Pale Moon 'portable' browsers - 32- & 64-bit

[TerryH]

I don't know of any 32-bit Puppy that's using newer than 2.27.

Mike,

Just looked through @mistfire's quickpup package list. If you're looking for a later version to use, it shows glibc as version 2.32.

[mikewalsh]

I don't know of any 32-bit Puppy that's using newer than 2.27.

Mike,

Just looked through @mistfire's quickpup package list. If you're looking for a later version to use, it shows glibc as version 2.32.

Thanks for that, Terry. Worth bearing in mind for future reference.

I had a squizz through my archive of Puppy versions, and found that Radky's DPupBuster32 uses glibc 2.28. So I've just finished building a glibc-228 'directory' to drop-in to a 'tweaked' Pale Moon package. I'll fire that up in a few with the Lucid USB in ye anciente Dell, and see what, if anything, happens. I'm not holding my breath; I honestly think this is asking just TOO much of Lucid. After all, most of its deps are between 11 and 12 years old now.....but, ya never know. Fingers crossed..!

(Well, I'm posting from the glibc228-tweaked PaleMoon 29.1.0 in Sailor's Slacko 571. It's running fine here, but then Sailor upgraded quite a bit of the infrastructure when he put this together, what.......3, 4 years ago? No guarantees it'll run under Lucid.)

Mike.

[jeff757]

Mike,
peebee's latest slacko-current 21.01+0 uses glibc 2.30.

Jeff

[mikewalsh]

@keniv :-

No, it's a 'no-go' in Lucid, I'm afraid. It wanted the GTK3 stuff, which I added in.....and STILL gave me the same segfault/'issues'.

I think we'll have to rule it out, mate. There is still the 'chroot' concept, y'know.....

Mike.

[amethyst]

But you can use Racy/Wary (which is old and not much newer than Lucid) standard addition with the 3MB pet upgrade I provided and it works without fuss. It runs with glibc2.20. I'm using 29.01 so unless 29.10 wants gtk3 too, that's not needed either. If you can't get glibc2.20 to work with Lucid, trying to use a newer glibc will be even more unlikely (if not impossible) to work although glibc2.27 also worked for me with Racy (I did a quick rip from Bionic). Besides the chroot way (which may work although I wouldn't waste my time with things like that) the best alternative would probably be to get a slightly older Palemoon like 28.16 to work with Lucid. Version 28.16 is just a few months old anyway. This general obsession with always wanting to use the very latest super-duper versions (which is not always that super-duper) which seems to pop up every second week, is also quite ridiculous. I've been falling into that trap myself lately and it's unnecessary. The other day, I used Light Browser (a 6-year old cutdown version of Firefox)), it still worked fine.

[amethyst]

I seem to have stability issues with version 29.01. I think I'm going to revert to the previous version I used ie. 28.14.2

[mikewalsh]

@amethyst :-

But you can use Racy/Wary (which is old and not much newer than Lucid) standard addition with the 3MB pet upgrade I provided and it works without fuss. It runs with glibc2.20. I'm using 29.01 so unless 29.10 wants gtk3 too, that's not needed either. If you can't get glibc2.20 to work with Lucid, trying to use a newer glibc will be even more unlikely (if not impossible) to work although glibc2.27 also worked for me with Racy (I did a quick rip from Bionic). Besides the chroot way (which may work although I wouldn't waste my time with things like that) the best alternative would probably be to get a slightly older Palemoon like 28.16 to work with Lucid. Version 28.16 is just a few months old anyway. This general obsession with always wanting to use the very latest super-duper versions (which is not always that super-duper) which seems to pop up every second week, is also quite ridiculous. I've been falling into that trap myself lately and it's unnecessary. The other day, I used Light Browser (a 6-year old cutdown version of Firefox)), it still worked fine.

I tend to agree about the "obsession" with the use of up-to-date versions all the time. However, I will counter that with this proviso.....

I only do this with browsers.....for three main reasons:-

• Because forum members want them

• Because it's the one area where security stuff - patches, bug-fixes, etc - really can affect the rest of your system

• Because I'm a NetFlix user (sc-fi/Star Trek nut).....and if your browser isn't fairly new these days, NetFlix bitches & moans & refuses to connect until it IS "up-to-date"

I'll do this with anything 'internet-facing'. On top of which, it wasn't until I joined the staff at BleepingComputer that I began to realise just how much malware there is out there. (I know it's 99% aimed at Windows, and to a lesser extent Macs.......but BC is primarily for helping out Windoze users with "issues", and it's quite an eye-opener if you're not used to it.) Normally, I keep out of the Windows area of the site, but as a mod you still get dragged into it whether you want to or not... (*sigh*)

Mike.

