Pale Moon for Linux Optimised for Atom

[korrode]

Hi Pale Moon developers and community.

My name is Rob McCathie and i am a member of the Manjaro team and am the maintainer of the Manjaro Netbook Edition. As mentioned above Pale Moon is included on the Netbook Edition out-of-the-box. Thanks for developing this great browser, for usage on my Netbook it ticks more boxes than anything else.

My question is fairly predictable considering i'm using Pale Moon on a Linux edition tailored for Netbooks which usually use Intel Atom CPU (tailored to the point that the 32bit/i686 version includes an (optional) Atom-optimised (and Atom-only) kernel):
I see you have a MS Windows release of Pale Moon optimised for Intel Atom CPU's but that does still run on other CPU's. Would you consider putting out 32bit Linux binaries of this also?

[trava90]

HI Rob! Welcome to the forum and glad you're enjoying Pale Moon!

At this time Atom-optimized builds have not been created, primarily because of a lack of an Atom-powered device I could test it on. I'll look into this again though; stay tuned!

[korrode]

Hi Trava90,

If you would like any 32bit binaries tested on real Atom hardware, or anything else i can do to help with my Atom hardware, don't hesitate to ask.

If i could test 64bit stuff i would offer to, but my Atom is the N280, which doesn't support x86_64.
Though, i wouldn't suggest bothering with 64bit binaries anyway - even with the netbook Atoms that do support x86_64; almost all of them are limited to 2GB max RAM (the N2800 being the exception), which often makes a 32bit OS the better choice anyway.

[trava90]

Sounds good Rob, I'll send you a PM with a download link shortly. Feedback appreciated!

[korrode]

TL;DR - The binary seems pretty good to me and if you release it i'll ship it on the Manjaro Netbook Edition.


Thanks Trava90, I'm running it on my netbook now.

It feels a little snappier to me, like if i have one or two heavy pages loading in tabs and i'm trying to scroll up or down on a third tab, i think it handles it a little better than the usual binary... though of course, "feel" is very unreliable, can always be the placebo effect and one seeing what they want to see.

I ran a few web-based browser performance tests, the Atom-optimised binary did beat the normal i686 binary on all tests (albeit not by huge margins, but that's expected):
Futuremark's Peacekeeper test resulted in a ~1% better overall score.
Basemark's Browsermark test resulted in a ~1.5% better overall score.
The 'Speed-Battle' test resulted in ~0.8% better score. (Results used for this test are from a second iteration being run after the one on initial page load, because this test runs very quickly and is susceptible to other momentary resource grabbers significantly affecting the score).

The memory usage reduction from not having the developer tools is quite impressive, with the Atom-optimised binary using ~18% less memory.
(Result ascertained using ps_mem, tested always on freshly booted system with Pale Moon launched and left to settle for some minutes.)

Although there's no big difference for successive launches, an improvement is seen with the initial launch of Pale Moon after booting.
The Atom-optimised binary is up to ~30% faster in this respect, with it usually down to almost 4sec and the normal binary up closer to 6sec. (I assume the lack of developer tools is a major contributing factor to this too.)

[Moonchild]

FTR: It's likely not a placebo effect because it'll be able to use processor specific instructions to offload tasks. Benchmarks won't be conclusive, but real-world testing would be.

Devtools are indeed quite the strain for lower-end machines since it's a lot of Javascript to load an initialize, and for that alone it would be beneficial to have a special build. After all: nobody in their right mind would do web development on a netbook They are "consume devices", not "create devices".

[korrode]

Hey guys,

Just thought i'd mention that i've put the Atom-optimised edition of Palemoon on the AUR (the new AUR version 4, which will become the main and only AUR at the beginning of next month).
https://aur4.archlinux.org/packages/palemoon-atom-bin/

It's also in Manjaro's repos and i've posted about it on our forums, so some feedback may follow.
https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?top ... #msg210503

New Netbook Edition installation media that includes the Atom-optimised version is probably a couple of months out yet as i'm currently very busy with work and other stuff.


From all Intel Atom users - Thanks again trava90, Moonchild, and everyone else who helps bring us Palemoon.

[trava90]

Great, sounds good!

From all Intel Atom users - Thanks again trava90, Moonchild, and everyone else who helps bring us Palemoon.

You're welcome! Enjoy using Pale Moon!

[korrode]

Manjaro Netbook Edition 0.8.13.1 Release Candidate 1 now available.

Download link and more details:
https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?topic=24556.0

Pale Moon 25.5.0 provided out-of-the-box, with GStreamer integration enabled by default, providing extensive HTML5 video support.
The Intel Atom-optimised version of Pale Moon is offered to i686 users on Atom hardware at the first boot after installation.