Falkon, other webkit browser, KDE

[oui]

Falkon seems to become the actual really free browser in 64 bits as well as in 32 bits and a standard in pure KDE (KDE with Koffice etc.) installed full or not (you can install with a minimal but in technical point of view complete scope in a different environment, for ex. a minimal XFCE4 - Also that is ok! Profit: XFCE4 give you great functions, for ex. XFCE4-appfinder, XFCE4-panel etc. with a small installation as kde minimal for bash gives the functional connection of the great kapp's all within the kde functionality. Also the use of parts of all can make sense).

but you meet in diverse Puppy's (perhaps not in all) a terrible difficulty: a very special dependency being not easy to find, see pls the picture, libpulsecommon-14.2.so and own dependencies.

this dependency seems to come from redhat.

have we a adequate sfs or pet for that?

[williams2]

What Puppy are you using?

pulse audio is used by most browsers to play sound,
for example, the audio of a movie.

Firefox runs whether pulse audio is available or not.
If pulse is missing, Firefox can't play sound.

Many (most) Pups either have pulse or apulse (pulse for alsa)
Included in BionicPup64 :

Code: Select all

# find /initrd/pup_ro2/ | grep libpulse
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/ao/plugins-4/libpulse.so
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/apulse/libpulse-mainloop-glib.so
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/apulse/libpulse-mainloop-glib.so.0
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/apulse/libpulse-simple.so
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/apulse/libpulse-simple.so.0
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/apulse/libpulse.so
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/apulse/libpulse.so.0
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/apulse/libpulsecommon-5.0.so
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/libpulse-mainloop-glib.so.0
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/libpulse-mainloop-glib.so.0.0.5
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/libpulse-simple.so.0
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/libpulse-simple.so.0.1.1
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/libpulse.so.0
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/libpulse.so.0.20.2
/initrd/pup_ro2/usr/lib/pulseaudio/libpulsecommon-11.1.so
# 

You need to tell Puppy to include libpulse in $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
You can do this by starting the executable like this (for Firefox)

Code: Select all

apulse firefox

[geo_c]

Falkon seems to become the actual really free browser in 64 bits as well as in 32 bits and a standard in pure KDE (KDE with Koffice etc.)

I always liked this browser, but apparently their website is and KDE download links are abandoned, because they show the latest version date as being in 2022.

I looked in Void repo and they have the latest version 24 that came out 4 days ago. I tried to install it in KLV-spectr using Octoxbps, and it failed to find a QT-6 component in all the repo mirrors.

The seemingly out-of-date web listings are one reason I abandoned using it a few years ago, though if it's being maintained and I can get it installed, I would.

[oui]

Hi Williams2 and geo_c

I am using the 2 last French translated Puppy's named Triton 8 (32 bits, Jammy) and Triton 9 (64 bits, bookworm).

As after a few experiences with the 64 bits version based on bookworm, what I daily use for French TV through the web, it is the very special figure of those both Tritons from petihar (thank you petihar for that!), I continue to prefer the older one Triton 8 to work because I can use it on my 6 different computers really in use in our house, and my 3 more older laptops (over that!) where I continue to play with old project of computer software design, because Triton 8, based on Jammy, is usable really on all! Triton 9 includes synaptic and apt, and installs Falkon. To use it, you start better as "spot" (see the README in /home/spot).

Triton 8 did not have some apt and synaptic. And as it is not a real original Ubuntu distro, you don't find all packages using our Puppy package manager.

Other usable libpulse don't appear in the package manager excepted the 2 ones being already installed.

[fredx181]

@oui The libpulsecommon library is part of package libpulse0, but apparently version 14 doesn't exist anymore, see https://www.ubuntuupdates.org/pm/libpulse0 (jammy has version 15).
Btw, I wonder if you really need it, you do have sound with Falkon ?
edit: Debian Bullseye has v14 : https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/libpulse0
edit2: but I see now PPM says it's already installed, perhaps not complete, you can try to install again.
edit3: or check if you already have it in the system, in /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/

[mikewalsh]

I looked in Void repo and they have the latest version 24 that came out 4 days ago. I tried to install it in KLV-spectr using Octoxbps, and it failed to find a QT-6 component in all the repo mirrors.

