Pale Moon SSE for Linux

For contributed third party builds not necessarily configured like the main product.
e.g. AVX builds, SSE builds, Pandora builds.
sindi
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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by sindi » 2016-12-28, 18:29

Seamonkey 2.46 latest official build works on Pentium III with lucid puppy (I think it is version 5.2.5) despite not meeting requirements for pango (1.0 instead of 1.14), gtk (2.0 instead of 2.18) and glib (2.0 instead of 2.22) and despite SM dropping SSE support for 'at least Windows' after version 2.40.

Unfortunately it used 121% of RAM (after I killed everything possible) and 96% of CPU at a site that Pale Moon official SSE2 could not display in Puppy Linux (http://www.wnyc.org/shows/otm). Seamonkey 2.4.6 on a 2008 netbook with later Puppy Linux Tahr played a podcast that Pale Moon latest could not.

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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by sindi » 2016-12-28, 19:25

Pentium III Tahr Puppy (glibc 2.19) Pale Moon SSE linux won't load. libstdc++ complains about GLIBCXX_3.4.20.
Probably Centos7 compiled version needs at least one more newer library.

Tahr uses 500MB just to boot. I added a swapfile. I have 512MB RAM.

On a netbook, Seamonkey used 45% of 1.5GB RAM (675MB) at this forum, and Palemoon 38% (570MB) (both in Tahr Puppy).

On the P III Seamonkey used 112% of 512MB (574MB) RAM. Pale Moon should use about 95%.

Seamonkey run under Tahr worked better than it did under Lucid at a test site. In Tahr it loaded a podcast player, and on the netbook played a podcast, but on the PIII it would not play. In Lucid on either computer it would not load the player. Pale Moon won't load the player in Tahr or Lucid (or even the site itself).

I don't need to use that site but I would appreciate an up-to-date browser that works on PIII with 512MB of RAM.

Seamonkey claims to need a computer with 768MB RAM.

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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by sindi » 2016-12-28, 20:03

Windows XP SSE version 26.5 of PM works on my Pentium III (with 2008 microXP and wired internet) and uses only about 212MB RAM at this forum site. Less than half what the linux SSE2 version uses. Would a linux version of PM-SSE optimized for older hardware use as little RAM?

I am tempted to browse with Palemoon on MicroXP - it boots really quickly and does not crash. 200MB minimum installation. No wifi support. 269MB total memory use with Palemoon running.

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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by Walter Dnes » 2016-12-29, 17:46

sindi wrote:Pentium III Tahr Puppy (glibc 2.19) Pale Moon SSE linux won't load. libstdc++ complains about GLIBCXX_3.4.20.
Probably Centos7 compiled version needs at least one more newer library.

Tahr uses 500MB just to boot. I added a swapfile. I have 512MB RAM.
Moonchild, the lead developer and founder, told me an official build may be possible. I didn't notice http://www.palemoon.org/redist.shtml paragraph 8a
Building and distributing a binary with official branding is in that situation only in principle allowed if an actual variant build is required for the target distribution's compatibility (e.g. kernel or library requirements) or operation, and otherwise not impacting the material content of the browser package as a whole.
So an official build is possible with extra compiler optimizations and older libraries, as long as I don't go ripping out features to save memory. Where is the Lucid Puppy forum website? I have a few questions about the OS in general, before I can start working on a build.
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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by sindi » 2016-12-30, 05:18

http://murga-linux.com/puppy - all the puppy forums.

Pale Moon (palemoon browser quick alternative to firefox) with link at http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PaleMoon.
Current Lucid (Lucid Puppy Revitalized as 5.2.8.7 - July. 2015 / Dec, 2016) with link at http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy528
Compiling with Puppy Linux: http://puppylinux.org/wikka/compiling

A version that runs on Lucid (Ubuntu 10 libraries) should work with Precise (Ubuntu 12 libraries) and Tahr (Ubuntu 14 libraries). Tahr comes with Pale Moon 26, Precise with Seamonkey (the retro version also with Opera), Lucid (5.2.5) with Dillo and a choice of adding Firefox, Opera, Seamonkey or Chrome. I could ask the authors of Lucid and Precise to also provide Pale Moon package for download. I don't know the procedure for adding things.

Wary Linux 5 (for 'older hardware' - supports more modems and pcmcia cards and some old sound chips) uses Opera and does not use Ubuntu packages.

A Pale Moon 'pet' package if not in the official repository could be linked to the Pale Moon Puppy forum.

Someone I 'met' at the Pale Moon Puppy forum is thinking of using Ubuntu (10 for Lucid puppy compatibility) to compile Pale Moon for uppy (optimized for his atom netbook). Puppy sometimes lacks things needed to compile with. Centos6 worked well for the SSE2 version.

