Building Pale Moon on older hardware/Linux

[Drugwash]

Moderator note: Split off for being a long subthread.

Well, building from source is always an option.

It is [still] for those who are inclined to programming. Even so, there will come a time when compilation tools will become incompatible with certain older OS versions - some already are - and there may not be any more good samaritans building the tools themselves for old OS compatibility. Even installing GCC9 in Ubuntu 18 requires an unofficial build that many may not even know exists. When the sources will require GCC10 as the minimum accepted (will contain newer API not found in older GCC) then it will all be over for us. We're on the edge already, looking into the abyss.
Just saying, this has already been discussed before anyway.

[Moonchild]

It is [still] for those who are inclined to programming. Even so, there will come a time when compilation tools will become incompatible with certain older OS versions - some already are - and there may not be any more good samaritans building the tools themselves for old OS compatibility.

Yeah well, that's not something we can do anything about, is it? If people choose to stay on ancient OSes that have no distro publisher support or community support to help with app compatibility, then they are eventually on their own to figure things out. And if our code base develops beyond lib compatibility with it then that is just the end of the road unless someone decides to fork and maintain specifically for that situation.

i.e.: running into these kinds of situations is a big blaring red alarm that you should look into upgrading software (especially if upgrades are just as gratis as what you're already running) and/or hardware (to support more modern OS/applications).

[Drugwash]

It is [still] for those who are inclined to programming. Even so, there will come a time when compilation tools will become incompatible with certain older OS versions - some already are - and there may not be any more good samaritans building the tools themselves for old OS compatibility.

Yeah well, that's not something we can do anything about, is it? If people choose to stay on ancient OSes that have no distro publisher support or community support to help with app compatibility, then they are eventually on their own to figure things out. And if our code base develops beyond lib compatibility with it then that is just the end of the road unless someone decides to fork and maintain specifically for that situation.

i.e.: running into these kinds of situations is a big blaring red alarm that you should look into upgrading software (especially if upgrades are just as gratis as what you're already running) and/or hardware (to support more modern OS/applications).

Personally I understand the situation all too well, and try to cope with it the best I can. Others may not be as lucky to find a - narrow as it may be - way out. I understand frustration and helplessness on both sides. Nobody can escape the paradigm - unless it gets changed somewhere high above. Which I'm sure it won't.
This discussion can transcend the boundaries of software and hardware well into all other aspects of life, it barks at the system itself. But the system doesn't care, so why would be waste our time...

[UCyborg]

Was it always the attitude of the software developers that a couple of years old software is "ancient"? On somewhat similar note, I also saw one model of iPhone from late 2010s being referred to as "retro". Windows 7 is more than twice as old as Ubuntu 18.04! Similarly, it's already being referred as retro by some people.

[Moonchild]

I think it's inversely proportional to how rapid developments are.
And in this context I do think it's fair to call whatever the user is running is seriously outdated enough to call "ancient" in software terms. Our builds are being made on an old version of a RH derivative that is pretty much at the LTS outer edge of the spectrum for Linux. To cater to currently-used C++ language standards we're asking for at least the oldest stable toolchain and related libraries that fully support it. Windows is different because there, we can supply the relevant runtimes needed, and those runtimes are maintained (by Microsoft!) to be compatible with older versions of Windows. That's not something you easily see in Linux land, unfortunately, as distro and kernel maintainers prefer rapid changes. So you can't really compare those apples and oranges.

[frostknight]

We do have Linux SSE2 versions supplied by Nuck-TH. So the CPU requirement wouldn't be an issue if you use that. As for the dependencies, they are pretty conservative (we build the release binaries on an older Linux OS for a reason) so I'm not sure what ancient version of Linux you're using but you should really migrate to something less ancient if you can't meet those minimum requirements, so you can use a version of Pale Moon that addresses the CloudFlare captcha/turnstile issues.

Given I can get palemoon running on Hyperbola with small changes to what gcc version is unsupported, I wonder to myself how old his distribution is. I assume its a linux distro he has given, he mentioned libstdc++

He can fill me in if I am wrong tho.

[frostknight]

Unfortunately his versions require a higher GLibc version (2.28) than Ubuntu 18.04

Ubuntu 18.04 is no longer supported unless you are using the pro version though I think... right?