The seemingly out-of-date web listings are one reason I abandoned using it a few years ago, though if it's being maintained and I can get it installed, I would.

Interesting. How come Void have the "latest".......because the official site (AND everywhere else) says 23.04 is the most recent build? Where did the Void team get it from? If Falkon haven't released a new build of source code, what the hell did the Void maintainers use?

Lots of unanswered questions.....yes, indeedy!

I've also noticed that nobody is building QT SFSs any more; everybody seems content to just get it from package managers as & when needed now. I can't say I'm surprised; by all accounts, Qt6 has continued the trend started by Qt5.......the packages are absolutely gigantic, it seems.

Lazy coding rules. Huh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So far as Falkon goes, well; its related to the KDE project, isn't it? And the entire KDE ecosphere is built around Qt. Individual KDE packages ARE quire small.....because they're built with the expectation that the core components are always there. But if you want to run them outside their intended environment, see how big they balloon; take the DigiKam AppImages, for instance; 450-500MB +. *Ouch!*

Mike.

[fredx181]

@mikewalsh Version 24 source is here available : https://github.com/KDE/falkon/tags
edit: perhaps v23 is what they define as "stable" version.

[mikewalsh]

@fredx181 :-

perhaps v23 is what they define as "stable" version.

You could be right, Fred. I did do some "digging" around on Github, but couldn't locate anything pertinent. Never realised KDE actually have their own dedicated Github repo, though it's hardly surprising; many other major projects have a presence there, so why NOT KDE?

Cheers, buddy.

Mike.

[oui]

Hallo fredx

Btw, I wonder if you really need it, you do have sound with Falkon ?

Yes, probably, because I use both Triton's because of TV and without sound the TV success would be terribly low. And, of course, I would, like to use my ONE browser for all purposes on not only some ones.

But there is a more important reason in Triton 8 (Jammy): the Puppy package manager stops to continue the full installation if that kind of dependency is not available, so you can now install at all - no sound and also no view as the new browser can't start at all.

Using the old trick (make a link from a newer version, the in the ISO really already included version of that library to the old one permit to conclude the installation from Falton, but also of Konqueror, kwrite, calligrawords, calligrasheets, marble (for KDE, I did not try for Qt only), kturtle, merkaartor (plus more stuff being not kde dependent like ucb-logo, swi-prolog etc.).

I did remaster the ISO and the size continue to be low and gently usable, but some app's only seems to go well (calligrawords, calligrasheets, kwrite, kturtle) but the other not. Falkon starts but not show else google, the most simply site to visit, Konqueror does not start (the embedded Konqueror was long time somewhat as the «Puppy Browser» not contested at the time where someones did try to push out the mozilla suite from our menu for opera! Yes, we did always have toil with our browsers!) at all, not as browser, not as file and tree manager, marble show a dark little window on it's surface but would be working, merkaartor does not start (but would be starting after installation from a next missing dependency).

What is true, is that we did never have some usable kit to install the konqueror (excepted for the embedded one) and all webkit or webkit like stuff. As long as Puppy Quirky April did have the size from 100 Mb for all the Puppy stuff, it was reasonable. But now, where Puppy has frequently the size of the extix distributions from our forum friend Exton (full installations with little session managers and environments) if you, what is correctly, add the size of the devx it is not really an example for the future any more! we must admit - qt did win with Lxqt and opens the door full for webkit and webkit like's. a new Puppy without some adequate = good Qt-SFS is

uncomplete.

[fredx181]

@oui My test results installing falkon on Triton 8 :
Got the same message as you about libpulsecommon missing.

