tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post6490362177139628462..comments2024-02-17T13:08:33.203-08:00Comments on TenFourFox Development: Calling out the kvetchersClassicHasClasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17331846076856918359noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-43693292306526473592012-05-28T17:38:43.258-07:002012-05-28T17:38:43.258-07:00I'd like to respond to this complaint about my...I'd like to respond to this complaint about my so-called-complaints on a Mozillazine thread and a few obscure FX support question posts. It is excessively thin-skinned, and I have a few comments to make about it. I will also post these comments in the thread in question.<br /><br />1) First of all, I hadn't been aware that it was somehow impolite to talk about one's opinion of software "in public". In the case of this thread, I was expressing a desire for Mozilla to continue a Firefox version--it was not directed at TenFourFox, though it obviously expressed doubt about TenFourFox. But so what? People express opinions about software on forums all the time, and having a discussion on a thread where you are trying to get a problem solved is not like taking out an attack ad.<br /><br />2) No, I didn't report problems to TenFourFox. Why? I tried several versions of it in a row. Each time, I experienced crashes and slowdowns right away. Each time, I decided not to adopt the browser and instead return to using FX 3.6. That, frankly, seems like reasonable behavior to me. When a browser that is supposed to be a ready-to-go (that is, not an alpha or beta) replacement for Firefox immediately displays unacceptable behavior, it is not the responsibility of users to report each problem before forming an opinion about that piece of software. That is especially true when it relates to overall buggy behavior over several versions. And, again, this thread was addressed to those in the Mozilla community who might have some say over extending FX support for PPC users--I didn't start it to complain about TenFourFox.<br /><br />3) Honestly, I was very polite about TenFourFox, even though I didn't necessarily want to use it. That doesn't seem to have been enough for TenFourFox's developers, though. I think that anyone who actually reads the thread linked from this blog will disagree that my attitude was "just plain mean".<br /><br />4) I will say that I have tried the latest version of TenFourFox, and it seems much better re: crashes (though still slow, which I am guessing has to do with its larger memory usage than FX 3.6). So, good on you, TenFourFox developers. I will probably end up using it, since FX 3.6 is now insecure. Still, perhaps you could calm down about some forum discussion about your software that isn't 100% positive.diderothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14380532155325074220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-62678447326149288902012-04-27T18:42:05.108-07:002012-04-27T18:42:05.108-07:00Is there any way that your improvements (AltiVec/J...Is there any way that your improvements (AltiVec/JIT) could go upstream so that they help Linux users on the PowerPC platform in a NPOTDB way?<br /><br />Thanks for all your amazing work!<br /><br />Kind regards,<br /><br />Nicknick.lowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11247581303837637882noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-70094350092771682182012-04-02T16:17:51.461-07:002012-04-02T16:17:51.461-07:00@commenter, you can still use any of the pre-fab ....@commenter, you can still use any of the pre-fab .mozcfgs. You don't need to roll your own, and actually you probably shouldn't. Build with DEBUG.mozcfg first and if that works, run off the other four.<br /><br />@AleNu, thanks, man! I imagine there are lots of Power Macs still in recording studios. I know a guy who uses Pro Tools on OS 9 because he loves the near-zero latency.<br /><br />@rdibiase, thanks very much for the kind word. Glad it works on your Mac Pro too (!).<br /><br />There are two ways Mozilla offers for graphics acceleration. The first is OpenGL, and we just don't support that because no card in 10.4 PPC supports OpenGL 2.0 (and only a handful in Leopard). More to the point, Mozilla doesn't support OpenGL before 10.6 either because of various bugs they couldn't fix. I do admit a Quadro is a pretty sweet card (I just have a 7800GT in my G5 and now I regret not buying the BTO Quadro when I could have). So OpenGL and WebGL are pretty much out. People have wanted to work on it and as far as I know no one has successfully fixed the issues specific to 10.5 (and I'm 10.4 only).<br /><br />However, Mozilla is now offering an accelerated backend called Azure which gets rid of a lot of the chaff that is required to talk to Cairo (the normal graphics stack). Azure has a CoreGraphics backend which means that whatever aspects of CG are accelerated on your system will also be accelerated in TenFourFox, assuming we get the backend working. I do have a preliminary version already running and while it has some serious issues, it is enough to run Peacekeeper and canvas performance is already 60% faster (for a 10% improvement overall). Mozilla may use Azure to draw the entire browser chrome at some point, which would make everything faster. This will be supported; it's just a matter of making everything work and it's too big a win to ignore. An initial pass at this will be in 12, preffed off, so you all can play with it.ClassicHasClasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17331846076856918359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-60819795768003372732012-04-02T16:05:08.987-07:002012-04-02T16:05:08.987-07:00Hi,