[amethyst]

@mikewalsh - I get the idea that Palemoon developers are using their users as guinea-pigs with all these very frequent releases. As mentioned, some releases definitely have serious stability issues. In this regard, Seamonkey, for example seem to really test their stuff properly before release.

[keniv]

@keniv :-

No, it's a 'no-go' in Lucid, I'm afraid. It wanted the GTK3 stuff, which I added in.....and STILL gave me the same segfault/'issues'.

Thanks for trying this again but I think your right in saying it's a "no-go"

How much RAM does your Lucid machine have? 2 GB? 4 GB? (4 GB would be better, because with a chroot you're essentially running one Puppy inside another; like a VM, but without a VM's complications). And you could run the 'chroot' from a flashdrive...!

This machine is 64bit with 4GB so it might work with this but I don't know if it's worth it as I have palemoon 28.9.2 working in Lucid in the original save file. The machine I use in my shed is only 32bit with 2GB but as I have Racy, DpupStretch and Quickpup working with your portable palemoon 29.1 I don't really need Lucid to work with palemoon 29.1. It's just that it would have been nice if it had been possible.

@amethyst

you can use Racy/Wary (which is old and not much newer than Lucid)

Just on the age of the version of Lucid I'm currently using it comes from here.
viewtopic.php?f=126&t=1222
You can see the final "revitalised" version was released Nov 2017 so perhaps not that much older than Racy though I think I also have an updated version of Racy.

the best alternative would probably be to get a slightly older Palemoon like 28.16 to work with Lucid

As I said above I have palemoon 28.9.2 working in Lucid which I know would have updated to 28.16 before palemoon stopped their support for the 32bit version. Do you know of a way to update 28.9.2 to 28.16 or install 28.16 in Lucid?

This general obsession with always wanting to use the very latest super-duper versions (which is not always that super-duper) which seems to pop up every second week, is also quite ridiculous.

I'm not really interested in "super-duper versions" but I am concerned about security updates. The general advice on here is that the browser is perhaps the most vulnerable part of the OS being as it's pointed at the internet. That's my reason for trying to keep the browser/s up to date.

Can I also just thank the others here who suggested other 32bit sources of more up to date versions of glibc.

Regards,

Ken.

[amethyst]

Uninstall the Palemoon you have installed with the package manager. Download the Palemoon28.16 tarball from the Palemoon site and extract the contents (I think you can extract it to any location on your partition, and run the executable in the Palemoon folder). I normally make an sfs file. I use version 28.14.2 myself. Have dissed version 29.01 which is unstable.

[keniv]

@amethyst
OK, thanks for that, I'll try it.

Ken.

[amethyst]

I don't know of any 32-bit Puppy that's using newer than 2.27.

Mike,

Just looked through @mistfire's quickpup package list. If you're looking for a later version to use, it shows glibc as version 2.32.

Thanks for that, Terry. Worth bearing in mind for future reference.

I had a squizz through my archive of Puppy versions, and found that Radky's DPupBuster32 uses glibc 2.28. So I've just finished building a glibc-228 'directory' to drop-in to a 'tweaked' Pale Moon package. I'll fire that up in a few with the Lucid USB in ye anciente Dell, and see what, if anything, happens. I'm not holding my breath; I honestly think this is asking just TOO much of Lucid. After all, most of its deps are between 11 and 12 years old now.....but, ya never know. Fingers crossed..!

(Well, I'm posting from the glibc228-tweaked PaleMoon 29.1.0 in Sailor's Slacko 571. It's running fine here, but then Sailor upgraded quite a bit of the infrastructure when he put this together, what.......3, 4 years ago? No guarantees it'll run under Lucid.)

Mike.

MIke, where can I download your glibc2.28 package? I've ripped 2.27 from Bionic (just used one off my utilities so didn't look to refine it). It works but messes up some other things. Thanks.

[mikewalsh]

@amethyst :-

Nic, what this boils down to is simply a newer version of the 'glibc219' directory that watchdog originally assembled for his "tweaked" browser packages. It's not a full set of packages like battleshooter's 'glibc-2.20' (which she originally put together for Carolina/Saluki.....hence why it works so well with Racy, 'cos that's where Saluki originated!)

You're welcome to try it, certainly. Just remember, this is a self-contained directory, designed to be used within a browser (or any other) package & called from the exec line at launch time. I'll include the 'launcher' script which calls it, so you can see how watchdog did it.

You can find it here:-

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/e1lh4p ... Glibc+2.28

Perhaps it'll be useful..!

Mike.

[amethyst]

Thanks, mike. I'll have to repackage it somehow because I don't have a portable version of Palemoon...but I'm sure everything that is needed, is there.

