Pale Moon for Linux: distro recommendations?

[Moonchild]

I'm thinking about looking at making Pale Moon for Linux as a potential project.
However, I've not played with Linux for many years and it seems that a lot of distros I know are either dead or have gone into a direction that doesn't really suit me (Ubuntu, for example, is now like a clumsy version of MacOS - I tried installing that and working with it but.. it's just horrible, and absolutely NOT suited for software development)

So, my question, to save me many days of installing and uninstalling distros: What distro that is current and actively developed do you recommend for software development (Mozilla style, meaning a lot of command-line work)?

[megaman]

I use Ubuntu and have tried Linux Mint, so Mint is another active one.

I think we have go by what DuQues uses.

Hmm...he is using Mint as well.

[Moonchild]

I just had a look at what people say about it - apparently what really rubbed me the wrong way in Ubuntu (11) is the "Unity desktop" - I couldn't find anything, controls were in the wrong place, couldn't access the launch bar unless everything was minimized or closed, tearing off the app menu a la Mac and putting it top of the screen didn't sit well either.

Since Mint is apparently staying with Gnome, at least for the time being, I guess it would work better for me. I preferred WMs like XFCE in the past, anyway.
Not that I like Gnome per se, but it's still workable, unlike what Ubuntu has done.

[megaman]

I just had a look at what people say about it - apparently what really rubbed me the wrong way in Ubuntu (11) is the "Unity desktop" - I couldn't find anything, controls were in the wrong place, couldn't access the launch bar unless everything was minimized or closed, tearing off the app menu a la Mac and putting it top of the screen didn't sit well either.

Since Mint is apparently staying with Gnome, at least for the time being, I guess it would work better for me. I preferred WMs like XFCE in the past, anyway.
Not that I like Gnome per se, but it's still workable, unlike what Ubuntu has done.

Ah yes, the KDE vs GNOME battle.
For Developers the Unity is not good?

There are too many flavors. Sabayon, Xandros, etc. I mostly preferred it for Unity, then again, I am just a regular user.

Well, if you try it for Linux Mint, any possibility of making it accessible with Ubuntu? If not, I wouldn't mind getting Mint on that PC, only my brothers and sisters use it. I don't remember if Ubuntu share the same format (.deb, .rpm, etc.).

P.S. It will be cool if it works on ReactOS, never tried.

[Moonchild]

I don't remember if Ubuntu share the same format (.deb, .rpm, etc.).

Oh, good point. I forgot about the whole "every distro uses their own packaging method" debacle. Can't they all just use a portage tree or something?

[evanjones246]

Is there a program that can convert all of these formats easily? [Admin notice: SEO spam deleted] What are my best options?

I don't remember if Ubuntu share the same format (.deb, .rpm, etc.).

Oh, good point. I forgot about the whole "every distro uses their own packaging method" debacle. Can't they all just use a portage tree or something?

[Lootyhoof]

If you go the Linux Mint route, you'd best watch your step, given the different kernels in certain versions. For example, the Debian version obviously is based on Debian rather than Ubuntu, and the software for both are incompatible with each other, even though they, like all Debian-based distros, use the .deb binaries.

This is the issue with Linux when developing, unfortunately - the huge amount of fragmentation in there, especially considering most programs will have dependencies which usually are resolved by the OS obtaining libraries rather than packaging them with the program a la Windows. (either that or by setting up a repo system to get it all at once)

[stravinsky]

if you dont like UNITY in ubuntu , try using ubuntu 11.04. it has a native gnome2d desktop environment. i use it over ubuntu 12.04LTS.

ubuntu uses .deb packaging.

interconversion between rpm, deb is possible but is experimental and hlaf broken. the convrter is called "alien deb converter" or something like that.

if you truly like the terminal, use archlinux.

Regarding actual development, major linux distros already ship x64 version of FF. and with so many versions/fragmentation in linux, IMHO its not worth it to make a linux PM.

Edit: or in ubuntu 12.04 , you can try the "cinnamon desktop " . or you can use the "gnome panel" in ubuntu 12.04. personally, i tried the "gnome panel" , it was OK, but not too great.

[Moonchild]

interconversion between rpm, deb is possible but is experimental and half broken.

Well, unless there is a way to compile and package the binary result for all distros out there, without having to install all distros myself to build it, it's not really an option. I guess this goes on the back-burner semi-permanently until compatibility for binaries between distros is fixed. From what I heard, Pale Moon for Windows in WINE gives almost as good performance as native Linux builds, for whatever reason, as well.

[Lootyhoof]

Looking around at similar Linux-based projects (though not as up-to-date), they seem to use tarballs rather than particular binaries (apart from a .deb, but from what I can see they seem to prefer the tarball).

As well as that, the mainstream Firefox release pushes out a singular tarball for all Linux distros. Could Pale Moon use these as well?

[Moonchild]

If the average person knows how to "install" a tarball, yes. But basically it'd be like distributing the .zip version of Pale Moon only.

[Lootyhoof]

Well, looking at that similar project I mentioned in my last post, they seem to provide an installer script for the non-techies, which downloads the tarball, extracts it and installs it.

[Moonchild]

I'm not well-versed enough in writing Linux shell scripts to do that Besides, I wouldn't know what paths to use for all the different available distros that each seem to have their own file system tree structure...

My initial question is answered though: I've gone for Debian, it being a stable and well-maintained distro, and using debian-backports to get the necessary tools. I guess I'll have some food for the beta testers soon (if any of them actually use Linux, that is).

[stravinsky]

any particularly reason why you want linux build ?
or just want to play with GCC 4.7 and getting rid of any virtual memory address problems ?

[stravinsky]

mozilla on linux is not the quickest of browsers. IMHO, linux versions get step-sisterly treatment from the moz devs. on linux it loses much of its polish as compared to windows version.

and with so much fragmentation in linux distros and packaging, its not worth the effort to build PM for linux.

[Moonchild]

any particularly reason why you want linux build ?

Out of curiosity, mainly. And it's good practice to keep my knowledge of Linux and gcc at least acceptable

I don't think I'll ever release anything official for Linux, but an experimental version can certainly be done.

[lyceus]

You should also check Fedora, maybe some people don't like it. But Fedora is the sandbox for Red Hat and several projects often are ported to the Red Hat Linux. Other Linux flavors use Fedora as reference for packages as well.

[Moonchild]

I'm not touching any flavor of RedHat(e)

[lyceus]

I'm not touching any flavor of RedHat(e)

LoL! Well is one of the few that seems to complain less for hardware. XD