Trouble installing Pale Moon on Linux Mint 22

[Sessh]

Operating system: Linux Mint Cinnamon 22
Browser version:Most recent
32-bit or 64-bit browser?: 64-bit

So I am finally toying with switching to Mint on a laptop and I can't get Pale Moon to work on it. I tried downloading the GTK3 tarball and when I extract it and try to run the program file, nothing happens.

I then tried to compile it from source using the instructions, but the problem is one of the dependencies is Python2.7.x and this is depreciated and not even available. All methods I tried to use to install it just tell me it doesn't exist as it's been fully replaced by Python3. So anyway I can't compile it due to not having or being able to get Python2.7.x installed unless there's some way I'm not seeing and trying to mess with the out-of-box Python installation seems to not be advised. I am relatively green with Linux so maybe I'm missing something, but I did look around trying solutions which led me to the conclusion that Python3 is what's there and it kicked Python2 outta the house years ago. Is there a way to compile using Python3 instead?

Was using this site: https://www.palemoon.org/download.shtml

I will hop back on my laptop tomorrow and try whatever gets suggested here. Thanks in advance for any help!

[andyprough]

Operating system: Linux Mint Cinnamon 22
Browser version:Most recent
32-bit or 64-bit browser?: 64-bit

So I am finally toying with switching to Mint on a laptop and I can't get Pale Moon to work on it. I tried downloading the GTK3 tarball and when I extract it and try to run the program file, nothing happens.

I then tried to compile it from source using the instructions, but the problem is one of the dependencies is Python2.7.x and this is depreciated and not even available. All methods I tried to use to install it just tell me it doesn't exist as it's been fully replaced by Python3. So anyway I can't compile it due to not having or being able to get Python2.7.x installed unless there's some way I'm not seeing and trying to mess with the out-of-box Python installation seems to not be advised. I am relatively green with Linux so maybe I'm missing something, but I did look around trying solutions which led me to the conclusion that Python3 is what's there and it kicked Python2 outta the house years ago. Is there a way to compile using Python3 instead?

Was using this site: https://www.palemoon.org/download.shtml

I will hop back on my laptop tomorrow and try whatever gets suggested here. Thanks in advance for any help!

Probably the reason that the Pale Moon GTK3 tarball would not work is that you have a cpu which supports SSE2 instructions but not the AVX instructions required by the newer Pale Moon releases. You can install an SSE2 compatible version of Pale Moon on Mint by using Veit Kannegieser's repo here: https://kannegieser.net/palemoon/

Just follow the instructions on that page to add the repo, and be sure you are uncommenting the SSE2 GTK3 line to get the appropriate repo (and comment out any other lines). Then 'sudo apt update' and 'sudo apt install palemoon' should get you the latest version, and apt will look to that repo to keep you updated into the future.

================

If you still want to build from source and your copy of Mint doesn't have python2.7 in its repo, then there are simple instructions on building python2.7 and Pale Moon here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=30532

[andy80]

To know whether it is a problem with the CPU not having support for AVX, you can just open a terminal and check whether the command

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cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep avx

returns a list of flags, including avx

[Sessh]

Thanks guys for the answers. This is an older laptop and the best CPU I could find to install in this is a T9900, so it doesn't have avx.

However because I want to learn, I'm trying to do the python2.7 thing and ran into two issues one being I'm just not sure how to do it correctly.

First issue is the libgconf2-dev package cannot be found. I had to exclude it. All the other packages were found and it went smoothly. Is there a replacement for libgconf2-dev or will it work ok without it?

Second I am unsure how to properly add ~/bin to the PATH. I see I am supposed to add two lines to the ~/.profile file, but I am confused about one of them.
export FOO=bar (I am unsure how to modify this line to make it work)
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/bin" (This one is correct, right?)

So I'm stuck here for now.

Also if I use this method, can I still use the repository for upgrades or do I have to install using the repo to get that perk?

Thanks again guys, really appreciate the time. Until tomorrow.

[andyprough]

Also if I use this method, can I still use the repository for upgrades or do I have to install using the repo to get that perk?

If you build your own you will have to build a new one every time, there's no way that I know of to get automatic upgrades on a home-built binary. If you want the upgrades, best to just go ahead now and use the repo from Veit Kannegieser.

[Sessh]

I did grab it from the repo and it works fine.

It seems the problem with those build instructions is that Python's mach package isn't being installed during the Python installation. Therefore, when I get to the step of having to use the

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./mach build

command, it tells me it doesn't recognize the mach command. I tried looking around for how to install that package, but couldn't find anything except that it is a Python package that needs to be installed. I got everything else right as I can type python2.7 from anywhere and have it enter a python2.7 prompt, but mach just doesn't exist.

This is in addition to the one package listed in those instructions that doesn't exist anymore. At least on Mint 22, those instructions don't seem to work anymore?

[Moonchild]

If you're building from source, then "mach" is our custom build script that's included in the source tree, not a python package.

But if I understood correctly you'd be installing a binary from a repo, not building from source. Were there no installation instructions given for the binary repo?

[Sessh]

If you're building from source, then "mach" is our custom build script that's included in the source tree, not a python package.