Is he using the pro version?

Cause in 2023 may the 5 years of regular supported was ended.

This means that for 2 years its no longer been supported without payment.

[andyprough]

Ubuntu 18.04 is no longer supported unless you are using the pro version though I think... right?

Is he using the pro version?

Cause in 2023 may the 5 years of regular supported was ended.

This means that for 2 years its no longer been supported without payment.

Ubuntu Pro is free on up to 5 machines and extends the support with "Expanded Security Maintenance" ("ESM") to 12 years total. The version 18.04 that @Drugwash is using will be supported until 2030.

[Drugwash]

Ubuntu 18.04 is no longer supported unless you are using the pro version [...]
This means that for 2 years its no longer been supported without payment.

Ubuntu Pro is free on up to 5 machines and extends the support with "Expanded Security Maintenance" ("ESM") to 12 years total. [...]

This could matter in a corporate environment or similar, but for a home user official support may be irrelevant. They buy - or are given to - some hardware, and hope it'll last a lifetime when they're poor. They choose free software too (usually) when they're poor in order to avoid legal issues.

Unfortunately, software development - as Moonchild mentioned - is going too fast (and not necessarily in the right direction I might add), and a slight change in some standards would trigger a huge wave of incompatibilities leading to an urgent need of "new" software versions. That's what basically keeps the paid software industry floating.

Then there are slight - or radical - changes at the hardware level. Operating systems need upgrades. Software applications need to become compatible with newer OS versions and the hardware changes. Building tools change according to the new OS, they become incompatible with older OS, and there you go one point of break.
Obviously the libraries and applications built with those tools will then becoome incompatible too with older OS and software, and there's another point of break. Because Linux - as also mentioned above by Moonchild - is lousy at backward compatibility compared to Windows.

Now, in corporate environment or similar when push come to shove they replace the bulk of the hardware with newer machines, and obviously update their OS and other software too. Although in rare cases there may be some [paid for] dedicated software that is out of support and won't work on newer hardware/software combination. That's tough but with money they usually find some way out. So one way or another they're home free.
Literally or figurately poor [home] user suddenly finds himself rejected, thrown aside at the edge of society, because he can't afford new hardware, and new OS/software is incompatible with his old hardware. It's them or the [software and hardware] industry. Guess who wins...

[frostknight]

Ubuntu Pro is free on up to 5 machines and extends the support with "Expanded Security Maintenance" ("ESM") to 12 years total. The version 18.04 that @Drugwash is using will be supported until 2030.

So you know for a fact he is using the pro version? Well if that's the case, then... that reasoning of mine is meaningless. Regardless, though... you will need to make a few changes I think to build from source if your gcc version is behind 9 like mine. I can send you the link you need if that's the case.

I am not sure what version of gcc ubuntu 18.04 has truthfully.

EDIT:

Seems I was right, your version of gcc is before 9. Which means... you won't be able to build it without changing a few things after you followed

git clone https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProd ... e-Moon.git
git submodule init && git submodule update
git checkout release && git submodule update

You will have to change everything here back:

https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProd ... 1d3b25585c

I am not sure how this will work with your version though.

[Drugwash]

I am not sure what version of gcc ubuntu 18.04 has truthfully.

The standard version is 7.5. There is support for 8.4 too in the official repository (at least in Mint19). However there is a repository that provides GCC 9/10/11/13 for many old Ubuntu versions. I have installed 9.4 from there and succesfully built a couple Pale Moon builds already.
Granted I also use another unofficial repository for other updates (also provides a few GCC versions). Not everything is free there though.

Now, these [un]official repositories may prove very helpful in keeping machines alive for a longer time, but problem is not every user has the knowledge (and/or courage) to go to such endeavour as to build the software themselves from sources, not to mention patch the code when it's not directly compatible with their OS or hardware. So there's still that.

[frostknight]

I have installed 9.4 from there and succesfully built a couple Pale Moon builds already.
Granted I also use another unofficial repository for other updates (also provides a few GCC versions). Not everything is free there though.

Fair enough, I wondered if you were using PPAs.

[Drugwash]

Fair enough, I wondered if you were using PPAs.

Couldn't do without even if it's baby steps. Many thanks to all those people struggling to provide us, the few, with all the help they can!