I just wanted to thank you for all the work y...Hi,<br /><br />I just wanted to thank you for all the work you put into this project. The quality of w<br />ork you do is outstanding and I wish you accepted donations. Hopefully this project will continue for a long time. <br /><br />The only suggestion I have is, would you ever consider getting the graphics acceleration operational in TFF (I don't even know if this is physically possible). My nvidia quadro would definitely help speed things up.<br /><br />I have a powermac g5's and a powerbook g4. This browser has allowed me to continue to use these fine machines for everyday computing. I even run it on a macpro that is still running Tiger<br /><br />Thanks again, and have a good day!rdibiasehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11853114150101298798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-47451396276014941182012-04-01T15:11:42.734-07:002012-04-01T15:11:42.734-07:00@ClassicHasClass Thanks for your answer, mate. Ver...@ClassicHasClass Thanks for your answer, mate. Very clarifying. I'm not planning to move to Ubuntu or any other distro on the G4, basically because there's a lot of OS X software (some of it is legacy too, so i need Classic) that i use daily for work (i'm a recording engineer) that won't run on Linux, and because i just love Tiger. TenFourFox is more than just the best browser for Power Macs, it's an excellent browser on its own right. I'm glad you have reached version 12... truly amazing. I'll be waiting for it to download.Ale Nuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02915021987163776578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-81722684394910634742012-04-01T14:18:23.203-07:002012-04-01T14:18:23.203-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.commenterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07519524577344612730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-21374267168719228122012-04-01T13:19:46.980-07:002012-04-01T13:19:46.980-07:00Mozilla doesn't support PowerPC on OS X anymor...Mozilla doesn't support PowerPC on OS X anymore. On other OSes, they don't care. There's no specific testing for PowerPC on those OSes, so if something breaks it they won't fix it themselves, but they don't block it so Firefox will still generally build.<br /><br />Note that the Fx you're using is a vanilla one, i.e., no AltiVec acceleration and no JIT. On the other hand, the Linux graphics stack is faster than our software OS X stack, and there is less overhead in the window manager.<br /><br />I am glad to see Linux PPC continue to thrive, but I can't really make use of it as a daily driver myself because I still have lots of Mac legacy software and so I still need 10.4.<br /><br />Btw, this post is coming from TenFourFox 12; more shortly.ClassicHasClasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17331846076856918359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-20866072589862661092012-04-01T10:56:07.565-07:002012-04-01T10:56:07.565-07:00Hi Cameron & crew. This is a little off-topic,...Hi Cameron & crew. This is a little off-topic, but here i go anyway: after reading this post i decided to try Linux on my iBook G3. I've installed MintPPC and everything runs smoothly, noticeable faster than Tiger, and Iceweasel is really fine. So i looked up for the Ubuntu 12 Live CD to try it on my PowerBook G4. I thought there was no Ubuntu PPC version since version 8, but that seems to have changed: good for us. In fact i'm typing this using Firefox 11 right from the CD, and here is where i get more confused: i thought there was not official Mozilla development for PowerPC since 3.6, i mean, for ANY platform, not only for OS X. I guess i were wrong since i'm running what seems to be a full featured Firefox 11 on my G4. Any idea of what's happening here? =) Sorry if this is a stupid question!Ale Nuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02915021987163776578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-17857823241829377582012-04-01T07:45:52.580-07:002012-04-01T07:45:52.580-07:00Why not you? The steps are laid out on HowToBuildN...Why not you? The steps are laid out on HowToBuildNow.ClassicHasClasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17331846076856918359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-7278944215234617562012-04-01T01:26:43.705-07:002012-04-01T01:26:43.705-07:00So still some time for a builder to come forward. ...So still some time for a builder to come forward. Someone must be able to apply the changesets and build with 10.5 SDK.<br /><br />Bueller? <br /><br />A third, 64-bit build (for the scientific record) is also an interesting possibility.commenterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07519524577344612730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-42834312826470072042012-03-31T23:34:55.945-07:002012-03-31T23:34:55.945-07:00@commenter, no idea. I imagine Windows will be fir...@commenter, no idea. I imagine Windows will be first, though, so I wouldn't expect anything much earlier than Fx15 or so.<br /><br />@Jose Pedro, I don't know if that sufficiently covers us, and more to the point, I don't know if ffmpeg is necessarily faster at decoding than QT.ClassicHasClasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17331846076856918359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-75033346878521158312012-03-31T14:26:35.565-07:002012-03-31T14:26:35.565-07:00I don't have a Mac nor am I a lawyer, and this...I don't have a Mac nor am I a lawyer, and this is probably an incredibly stupid idea, but would it be possible to ship ffmpeg, but only enable it if the H.264 codec is found in QuickTime? I know it is probably a stupid idea, but if it is acceptable, then you could use ffmpeg's fast implementation.José Pedrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02613513050817445157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-44651709277579948162012-03-29T17:59:12.613-07:002012-03-29T17:59:12.613-07:00@ClassicHasClass, do you know roughly when Austral...