32-Bit Version for Linux? FAQ Suggests 32-Bit When Using Several Plug-ins Topic is solved

[Duckguy]

Hello, I had trouble finding the 32-bit version of Pale Moon for Linux (not version 32 - the version is something else). I see that the Windows version's available.

2023-10-09-141217-Screenshot.png

In the FAQ there's a topic that addresses the utility of using a 32-bit version in case of the user loading a number of add-ons.

Do any of the people reading this forum have a link to the updated version of the 32-bit Pale Moon? My version keeps returning error messages (actually the web sites return error messages) saying that my browser needs to be updated.

Thanks for any help, suggestions or information.

Here's a link to the FAQ topic I'm referring to:
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=2516

[LAR Grizzly]

http://archive.palemoon.org/palemoon/32 ... 0.1/Linux/

[Pentium4User]

http://archive.palemoon.org/palemoon/32 ... 0.1/Linux/

That only has the x86_64 version. IIRC Moonchild discontinued x86 builds for Linux.
NPAPI plugins are almost dead, I don't know any current project that still provides them.
Which application do you have that doesn't work with the 64 bit version?

[LAR Grizzly]

Moonchild discontinued x86 builds for Linux.

Well, that 'splains it!

[athenian200]

It can still be built from source, the code for 32-bit Linux hasn't been ripped out AFAIK. If I recall correctly, the issue was that our Linux build environment dropped support for 32-bit builds, and made supporting them prohibitively difficult for us. Another factor is that Linux already requires GTK2 and GTK3 builds, so that was taking up a lot of space... four builds for each new version of Pale Moon. So the desire to conserve server space also led to a desire to drop 32-bit versions.

If you really need a 32-bit Linux build, I'm sure you could build it (or maybe get someone else to) as a one-off thing, but it wouldn't get any kind of support. It may also require more options added to the .mozconfig than what the Developer docs suggest... last time I tried it (a few months ago), I had to throw in some additional flags to get the compiler and assembler to output 32-bit code and mess with the --host and --target stuff.

[Moonchild]

Before you go down the 32-bit rabbit hole...
Bitness is only relevant for plugins, i.e. binary NPAPI components, not all add-ons. Extensions are architecture-independent in pretty much all cases (only if they have binary components, they might not be but that is extremely rare)

[Duckguy]

http://archive.palemoon.org/palemoon/32 ... 0.1/Linux/

No - remember I specified NOT that version (v.32) here:

Hello, I had trouble finding the 32-bit version of Pale Moon for Linux (not version 32 - the version is something else). ...
Thirty-two-BIT version.

[Duckguy]

Which application do you have that doesn't work with the 64 bit version?

There are a few websites that don't accept it, for example www.croxy.org won't work with it.

[Night Wing]

Which application do you have that doesn't work with the 64 bit version?

There are a few websites that don't accept it, for example www.croxy.org won't work with it.

I clicked on the link you provided and it works for me using 64 bit linux Pale Moon (32.4.1). I clicked on the buttons and surfed all over the site. But I do not use any plugins in my linux Pale Moon.

[Duckguy]

I clicked on the link you provided and it works for me using 64 bit linux Pale Moon (32.4.1). I clicked on the buttons and surfed all over the site. But I do not use any plugins in my linux Pale Moon.

This is the feedback when I tried to surf to YouTube, it does the same thing when using it with any url entered into the dialogue box:

2023-10-09-181813-Screenshot.png

[Night Wing]

@ Duckguy

I am not getting the "Your browser is not supported" page. I just get the correct rendering of the page.

[moonbat]

Ensure you've not been screwing around with the global user-agent, and that it is set to Firefox compatibility under Preferences->Advanced.

[Duckguy]

... is set to Firefox compatibility under Preferences->Advanced. ...

Thanks. I checked it. Isn't the setting already correct?

2023-10-09-195610-Screenshot.png

[Night Wing]

@ Duckguy

I am going to take a guess on this one.

All of my computers have 64 bit motherboards. When I was using 64 bit Windows 7, I could use 32 bit windows Pale Moon without any problems. But Windows is not Linux.

When I was starting out with Linux, I was told if my motherboard was 32 bit, then use 32 bit linux programs. If my motherboard was 64 bit, use 64 bit linux programs.

Since I like to experiment, I did one.

All four of my computers have 64 bit motherboards. I finally settled on the 64 bit linux distro, Linux Mint to replace 64 bit Windows 7. I use 64 bit linux Pale Moon in 64 bit Mint without any problems. But my experiment was to see if I could use the 32 bit linux SeaMonkey browser and see if I could run it in 64 bit Linux Mint.

I couldn't run 32 bit linux SeaMonkey in 64 bit Linux Mint.

Since you are using linux, I think you need to run 64 bit linux Pale Moon in either GTK2 or GTK3 as long as you have a 64 bit motherboard. Also, remember this. I do not run any plugins in my 64 bit linux Pale Moon.

[athenian200]

Off-topic:
Whether you can run 32-bit applications on a 64-bit Linux distro actually depends on whether that distro has 32-bit libraries installed, specifically you need a 32-bit glibc and a few other system libraries in a special location to run them, and a lot of 64-bit Linux distros don't bother anymore, having ditched 32-bit compatibility not long after ditching the 32-bit versions of the distro. This is actually one reason I like Solaris and OI better... they have had very robust compatibility with 32-bit applications more along the lines of Windows for ages, and were doing versioning symbols before Linux such that binaries compiled for older Solaris still work on newer Solaris. But with Linux, they don't seem to mind tossing binary backwards compatibility out and telling you that you'll just have to recompile yourself, and if you can't for whatever reason, then tough.