[mikewalsh]

@amethyst:-

Nic, take a look here over at Murga-Linux:-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 93#1035893

I don't have one myself, but you can grab one of watchdog's glibc-tweaked .pet packages from his G. Drive. I don't have a copy myself, but I've never known watchdog's links fail to work.

(Mind you, you know as well as I do that you can make a package run from anywhere in the Linux file-system, so long as your $PATHs point to the correct locations. There's no hard'n'fast rules, like there are with Windows...)

Mike.

[amethyst]

@amethyst:-

Nic, take a look here over at Murga-Linux:-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 93#1035893

I don't have one myself, but you can grab one of watchdog's glibc-tweaked .pet packages from his G. Drive. I don't have a copy myself, but I've never known watchdog's links fail to work.

Mike.

Thanks, I got 2.28 going. I just modified the launching script.

[amethyst]

(Mind you, you know as well as I do that you can make a package run from anywhere in the Linux file-system, so long as your $PATHs point to the correct locations. There's no hard'n'fast rules, like there are with Windows...)

Yeah, laying the foundation for a portable application (which can be done in Windows too of course) OR isolating newer libraries interfering with base file libraries. Useful. Quite simple really once you had a look at the script(s).

[BologneChe]

There were earlier versions of portable Palemoon that worked well with Slacko 5.7. This version does not work and it is a pity that the older versions are not available ... disappointed

[ThruHammer]

BologneChe, what's it say when you start this 29.1.0 "palemoon" version from within a terminal?

[BologneChe]

BologneChe, what's it say when you start this 29.1.0 "palemoon" version from within a terminal?

Hi ThruHammer,

Finally, I was able to get the portable version 28.16. It works well. Thank you for your help! Version 29 simply did not want to open via the LAUNCH. I have not tried by the terminal however.

[ThruHammer]

As Mike still runs these older pups, I'm sure he has an answer to run the latest.

[ThruHammer]

Run this and confirm whether your box is sse2 compliant:

Code: Select all

cat /proc/cpuinfo

Look for "sse2" on the "flags" line.

[BologneChe]

Run this and confirm whether your box is sse2 compliant:

Code: Select all

cat /proc/cpuinfo

Look for "sse2" on the "flags" line.

Voilà!

[ThruHammer]

True or false, Mike; these "portables" DON'T update, correct?

[mikewalsh]

@ThruHammer :-

29-series 32-bit portable PaleMoon doesn't update in-situ, no. Moonchild Productions have dropped 32-bit official releases to concentrate on 64-bit only, so any 32-bit builds are now compiled/built by third parties.

These are by Steve Pusser, who has been compiling custom PaleMoon builds for years, and is a recognised contributor to the Pale Moon project.

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

@BologneChe :-

Just so's we know, open the newest PaleMoon-portable (v29.1.0). Right-click in an empty space beside the 'LAUNCH' script->Window->Terminal here. In the terminal, type

Code: Select all

./LAUNCH

.....hit 'Enter', and let us have a read-out of the result, please? (I'm almost certain I know what the issue is here, but let's have some confirmation first... )

It's a bit of a "cop-out" running back to an older version, simply because you can't be bothered to run a simple command in a terminal. The more feedback I get from other Puppians, the more likely it is that I can keep these browser packages working for the largest number of people, y'see. (*shrug*)

Thanks.

Mike.

[ThruHammer]

Yep. I've grown so accustomed to the 64 builds that I totally forgot the 32's have been dropped.

Still, other members besides yourself should be able to handle the support end when project maintainers aren't around, unless of course, you're online enough and don't mind responding to the request demand.

My point in posting is to "keep the ball rolling" in an effort to clarify user issues.

[mikewalsh]

Yep. I've grown so accustomed to the 64 builds that I totally forgot the 32's have been dropped.

Still, other members besides yourself should be able to handle the support end when project maintainers aren't around, unless of course, you're online enough and don't mind responding to the request demand.

My point in posting is to "keep the ball rolling" in an effort to clarify user issues.

Thru, that's appreciated, believe me. As a full-time carer I never know from one day to the next how much "me-time" (if any) I'm going to get to myself..!

Mike.

[ThruHammer]

Glad you kept your acknowledgement no more than it had to be; Short and Schweet!

Mike, few have given so much of themselves as you my man. *HERO* member in my book!

[BologneChe]

Hi!

@mikewalsh

This is the result of the terminal. glibc Problem? I like your portable browser by the way!

[ThruHammer]

Hang in there.

Mike may well have a 2.19 copy you can install alongside the build that ships with 5.7.

Yeah. Wait for him to give you the low-down on exactly what to do here.