Re: Netscape 7 issues.

From: Eric Behr (behr_at_muir.math.niu.edu)
Date: 07/11/03 

Date: 11 Jul 2003 03:55:05 GMT

In article <3F0E1C09.F8C00118@ntlworld.com>,
Dr. David Kirkby <drkirkby@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>Lars Tunkrans wrote:
>>
>> Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
>> > I recently installed Netscape 7.0 from Sun's web site, but have several
>> > problems.
>> [...]
>> Use the newly released Mozilla 1.4 .
>> Unless Sun or AOL/netscape produces a port of netscape 7.1 for solaris
>> Mozilla 1.4 is the one to use.
>> [...]
>
>When I get to work, where I have a fast connection (not the 56 k modem
>at home), I was intending to download Mozilla 1.4. I'll see how that
>compares.

Time for a little rant, I guess. After some struggles I compiled
Mozilla 1.2 on Sol. 7 several months ago. It was the first release
that didn't have _serious_ problems. Still, I can't get Java to
work with it (I know, I used gcc 3.x...), the Flash plugin crashes
it every time, etc. We can live with that, given that we finally
have a modern browser which renders things such as CSS well, and a
long table shows up _only_ 5 times slower than on a 5 year old PC
with Explorer. I was happy & thought that it will get even better.

So now I downloaded the final 1.4 source. Building with gcc has
the same problems as all the old versions, but I already know how
to work around it. For example, the signing of crypto libraries
does not understand that you might have libgcc_s.so somewhere
other than /usr/lib. Hmmmph.

The source is about 40 MB. Unpacked, it's 200+. After building
it's 470 MB. Thankfully the install directory is "only" 80 MB.
It takes almost exactly 12 hours to build with gcc on an Ultra
5 (I am using one of the older machines in the hope of getting
an executable that will run on all boxes we have).

Having spent 3 days trying to compile it cleanly, I start it as
the owner of the files, and it simply quits silently. As another
user, I get a segfault in libimglib2.so. I don't know why, it
may be gcc generating incorrect code in the presence of any O
flags again... I'll have to spend a few more days investigating.

In desperation I download some of the precompiled versions, and
they all crash, or can't find libraries, etc. even on machines
patched to their teeth. This doesn't quite inspire confidence in
the software that's available out there. And it isn't as if I
could do something to fix these problems by "contributing time
and effort" to the open source cause: just try to debug mozilla
or openoffice, and you'll see it's a lifetime job. No, thanks.

Maybe I'm alone, but back in the 90s I'd just get a package, do
configure and make, or xmkmf and make, and it worked. "Stubborn"
ones were a one-time-in-ten occurrence, and actually fun, since
one had to make an effort to get them going. Now the problems
are the norm rather than the exception. This tells me that noone
is using Solaris to test Unix things, nobody believes in KISS
anymore, noone gives a damn about portability and bloat.

This will be the end of Unix, at least on the desktop. For an
average user having a good working browser is now much more
important any perceptible advantage that Unix offers to him.

Is there anyone else out there trying to support desktop apps
on Solaris? How do you guys deal with this? 

-- 
Top posting.
What's the most irritating thing on Usenet?
___________________________________________________________________
Eric Behr         | NIU Mathematical Sciences      | (815) 753 6727

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