@ClassicHasClass, do you know roughly when Australis will reach Beta?commenterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07519524577344612730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-66698743791779877832012-03-29T15:41:35.586-07:002012-03-29T15:41:35.586-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.commenterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07519524577344612730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-41616765576093462482012-03-29T13:37:45.106-07:002012-03-29T13:37:45.106-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.commenterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07519524577344612730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-41458219152049843352012-03-29T13:15:41.269-07:002012-03-29T13:15:41.269-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.commenterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07519524577344612730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-81509783685310772582012-03-29T12:58:55.361-07:002012-03-29T12:58:55.361-07:00@Johnson / @Raven: I need a site that does it cons...@Johnson / @Raven: I need a site that does it consistently that I can reproduce. (If it's "everywhere," that won't help, because obviously I'm not seeing that.) I have an iMac G4/1.0 which is doing just great (it's my desk machine), so there has to be an explainable difference. Also, 10.4 or 10.5?ClassicHasClasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17331846076856918359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-6224124170239144652012-03-29T12:37:58.262-07:002012-03-29T12:37:58.262-07:00So if I understand correctly, when UX hits Beta, y...So if I understand correctly, when UX hits Beta, you're willing to produce a patchset per TFF release that removes pre-G4e, optimizes for Leopard and someone else can build/package and release?<br /><br />*commenter pops champagne*<br /><br />Welcome to the team.commenterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07519524577344612730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-80253741318316954182012-03-29T11:26:27.511-07:002012-03-29T11:26:27.511-07:00That work on maintaining WebKit compatible with Le...That work on maintaining WebKit compatible with Leopard is quite time consuming - and I spend very little time in bugfixing.<br />What I could provide are patchsets against mozilla beta that contain just the enhancements TenFourFox has done to improve speed on PPCs. So that might be one patchset per TenFourFox release (provided the fixes).<br />I'll not build release packages. So building, packaging and uploading would have to be done by someone else.<br />There wouldn't be any end user support provided from my part.<br />I'd be able to proceed until mozilla decides to drop support for 10.5 (until now it seems 13 will still run on 10.5).Tobiashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02240455108133761542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-25014633859350189862012-03-29T11:08:14.042-07:002012-03-29T11:08:14.042-07:00I've noticed the typing buffer issue also, sin...I've noticed the typing buffer issue also, since maybe TenFourFox 9, on a 1ghz g4 7450Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18193872765416998471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-86575255699565811462012-03-28T11:31:12.156-07:002012-03-28T11:31:12.156-07:00@ClassicHasClass, thanks for the stats, impressive...@ClassicHasClass, thanks for the stats, impressive for a random morning.<br /><br />@Tobias, I know of your expertise porting WebKit to Leopard, would you consider attempting AuroraFox?commenterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07519524577344612730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-31011926283466188162012-03-28T10:41:22.475-07:002012-03-28T10:41:22.475-07:00I've never seen anything like that on the 450M...I've never seen anything like that on the 450MHz G4/7400 in the shop, although it's a Sawtooth, so it isn't precisely your configuration. There have been no similar reports, but if someone can provide me STRs, I can investigate. A misbehaving extension could cause something like that, however, so either restarting in safe mode or trying a clean profile is where I would start.ClassicHasClasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17331846076856918359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-61087162446569699922012-03-28T10:19:51.818-07:002012-03-28T10:19:51.818-07:00Cameron, the thing that has me (on my 400 MHz Powe...Cameron, the thing that has me (on my 400 MHz PowerBook G4 7400 w/ TFF 1.0.0.3) tearing my hair out is the typing buffer in text fields like this comment form: suddenly up to a sentence may just drop out, not appear on the screen, and when screen type resumes (not "catches up") that text is simply gone and has to be retyped. I have no "other platform" to crosscheck against FireFox proper; this is my only computer. I didn't see this happen with earlier versions -- though the last few fractions went by so fast I might simply not have fairly tested them.<br /><br />This for me is an appkiller, sorry. If I can't *write* with it, I'm gone.Ravenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17974090948640572660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-64196632116655762752012-03-27T22:57:16.284-07:002012-03-27T22:57:16.284-07:00Yes, I think those were the biggest problem. And s...Yes, I think those were the biggest problem. And some other incompatibilities.Tobiashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02240455108133761542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1015214236289077798.post-25419342732556702232012-03-27T16:15:48.029-07:002012-03-27T16:15:48.029-07:00Was it the extra LIRops?Was it the extra LIRops?ClassicHasClasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17331846076856918359noreply@blogger.com