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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by sindi » 2016-12-30, 15:12

The post to the Lucid Puppy Revitalized forum immediately following mine (page 40 of 41):
(Followed by comments about how it could have waited to be a 2017 release).

"Posted: Wed 28 Dec 2016, 23:35 Post subject: Lucid Pup 5.2.8.7 20161228 uploaded

The final release of the 2016 Lucid Pup is now available for download. Further updates will depend on th seriousness of any problems found with it. The new changes are: - glibc 2.11 updated (0ubuntu7.21) with all its Lucid security fixes including for GHOST. (prompted by sindi's question about it)
- asound_include - support coexistent sound applications (result of keniv's interest in puppybt)
- getflash with updated URL to restore the function
- Extract-pet avoids leaving behind the (tar.gz, tar.xz) tarball used for extraction
- PPM help page link fixed (reported by Snail)
Download directory: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/dh45w4 ... 16_Release

The complete change list: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 697#932697

I hope this is the last update for a while, although I expect to address issues if they arise.
Richard"

Nice to have wishes granted so fast!

Puppy is easily installed to live CD or USB flash drive for testing. Or to hard drive - each version in its own directory sharing a partition with other OSes (even Windows).

I just tried Pale Moon with Wary Linux 5.5, which is no longer being updated (since 2013?), and libstdc++ complained. Wary works on some older hardware where Lucid does not, or where Lucid is missing drivers (sound, modem...) I can probably update libstdc++ without breaking things.

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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by Walter Dnes » 2017-02-09, 20:31

The 27.1 SSE linux version for Pentium-3-class, and higher, chips is available for download at ftp://contrib:get@ftp.palemoon.org/SSE- ... 86.tar.bz2

See the main release announcement at viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14724 for details of bugfixes/enhancements and security patches.

There are some build changes for the SSE version "under the hood" to allow compatability with older libraries, such as are used with Puppy Linux. Note that it is the user's responsibility to ensure that their distro has up-to-date security patches back-ported.

Dev-tools are not built for the SSE Pale Moon. Also, unlike the mainline version, there is no option for dropping back to Gstreamer 1.x via about:config tweaks. This is a consequence of using a build platform old enough to support older libraries. It doesn't support Gstreamer 1.x. Gstreamer 1.x code will probably be totally ripped out of Pale Moon by version 27.2.

Because this is not the mainline build, it has to be installed manually from the tarball. See "Installation Instructions" in the first post in this thread.
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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by sindi » 2017-02-10, 00:03

Tested on Puppy Linux Tahr 6.02 (not updated), which has glibc 2.19, on a 1.4 GHz 2005 DELL M130 laptop with 512MB RAM and no swap.

Smtube on this laptop tends to lose sound after playing the first video, and it stretches things too wide (as does mplayer used standalone with DVDs).

HTML5 youtube video at 360p

Version 27.1 SSE plays the video perfectly with 46% CPU and 130% VSZ (memory).

Alt-F1 makes it full screen (instead of accessing File menu in Pale Moon). It does this in all versions that I tested. Fullscreen also works.

Version 27.03 (non-SSE non-ATOM) uses 72% or more CPU and 121% VSZ and is a bit jerky at times (since X etc also use CPU).
I had used Flash instead on this hardware.

Would a non-SSE version of 27.1 work any differently (less CPU usage, smaller?).

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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by sindi » 2017-02-10, 01:03

Lucid Puppy 2016 (Dec 28 2016) with glibc 2.11, same hardware, Pale Moon 27.1 SSE, same video:

66% cpu (varies from 63 to 74%), 38% memory (mem)

Flash 24 for linux: 37% cpu (pale moon plus plugin), 58% memory.

Compare with Tahr Puppy HTML5: 72% cpu, 127% VSZ (Pale Moon 27.03) or 46% CPU, 130% VSZ (Pale Moon 27.1)

Conclusion: Pale Moon 27.1 is a big improvement as far as CPU usage, for some reason Tahr Puppy uses less CPU than Lucid Puppy to play Youtube with HTML5, and Flash uses still less memory on this old hardware. I did not try Flash with Tahr and Pale Moon 27.1 or 27.03.

Youtube works acceptably well on this hardware (1.4GHz) with both versions of Pale Moon using Flash, and with 27.1 using HTML5.

SMtube works rather badly on here - wrong aspect ratio and no sound some of the time.

Triumph!

I may have goofed somewhere - please would someone else test at least the two Pale Moon versions and compare CPU usage?

On newer hardware HTML5 may use less CPU.

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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by Walter Dnes » 2017-02-10, 01:54

sindi wrote:Alt-F1 makes it full screen (instead of accessing File menu in Pale Moon).
The standard key-combo for accessing the File menu is Alt-F, not Alt-F1
sindi wrote:Would a non-SSE version of 27.1 work any differently (less CPU usage, smaller?).
I'll check, but I doubt it'll be noticeable. The problem is that the browser is just part of the process. It calls a lot of system libs during the playing of audio/video. If you go the Gentoo route, and optimize the entire OS, including every last single system lib, to your specific cpu, you will get noticable improvement. But optimizing only one part of the chain (i.e. the browser) may have negligible effect.