However, it is worth noting that you can install a 32-bit Linux distro on 64-bit hardware, but generally you wouldn't want to do this just to run one or two 32-bit applications. As to how I know all this? I'm one of the unfortunate purchasers of a Loki Games SimCity 3000 release, and you wouldn't believe how difficult it has gotten to run that old game over the years on Linux. At this point most people just give up and use WINE to emulate the Windows version. It's that bad.

[Night Wing]

Off-topic:
I've looked over the OP's comments and as far as I know, the OP has never said what linux distro he is using. Unless I've missed it.

Many linux distros no longer offer 32 bit and Linux Mint is one of them. But there are some linux distros which still offer 32 bit and MX Linux is one of them. You can see the 32 bit offering on this page for MX Linux at the link below.

https://mxlinux.org/download-links/

But the main problem as I see it, the OP wants to use 32 bit linux Pale Moon for his browser choice and 32 bit linux Pale Moon is no longer offered. Even Google's 32 bit linux Chrome browser is now no longer offered. So finding a 32 bit linux browser is going to be a problem if the OP has a 32 bit motherboard.

Another example. The linux Mercury browser does not offer a 32 bit version either. Just 64 bit which can be seen at the link below.

https://github.com/Alex313031/Mercury/releases

[athenian200]

More on topic though, I think I may have found the FAQ post the OP is referring to, which I can now comment on more directly.

Should I choose Pale Moon 32-bit or 64-bit?

A lot of people think that if they run a 64-bit operating system, it is automatically always the "best choice" to run as many 64-bit applications as possible, but that is not necessarily true for Pale Moon. For many people on a 64-bit version of windows, the 32-bit (x86) version of Pale Moon may be the better choice. When is the 32-bit version recommended, and when is the 64-bit version recommended?

The bolded is my emphasis, and I think it's already an important context clue in Moonchild's FAQ post I would take into account. He isn't mentioning Linux at all, and further I know very well that he primarily maintains and supports the Windows version of Pale Moon. Finally, this post is from 2013, so time has to be taken into account as well. Back in 2013, a lot of NPAPI plugins had not yet transitioned over to 64-bit on Windows, and/or had stability issues in their 64-bit versions. This is not as much the case today, but the 32-bit version of Pale Moon on Windows is partly provided for the sake of legacy support for older 32-bit plugins that are never going to be updated to 64-bit versions.

Linux, by contrast, is a totally different animal. Most plugins that support Linux (which isn't a long list to begin with) supported 64-bit earlier simply because there's no easy, universal way to use a 32-bit plugin with a 64-bit version of Linux, unlike in Windows where you can just use a 32-bit version of the browser. The very fact that this advice is given so casually (rather than as a last-ditch effort for people stuck with legacy Linux=only NPAPI plugins) really suggests to me a context of someone working in Windows, where both 32-bit and 64-bit applications are used alongside each other easily and without issue. Overall, I would say Moonchild is right when he says the 32-bit Windows version is the best way to run old 32-bit NPAPI plugins. In fact, it's probably STILL the best way to do that even on Linux... through Wine.

Some pointers here, although in the end it is of course your choice:

• If you use a lot of custom plug-ins (e.g. bank authentication, 3D gaming, video/TV, etc.): Your best choice will be 32-bit, because a lot of these plugins are very likely not available in a 64-bit version, and will therefore not install or be able to be used. (note: plug-ins are not the same as add-ons (extensions) which will run equally well on either version.) Of course asking the plug-in vendors to supply a 64-bit version of their plug-in is always a good idea if they don't have one yet

So if you read carefully, the actual reason has nothing to do with the number of plugins at all, but rather is suggesting that if you use a large variety of plugins from various sources (some of which may be obscure or not mainstream), you should probably use 32-bit because, at that time especially, very few plugins had been updated to 64-bit versions. I admit I was wondering at first why you would want a 32-bit version of the browser for a higher number of plugins, because I would think 64-bit would support more RAM and would work better with more plugins in theory, but then I saw the context of the post.

To sum it up, the FAQ we have should probably be regarded as authoritative only for the Windows version of Pale Moon. The advice it gives cannot easily be applied to other operating systems, and trying to do so could lead to unintended consequences. Within the quoted post alone, further paragraphs talk about things like blue screens and 32-bit graphics drives on a 64-bit OS, issues that just wouldn't manifest in the same way on Linux if at all.

[arkaland]

To Duckguy:
It sounds like your computer could be an older 32-bit only (like mine). If you'd really like to try a good 32-bit Pale Moon that's up-to-date version-wise, then I can suggest an "unbranded" Pale Moon release (32.4.1) which will work very well on any reasonably recent Linux. It's called "new moon". Don't let the name scare you -- the guy who compiles it for 32-bit Linux is an "old pro" developer from the old Centos distro who knows his stuff. For more, see:
https://archive.org/details/centos7newm ... 6-gtk2.tar
To download, go to:
https://archive.org/download/centos7new ... 6-gtk2.tar
I don't know of any other source that is almost sure to work for you.