P.S. For completeness sake here's a link to a post where I detailed the first build and the minor changes needed to mozconfig in order to work with that particular build of GCC9 from Ubuntu Toolchain.

[andyprough]

For completeness sake here's a link to a post where I detailed the first build and the minor changes needed to mozconfig in order to work with that particular build of GCC9 from Ubuntu Toolchain.

That's awesome, I didn't know you had figured all that out! Great job.

[Drugwash]

That's awesome, I didn't know you had figured all that out! Great job.

Thank you, I had to do it, it was a matter of survival (in the virtual world). Sometimes tiny details can make the difference between life and death.
Also thank you for all your help before that!

[andyprough]

Thank you, I had to do it, it was a matter of survival (in the virtual world). Sometimes tiny details can make the difference between life and death.

I think you should post a new thread in the Tutorials/How-To's sub-forum with detailed step-by-step procedure, or otherwise your method could become difficult to find in that one post of yours down in that 'First Build Success!' thread. Something like changing GCC version and getting the Pale Moon build process to accept it is not easy, and there's not going to be hardly any documentation on it anywhere.

Seems I was right, your version of gcc is before 9. Which means... you won't be able to build it without changing a few things after you followed

git clone https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProd ... e-Moon.git
git submodule init && git submodule update
git checkout release && git submodule update

You will have to change everything here back:

https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProd ... 1d3b25585c

I am not sure how this will work with your version though.

And you should also post a How-To about building for Hyperbola my friend. All of this is important to be able to find in the future.

[UCyborg]

Off-topic:
Am I the only who thinks modern software and tech in general causes more grief than anything? All the bells and whistles. Just rewrite everything in plain C so even MS Visual C++ 6.0 can understand it. Tell you what, even further back, for example, MS Basic. All (assembly) code in one big file, no version control systems etc. Did anyone complain?

And AFAIK the web as envisioned by its creator is long dead, otherwise, you wouldn't need fancy over-engineered web browser, Links would be enough.

[Drugwash]

I think you should post a new thread in the Tutorials/How-To's sub-forum [...]

Will think about it but no promises. I always do things on a whim, keep no track of what I've done, and got a very bad memory. Baaad combination, I tell you!

Am I the only who thinks modern software and tech in general causes more grief than anything?

Nope you're not. There was a time, long ago, when I could hardly wait for new versions of software to come out, because they were really improving, fixing bugs etc but were still compatible. Now I dread hearing that new versions came up, thinking "what the heck did they take out now, what new bugs and/or government backdoors have been slipped in?" But more often than not I see "minimum requirement [...] - not compatible with <my OS> anymore".

All (assembly) code in one big file, no version control systems etc. Did anyone complain?

Actually I was happy as a clam back in the Z80 CPU days, working with 8bit code directly in Assembler. x86 code made a big mess out of it all.

And AFAIK the web as envisioned by its creator is long dead [...]

Actually we don't really know how the web was first envisioned because it was intended for the military only. Only later has it been released to the public, and I presume certain facilities have not been made public to this day. Maybe I'm wrong. However, as I see it there seems to be a transition towards web-controlled software, where browsers would control all the applications and of course "someone" - obviously not the user - would control the browsers. That's why all the javscript and whatnot, which in my humble opinion should not pertain to a simple document browser - as a web browser should be. Oh wait, that's just another conspiracy theory... I should go to sleep.

[Moonchild]

Actually I was happy as a clam back in the Z80 CPU days,

I've done a ton of Z80 assembler, myself. Right along with BASIC on my MSX. The memory mapper was just fun to manipulate and finding ways around 64k limitation by putting stuff temporarily into VRAM... Ahh good days ;P

[Drugwash]

finding ways around 64k limitation by putting stuff temporarily into VRAM.

Yeah, thought that was genius when I found a copier program (copykat?) that did that; used only the first third of the screen for display, the rest being used by the program code so that it could manipulate (copy/patch/save) programs close to the whole 48kB of spare memory. And in full mode - or whatever it was called back then - it would use the entirety of the VRAM for the data, it would only allow a couple hotkeys to perform the transfer.

Finding cheats (infinite lives) for games was fun back then. I still have a copybook or two with the addresses and values for a few games.