Enjoy Firefox 3.0 on Solaris 10
The Firefox 3.0 contributed builds are finally available for Solaris 10 now(x86 and SPARC), about one week after its official release. Also what's new and a nice flash for the new features introduction.
Due to the dependency on some libraries not included in Solaris 10(legacy GNOME 2.6), the contributed builds have been missing for some time. The contributed builds contain the following list of libraries each besides Firefox 3.0 package:
glib 2.14.4
atk 1.20.0
cairo 1.4.12
pango 1.18.3
gtk 2.12.3
dbus 1.1.20
dbus-glib 0.74
The list above should be the minimal set of libraries that's needed for Firefox 3.0 on Solaris 10. Both of the builds were made on "Solaris 10 3/05 s10_74L2a" with SunStudio 12, CBE 1.6 and gnome 2.20 spec files(with some tweaking). They are supposed to work on all Solaris 10 and update releases.
To follow the contributed Firefox package convention, all the packages will be installed to /opt/sfw directory. Any interests, please download it to a local place, bunzip and pkgadd it. Run "/opt/sfw/bin/firefox" should be fine(or add /opt/sfw/bin to your PATH). I've tried the builds on my "Solaris 10 5/08 s10x_u5wos_10" x86/SPARC boxes here with several extensions, they work fine. Well, it's better to wait for a newer flash plugin release to avoid known crash.
I'm not sure how the qulity exactly is. So any problem, please raise it up. It'll be good to talk about this in desktop dash discuss at opensolaris dot org.
It's great to see a build for Solaris 10! Works great here, with one strange "glitch". When I begin to type into the URL bar, the descriptions for pages I haven't yet hit that come up as selections seem to be in Chinese... is there anything I can change to correct that? :)
Other than that, things look good!
Posted by Ken Lareau on June 25, 2008 at 06:22 AM CST #
All Solaris10 users really appreciate this effort and I am sure I am not alone here, we wish to see a recent GNOME (or even KDE) desktop / libs becoming the norm for stock Solaris10.
Q.1 Is there any FF3.0 feature that could not be made available to the current rel for solaris10 ?
Q.2 I saw that the package installed several libs under /usr/sfw/lib . Are JDS3 apps now using these new libs ?
thanks again...
Michael
Posted by Michael Thomadakis on June 25, 2008 at 09:11 AM CST #
Ken, any link to the screenshot can be provided? Any chance that you've opened some page with Chinese keyword before?
Michael, 1) I didn't do a full test for the builds yet and I haven't seen a feature lost in them till now. 2) The packages are installed to /opt/sfw/lib to follow the convention of our Firefox contributed builds, also to avoid the conflict with the system ones. That's to say, the JDS3 apps won't use these new libs by default.
Posted by alfred on June 25, 2008 at 10:12 PM CST #
Will this bundle work on OpenSolaris 2008.05?
Thanks.
Posted by Gregg Sporar on June 27, 2008 at 04:46 AM CST #
gregg, yes, the integration of Firefox 3.0 into OpenSolaris is on the way.
Posted by alfred on June 27, 2008 at 05:29 PM CST #
I installed the Minefield 3 build for Solaris 10 from
http://releases.mozilla.com/sun/firefox-3.0-en-US-solaris-10-fcs-sparc-pkg.bz2
(see http://blogs.sun.com/pengyang/entry/enjoy_firefox_3_0_on)
I seems to work fairly well, but some FX 3 add-ons don't quite work on it (like Colorfultabs). I have Sol 10 11/06 sparc.
Now there is a Firefox 3 build for Solaris 10 on the mozilla ftp site, contributed by the Sun Administrators division of the Student Systems Administrators program at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST). (?!? - What the...)
Some questions:
1) Are both packages basically the same, or is Minefield a post-Firefox 3 beta release? Is it based on the beta nightly builds, and thus not fully tested?
2) Is the new Firefox 3 Solaris 10 build the REAL FX 3 release, fully tested and stable?
3) Has anyone compared these two packages with each other on Solaris 10? Any opinions on relative stability/functionality? Which do you recommend?
Thank you...
Posted by sparcmaster on June 29, 2008 at 01:01 AM CST #
sparcmaster, please refer to my new post.
Posted by Alfred on June 29, 2008 at 10:27 PM CST #
sparcmaster, another update, I've tried the builds on my Solaris 10 5.08 boxes(x86/SPARC) here. The extension colorfultabs works fine.
Posted by alfred on June 29, 2008 at 11:34 PM CST #
Thank you for the info, Alfred! I tried installing the TJHSST version on my Sol 10 11/06 sparc box, and it will not start, giving a GTK deficiency, even though I installed the library dependencies in /opt as per instructions. I must say that the presence of both releases is a source of confusion for users. Your release works, the high school version does not, at least for me. I hope that Sun and Mozilla coordinate these releases in the future, so that only one tested Solaris 10 build of FX 3 is available.