Ah ok! I was doing something wrong, so I got the ./mach build to work. However, the absence of the package that couldn't be found earlier (libgconf2-dev) won't let the build happen. Not that surprised really. I get:

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0:15.64 DEBUG: configure:10821: checking for gconf-2.0 >= 1.2.1 gobject-2.0
0:15.64 DEBUG: configure: error: * * * Could not find gconf-2.0
0:15.64 ERROR: old-configure failed
0:15.64 *** Fix above errors and then restart with\
0:15.64                        "/usr/bin/gmake -f client.mk build"
0:15.64 gmake: *** [client.mk:370: configure] Error 1

Again if I try to install that package using sudo apt install libgconf2-dev, I get:
Unable to locate package libgconf2-dev

All the other packages installed fine once I took that one out of the string. I am trying to install from the link provided above:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=30532

[andyprough]

Again if I try to install that package using sudo apt install libgconf2-dev, I get:
Unable to locate package libgconf2-dev

You should be able to build it by adding
ac_add_options --disable-gconf
to your .mozcnfig. I've built it with that option before.

[frostknight]

You should be able to build it by adding
ac_add_options --disable-gconf
to your .mozcnfig. I've built it with that option before.

And I have done this without dbus as well as gconf. The less bloat imo, the better.

Palemoon's bloat is moderate however compared to all modern web browsers and by modern i mean graphical.

[moonbat]

Palemoon's bloat is moderate however compared to all modern web browsers and by modern i mean graphical.

What bloat?
It doesn't ship with anything else and the UI is fully customizable out of the box without having to mess around with userChrome.css. Set tabs on top, get rid of the menubar, search box and statusbar, install the Photonic, PMChrome or Australium themes and you've got a decent approximation of modern miNiMaLiSt browsers without having to write a single line of code..

[Sessh]

Ok I'll try that later and get back to you. I'll add:
ac_add_options --disable-gconf
ac_add_options --disable-dbus

.. to the end of .mozconfig and try removing the libdbus-glib-1-dev package as well and see if it still builds. Thanks!

[andyprough]

What bloat?

Only 361MiB worth of bloat:

Only need to run with less memory than links2 and then @frostknight will certify Pale Moon as [reasonably] bloat-free.

[moonbat]

He did say he meant graphical browsers though. For that, just have to add up the RAM used by all the separate processes of any ChromeZilla browser

[Sessh]

It took about an hour to compile, but it did successfully complete and it did run afterwards. It would go much faster on this desktop, but I did exclude both dbus and conf2 without any apparent issue. I know I didn't have to do this, but I kind of want to get comfortable doing it if I can.

Now to add icons to menus and whatnot, but that's another guide somewhere else.

So let's say someone chooses to build their own Pale Moon every time there's an update available. I assume you would just clone the repo again (into the same place and overwriting old files or..?) and follow the same build instructions? You would only know there was a new version by constantly checking these forums and then cloning the repo?

[frostknight]

What bloat?
It doesn't ship with anything else and the UI is fully customizable out of the box without having to mess around with userChrome.css. Set tabs on top, get rid of the menubar, search box and statusbar, install the Photonic, PMChrome or Australium themes and you've got a decent approximation of modern miNiMaLiSt browsers without having to write a single line of code..

All graphical web browsers have some bloat. Keep in mind, palemoon tarballs are like 30MB+

This being said, when I said moderate, I meant very low, perhaps I should have said this.

Nothing specifically comes to my mind when I think of bloat, other than stuff that all web browsers have that is bloat, such as javascript. Sadly, the web requires that trash almost everywhere...

Its such a bad programming language. I detest it along with java, rust. Bloated programming languages are enough to be considered bloat for anything.

Meaning, if something has bloated programming language, it still has bloat.

That however, is not palemoon's fault, as previously stated. its these big tech underworld people. They want to design the web like it was hell. Make it so bloated that you need the latest processors just to use the web.

Like no. I refuse to subjugate myself to that nonsense. This is why I block ads... well that and I don't think they deserve any of my data. I want to block them as much as possible from collecting information.

[moonbat]

All graphical web browsers have some bloat. Keep in mind, palemoon tarballs are like 30MB+

Compared to what, what is your definition of bloat? What application and what size and age are you benchmarking against for a 30MB tarball to be considered bloat? You know very well that Pale Moon ships its own versions of system libraries and doesn't depend on what's installed unlike other Linux programs.

[Moonchild]

All graphical web browsers have some bloat. Keep in mind, palemoon tarballs are like 30MB+

Be careful what you call bloat. Just because something is a decent size on disk doesn't mean it's bloated.
That 30 MB includes many things: a full-fledged javascript interpreter and compiler, a fully hardware-accelerated GUI and content renderer, a document parser, a layered multi-doc engine, a CSS parser and interpreter, an event-driven animation engine, a media player, a 3D engine (WebGL), a formula renderer (MathML), and let's not forget a full-fledged networking back-end and SSL library/component. I'm sure I'm missing some things. None of that is bloat because all of that is what the web requires these days. You should define bloat as stuff you really don't need but that is included anyway.

[frostknight]

You should define bloat as stuff you really don't need but that is included anyway.

So basically sync is the only thing I don't need from palemoon.



But yeah, good points from both of you.

[Moonchild]

So basically sync is the only thing I don't need from palemoon.

About 2000 active users of the Pale Moon Sync server would disagree with you
That is, however, a considerable drop from what it used to be (10k+), so I'm guessing quite a few less people have a need to sync their browsing profiles across installations this way these days.