Running as spot run-as-spot falkon is not working correctly, i.e. the browser starts but nothing works as expected.
However running as root works OK for me falkon --no-sandbox, (sound works too) so something seems to be wrong with the run-as-spot mechanism

[Dry Falls]

Could it be that spot needs to be in the audio group? If everything else works with Falkon (no sandbox/root), then it's probably not a problem with the build. Slackware's build functions fine with spot but in lighthouse, spot is a member of

Code: Select all

tty disk lp wheel floppy dialout audio video cdrom games pulse gdm input
messagebus plugdev power netdev scanner users console docker spot

Some of these may present security problems to some, but audio, video and pulse will be mandatory for browsing.

df

[norgo]

Could it be that spot needs to be in the audio group?

Confirmed
tested with falkon 23.08.5 under SLK64

@oui
falkon is using qtwebengine ( not webkit )

@fredx181
run-as-spot falkon does not work correctly by default
reason: falkon does not create automaticly the needed folder /home/spot/.config/falkon
solution: create the folder /home/spot/.config/falkon manually (set owner:group of folder to spot:spot)

for interest only
where did you download the qtwebengine package?

[RSH]

apulse firefox

Is it possible to use this command and to connect pulse audio to JACK audio?
I'm running my OS using JACK audio by default.
So, I don't have sound in Firefox.
Usually I prefer to not have sound in a browser.
But there's a few websites I need to run Palemoon without JACK to have sound.
I want sound on this few websites.
E.g. my main news broadcasting in Germany NIUS.
Watching every day for one hour.

[jamesbond]

apulse firefox

Is it possible to use this command and to connect pulse audio to JACK audio?

Yes.

xscreenshot-20240704T002829.jpg (52.61 KiB) Viewed 1039 times

And here is the .asoundrc.

Code: Select all

pcm.!default fdplug
pcm.fdplug {
	type plug
	slave {
		pcm jack
	}
}
pcm.jack {
     type jack
     playback_ports {
         0 system:playback_1
         1 system:playback_2
     }
     capture_ports {
         0 system:capture_1
         1 system:capture_2
     }
}

[mikewalsh]

I sometimes wonder just exactly HOW the Chromium-based browsers create/source their audio. It doesn't seem to matter if you're in a system using Pipewire, PulseAudio, JACK or just plain old ALSA......they invariably just "work".

Unlike FF, where it HAS to be PA, OR an emulated variant thereof (like 'apulse').

@jamesbond :- Jim, do you happen to know the answer to this one (just out of curiosity, like)?

Mike.

[jamesbond]

@mikewalsh, firefox can be built to support pulse, ALSA, JACK, and OSS all at the same time. At run-time, it automatically determines which driver to the used, by testing these drivers in the following order: pulse, jack, alsa and OSS, and uses the first one that works.
You can override this automatic behaviour and tell it to use the specific driver by specifying "media.cubeb.backend" in about:config.

Nice, eh? Configured this way, it will work exactly the same way as Chrome; it will work with whatever audio driver is available in your system.

Unfortunately, despite this versatlity, the official firefox binaries aren't compiled like this. It is compiled with support for only one driver: pulse, and nothing else. Which is why we need apulse to run it with alsa. But why was it compiled that way? It's one of the greatest mystery in the universe, I suppose

[RSH]

@mikewalsh
Hi,

can you point me to such chromium based browser that will work in Bionic?

Thanks

[mikewalsh]

@RSH :-

AFAIK, all of the following will work fine under Bionicpup64:-

• Brave

• Chromium

• Chrome itself

• Iron

• Opera

• Slimjet (sorry, no; this now wants minimum glibc 2.30)

If you look in the "Browsers and Internet" section, there's portable builds for most of them. What's in my repos won't necessarily be up-to-date, but most now have updater scripts kindly provided and/or modified by Fred. It shouldn't take long to get them "current".

Mike.