Thank you again for providing the FX 3 packages!!! :-)
Posted by sparcmaster on June 29, 2008 at 11:44 PM CST #
Yes, the Colorfultabs does generally work, but when I went into the options, and tried browsing for a background image, FX 3 crashed completely, I think with a core dump.
Posted by sparcmaster on June 29, 2008 at 11:46 PM CST #
Yes, the crash with core dump occurred again. There is something wrong with the file browsing GUI in Colorfultabs options.
Posted by sparcmaster on June 29, 2008 at 11:52 PM CST #
sparcmaster, any chance to give the core stack information(pstack core)? It's a better way to post the issue to (desktop dash discuss at opensolaris dot org) mail alias and we could discuss further.
Posted by alfred on June 29, 2008 at 11:58 PM CST #
Alfred,
I sent the pstack core to the d-d at opensolaris dot org e-mail address. I am not a member of the mailing list. Let me know if you have not received the message.
Thank you...
Posted by sparcmaster on June 30, 2008 at 01:26 AM CST #
Alfred,
Please see the desktop-discuss forums. This FX 3 build crashes every time the file browser is opened (like File/Open File). I removed all add-ons, used the default theme, and the crash still occurs. Not so in FX 2.0.0.14. The pstack core for the Colorfultabs issue applies to this problem. Please let me know if I am doing something wrong, but this build is useless for me with all these bugs. A true Minefield it is.
Posted by sparcmaster on June 30, 2008 at 04:51 AM CST #
sparcmaster, sorry for the delayed response due to the time difference. Do you have flash player plugin installed? There are some known issues with the old plugin which will result in crashes. Could you please grab the latest release 9.0.125.0 and try again?
Posted by alfred on June 30, 2008 at 02:00 PM CST #
The link to the latest flash player: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash.
Posted by alfred on June 30, 2008 at 02:04 PM CST #
Hi Alfred,
Thank you for your response. I tried installing the new flash plugin, but that had no real effect on the crashing problem with the file browser. It is interesting to note that under CDE, the crashes do not occur as they do in JDS. In CDE, File/Open File opens and starts in my home directory, and the window opens very wide, with the right edge way off the screen, and no files are visible in the window. But no crash. When I select other locations in the left pane, the window displays the files properly. Sometimes, the files in my my home dir do display properly, but rarely. My home directory is the only location where the window problem occurs. Under JDS, FX 3 crashes right away when File/Open File is selected.
Under JDS, there rarely is a core dump, I get this:
The program 'Gecko' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)'.
(Details: serial 29377 error_code 11 request_code 53 minor_code 0)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
Also, if I login as root to JDS, and start FX 3, the crashes do not occur, and the file browser opens normally. As root, I am using the default JDS theme. My normal personal (non-root) login uses the Ocean Dream theme. I don't know if that matters, but...
I have been using my old Firefox 2 .mozilla home directory. Maybe there is some conflict between prefs or other FX files between FX 2 and FX 3?
Let me know if there is any other info I can provide you from my system that will help you to find out what is going on.
Thank you....
Posted by sparcmaster on June 30, 2008 at 11:52 PM CST #
Alfred,
I found that when I login as root to JDS, start FX3, select File/Open File (no crash as / is the starting directory), and then navigate to my main user home directory, FX3 will again crash when attempting to display the files in there. So there is some funky file(s) in my home directory on which FX3 is choking. I had a file named something like #Noted_Sun_6/6/07# in there, but that was not the problem. Can you think of any weird file or directory names that could cause this crash?
Thank you and regards....
Posted by sparcmaster on July 01, 2008 at 01:43 AM CST #
I copied the entire contents (including hidden files) of my home directory to another directory, and FX 3 could read the new directory with no problems using the file browser. So, it is not the contents of the home dir that are the problem. What about permissions? FX 2 has no problems reading my home dir.
Another comment: the FX 3 file browser does not contain a button enabling the reading of hidden files, as does FX 2. Hmm.
Posted by sparcmaster on July 02, 2008 at 05:40 AM CST #
The problem has something to with gtkwindow.c. I got this message upon encountering the file browser problem under CDE:
(Gecko:1850): Gtk-CRITICAL **: file gtkwindow.c: line 3776: assertion `width > 0' failed
Posted by sparcmaster on July 02, 2008 at 09:15 AM CST #
Ah ha. To see toggle hidden file viewing, right click in the file browser window.
