
so differences in the Puppy version could be part of the cause of issues.

anyway, going to a 64bit version of Seamonkey, seems to have made improvements to it's overall operation.

[oui]

really good information! I hope it will confirmed soon in 32 bit.

at the other side, a diversification of browsers at Puppy would be a good idea! The fixer idea Puppy is Mozilla is wrong. If other important page would begin to block Mozilla, Puppy would be instantan dead! There are other browser, not only from google. google itself did take an EXISTENT other base, webkit, and webkit came from konqueror... Hm!!!

[dimkr]

This is not surprising: without GPU acceleration, video decoding is done on the CPU. x86_64 is much faster at that, because arithmetic operations on 64 bit integers are faster, and x86_64 has extra SIMD instructions. The same CPU should decode video much faster when running a 64 bit OS.

[norgo]

here a snapshot of seamonkey-2.53.18b-pre1
In comparison to former versions and the current 2.53.17
this version is supporting java script much better.
THIS VERSION IS FOR TEST ONLY!
seamonkey-2.53.18b-1pre-x86_64.pet

[rockedge]

here a snapshot of seamonkey-2.53.18b-pre1
In comparison to former versions and the current 2.53.17
this version is supporting java script much better.
THIS VERSION IS FOR TEST ONLY!
seamonkey-2.53.18b-1pre-x86_64.pet

I downloaded the PET package, extracted and converted to SFS. Tested on F96-CE_4, KLV-Airedale, KLV-Spectr and works nicely

Update: Have to say after switching the theme to Metal Lion Sea Monkey so far using this version has been really fun and SeaMonkey is very responsive.

[norgo]

seamonkey 2.53.19 beta 1pre x86_64

here the [2024-02-17] snapshot of seamonkey-2.53.19-beta-1pre-x86_64 compiled in SLK 64 (Slackware 15.0 basing)

This is not an official release and for test only !