Think of an assembly line at a factory. Let's say you replace one worker in the line with a faster worker. If the guy ahead of him is already feeding parts as fast as he can, the more-efficient worker won't have any effect on the output of the assembly line.
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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by sindi » 2017-02-10, 03:59

Is there any reason I would want to use a non-SSE official version of Pale Moon 27.1, not optimized for anything in
particular, on my newer hardware? I doubt that most people use the parts that you left out. Are there sites where this
version won't work?

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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by Walter Dnes » 2017-02-10, 04:08

sindi wrote:Is there any reason I would want to use a non-SSE official version of Pale Moon 27.1, not optimized for anything in particular, on my newer hardware? I doubt that most people use the parts that you left out. Are there sites where this version won't work?
It should work everywhere the mainline version works. There might be graphics-heavy or javascript-heavy sites where the extra SSE2 instruction set might get a bit more speed out of the mainline version. But I haven't seen it in the few informal tests I've run so far.
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Pale Moon SSE v27.1.1 for Linux released

Unread post by Walter Dnes » 2017-02-21, 23:23

Version 27.1.1, a minor bugfix is available for downloading. See viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14881 for details of the changes. The download URL is ftp://contrib:get@ftp.palemoon.org/SSE- ... 86.tar.bz2

Since this is not a mainstream build, it has to be installed manually. See the first post in this thread for install instructions.
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Re: Pale Moon SSE v27.1.1 for Linux released

Unread post by Walter Dnes » 2017-03-04, 00:03

Version 27.1.2, a minor update is available for downloading. It should prevent hangs on media-heavy sites. See https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15007 The download URL is ftp://contrib:get@ftp.palemoon.org/SSE- ... 86.tar.bz2

Since this is not a mainstream build, it has to be installed manually. See the first post in this thread for install instructions.
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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by Walter Dnes » 2017-03-19, 01:15

Version 27.2.0 is available for downloading. This is a major update to the browser with a focus on back-end improvements and security. See post viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15169 for details. The download URL is ftp://contrib:get@ftp.palemoon.org/SSE- ... 86.tar.bz2

Since this is not a mainstream build, it has to be installed manually. See the first post in this thread for install instructions.
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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by sindi » 2017-03-19, 02:19

This new build works fine on my 2001 DELL Inspiron 8100 1.0GHz Pentium III. Many thanks for supporting not just Pentium III (SSE) but also Puppy Linux.
Youtube is still extremely jerky even without gstreamer (html5 and flash 11 SSE similarly bad) with X/palemoon/flash-or-html5 using about 95% of CPU.
It may have been worse with gstreamer than ffmpeg.

I can't evaluate whether the updates helped because I did not have any of the problems they solved.

Will there be a Puppy-compatible SSE2 linux version as well? The previous SSE version is working well on 'newer' laptops (2005-8).

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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by Walter Dnes » 2017-03-24, 19:01

Version 27.2.1 is available for downloading. This is a small update to fix some stability and usability issues. See post viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15260 for details. The download URL is ftp://contrib:get@ftp.palemoon.org/SSE- ... 86.tar.bz2

Since this is not a mainstream build, it has to be installed manually. See the first post in this thread for install instructions.
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cimarronline

Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by cimarronline » 2017-03-28, 19:53

Many thanks for this build, and for making it work with the older glibc! My old Averatec laptop didn't have SSE2 and could only run Puppy linux (my favorite Precise version!). I was having to try to make older Firefox versions work for me and that was getting increasingly difficult. Now I can ditch Firefox competely. Really great work, much appreciated.

(And thanks to sindi for asking and asking!)

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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by Walter Dnes » 2017-03-29, 15:14

cimarronline wrote:Many thanks for this build, and for making it work with the older glibc!
You're welcome. I do personal builds at home for my desktop and a couple of notebooks, I've automated my "robo-builder" and it only requires minor incremental effort. I create one more directory, symlink to the source code directory, and tweak another version of the config files, this one to official Pale Moon specs.
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Re: Pale Moon SSE for Linux

Unread post by sindi » 2017-03-29, 15:20

Walter has added years to the life of my PIII (year 2000).
Nice to get the latest build nearly instantly. The SSE version works
just as fast as SSE2 version on my 2008 netbook (at youtube, html5).

Firefox 52 (in Tahr) crashes if I try to change download directory.
Firefox 45 ESR (in Lucid) has not crashed but I don't need it now.
Seamonkey 2.46 also works with PIII but not with 512MB total RAM.

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