Posted by sparcmaster on July 02, 2008 at 09:24 AM CST #
Hi Alfred,
I was enjoying the most recent build of FX 3 for Solaris, and I experienced repeated crashing related to the RealPlayer 10 plugin which is included in Sol 10 11/06 in /usr/lib/RealPlay. In the FX 3 plugins directory, I had made symbolic links to the .so and .xpt files in the mozilla directory of the realplayer installation, as I have for Mozilla 1.7 and FX 2. The following URL will crash FX 3 badly:
http://www.digital-one.fi/realplayer.html
This link worked fine in your previous Minefield build of FX3, in FX 2, and in Mozilla.
Now, I hate realplayer with a mad passion. However, I thought I would pass my experience on to you, as there seems to be a change in behavior regarding realplayer 10 between the test build and the current build, and this could point to other issues. Does the above URL work for you with the realplayer 10 plugins installed in FX 3?
The readme for the TJHSST build of FX 3 states:
RealPlayer:
The RealPlayer 10 Mozilla plugin does not work with this build. You need at
least RealPlayer 11 to use the plugin.
1. Download RealPlayer from http://www.real.com/
2. Create a directory and extract the tarball in that directory.
3a. Run Bin/install to use the automated installer
OR
3b:
cd /path/to/<Firefox install location>/plugins
ln -s /path/to/<RealPlayer install location>/mozilla/nphelix.so
ln -s /path/to/<RealPlayer install location>/mozilla/nphelix.xpt
ln -s /path/to/<RealPlayer install location>/realplay /usr/bin/realplay
NOTE: You may need to define HELIX_LIBS in /path/to/<RealPlayer install
location>/realplay script to /path/to/<RealPlayer install
location>.
I cannot get rp 11 to work correctly on my sparc box. The realplay script must be modified to export HELIX_LIBS and localization (URL-8), and even then I can't get any real movies or sound clips to play properly in FX 3 using the rp 11 plugins.
Do you recommend rp 10 or rp 11 to work with the current FX 3 build? Or do you suggest avoiding any version of realplayer?
Thank you...
Posted by sparcmaster on July 03, 2008 at 12:50 AM CST #
Uh-oh, have you tried this link with the new flashplayer plugin installed:
http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp
I locks my firefox completely, requiring a manual kill. I'll keep testing. Some other sites requiring java work fine.
Posted by sparcmaster on July 03, 2008 at 12:00 PM CST #
Is the integration of firefox being done so that we can compile against the included xulrunner so that scipts like this will not fail:
elif [ x`pkg-config --exists firefox-xpcom && echo YES` = "xYES" ]; then
MOZILLA_INCLUDES=`pkg-config --cflags firefox-xpcom`
MOZILLA_LIBS=`pkg-config --libs firefox-xpcom`
Posted by Hugo A. Garcia on July 04, 2008 at 03:53 AM CST #
Alfred,
Sorry for the very long delay in getting back to your questions. I haven't acquired a screenshot yet, mainly because I have gone back to Firefox 2 for now; unfortunately one of the sites I frequent uses RealChat for its chat system and the Solaris 10 build of Firefox 3 can't seem to find Flash properly for that application. I tried several versions of Flash, so it's not that, and given that it works just fine on Firefox 3 on OpenSolaris, I suspect it has something to do with the build itself. Perhaps once that issue is corrected, I can look into using Firefox 3 again.
Ken
Posted by Ken Lareau on July 09, 2008 at 12:57 PM CST #
FF 3.0.1 was just released. Is there any plan to build FF 3.0.1 for Solaris 10 ?
thanks
Michael
Posted by Michael Thomadakis on July 17, 2008 at 01:44 PM CST #
Michael, the Firefox 3.0.1 builds for Solaris 10 are available now. Please refer to my latest post: http://blogs.sun.com/pengyang/entry/firefox_3_0_1_builds.
Posted by alfred on July 21, 2008 at 01:20 PM CST #
Thanks Alfred,
I am using AMD64 workstation (Ultra 20M2) with Solaris10 and at times 3.0.1 locks up. Has anyone noticed this in their systems?
Michael
Posted by Michael Thomadakis on July 23, 2008 at 09:51 AM CST #
I have noticed that Firefox 3.0 for Solaris crashes a lot on various web sites, sometimes intermittent on some web sites (which makes me think it might be ads that are causing such crashes). Other than the frequent annoying crashes, Firefox 3.0 on Solaris works great! :P
Posted by Anonymous Cow on September 04, 2008 at 02:38 AM CST #
Anonymous Cow, is there any core stack available? You can send me email directly. And an known issue about Firefox crash is related to the flash plugin? Do you have the plugin on your box? Is it the latest version 9.0 release v125?
Posted by alfred on September 04, 2008 at 11:06 AM CST #