FireFox

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: FireFox
started by: drewlane

Posted by drewlane on Dec. 08 2004,02:16

I really love FireFox.

I use it all the time on my "regular" computer.

However, after trying it with DSL 0.9 with my old computer I found it rather slow, especially the startup.

Granted it's only a 233 Mhz processor, but the last browser in DSL was down right snappy (at least it was fast to startup).

What do the folks who made FireFox recommend for minimum system requirements?

Drew

Posted by green on Dec. 08 2004,02:40

drewlane,

I have experienced 'slow' starting up of Firefox now matter what machine I use and regardless of what OS i'm running. However, i would rather use Firefox, let it start slow but run well afterward, then use the M$ one for anything. I have no idea what the min requirements are, but don't care.
It's just one of those things that makes not using M$ crap more interesting.....

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 08 2004,04:25

Give the Opera extension a try.

It loads up quickly and is responsive even on older computers.

Posted by John on Dec. 08 2004,04:37

Also, there is still Dillo, and a text only Links in the iso.

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Dec. 08 2004,06:08

Quote

Fly you fools! You know not your peril!

Don't complain about Firefox! You have no idea how many people have argued, crammed code, and tweaked libs for a long, LONG time to squeeze in that little beauty!

Enjoy it on boxes you can, and use Dillo on boxes that Firefox is too slow to use. (I have only found a few of these myself, it runs slowly, but usable on my 99mgz pentium laptop with 40mb ram.)

-J.P.

Posted by ico2 on Dec. 08 2004,09:18

dillo are glinks are still there, if firefox is not any good then use them.

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 08 2004,17:11

Actually,

The graphical version of Links-hacked (aka "glinks) is no longer part of the livecd.

However, you can still run links text mode inside an xterm by typing "links" at the command prompt.

Posted by ico2 on Dec. 08 2004,17:16

oh, didn't notice, aaaaaaaah well :S

Posted by AwPhuch on Dec. 08 2004,17:48

Thus the beauty of the hotloadable MyDSL packages!!!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by ico2 on Dec. 08 2004,18:47

but we should look to make space for scite. scite was the best.

Posted by hawki on Dec. 08 2004,20:00

I too find Firefox slow. Much slower than Opera. I had never tried Firefox before DSL 9.0 since I find Opera so well done and fast even on my old laptop. I could lose both Firefox and Sylpheed since Opera has such a good mail client built in and add Opera and Scite and be happy.

My two cents.

Posted by AwPhuch on Dec. 08 2004,20:08

scite is a .dsl

not gone, just been moved

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by zmef420 on Dec. 09 2004,16:13

Firefox runs great on all machines I have tried it on except for one 200 mhz p2 with only 32 megs of ram, for obvious reasons. My only problems with the included version in .9 is that the extensions don't work and I NEED my stumbleupon(.com). The gtk2 downlload installs them fine so I am guessing it has something to do with size requirements.

thoughts, comments, nasty remarks?

Posted by davide on Dec. 09 2004,17:33

Firefoz of course cannot run on old machines as fast as dillo or glinks, (which was a very good browser and hope it's out there in the dsl repository).I like it very much I use it daily as my main browser.

Still, the apperance of firefox in dsl has slightly changed one of the aims of the distro, in my opinion.
It was a distro that aimed "to be live" and "to stay under 50" and "to run well on older hardware" AS IS. Now the latest statement isn't true anymore.
It can take ages to start up firefox on a PI 133 i.e.

just my 2 cents

nothing bad or serious. it's stilla a great distro, because you can d/l glinks easily.

Posted by drewlane on Dec. 09 2004,19:58

Quote (davide @ Dec. 09 2004,12:33)

I have to agree with you; it does change the distro.

Firefox must take up quite a bit of space and I probably won't be using it with my old hardware because it takes so long to startup.

Posted by zmef420 on Dec. 09 2004,23:09

slow means it still works right? i see where you are coming from but i believe the distro is better off. dilldo is nearly the same as glinks and it was kind of redundant, imo. xmms is great but most folks just want the capability to play music files, why waste space with the extras. i will admit that the new media player could use a few improvements but i can't make them so I'll shut up. firefox adds a lot of functionality that really makes dsl useable for a lot of people.

Posted by codestorm on Dec. 10 2004,01:00

I guess it depends on what level of *slow* people are willing to endure. I run Firefox on my 200MMX/64MB tinker box at home. Sure it's a dog to start, taking about 15 seconds, and it can take a few second to switch between tabs, but it still renders modern sites a darn sight better than Dillo/gLinks. Also neither Dillo nor gLinks handled password protected areas properly (for my local Smoothwall).

Myself, I'm quite willing to work with that level of lag. What I find more niggling is that Firefox (and I'm sure Opera would too) chews through most of of memory, so I often have to enable swap and take a big perf hit.

Also I find if I leave Firefox running and come back at the end of the day (with no swap), it's tried for too much memory and crapped out.

Even after shutting it down normally xvesa doesn't seem to free up the memory properly from it's use.

Ah well...

Posted by Rapidweather on Dec. 10 2004,01:42

I'm wondering if the Firefox that was added was a .dsl
I mastered in the Firefox 586 build in DSL 0.6.2, and found it
to boot very fast. When I added Firefox to DSL 8x, as a .dsl, then
it got slow. Opera 6.03 was also mastered in, and it started even faster.
I am currently working on remastering Knoppix 3.4, and am now using
icewm instead of KDE. I added Firefox, Scite, and Emelfm, and fixed up
a nifty menu item for the "Set as Wallpaper" feature in Firefox. I can restore my default startup wallpaper, go to a plain light-blue wallpaper, or install the new Firefox_wallpaper.png, an image just saved as wallpaper in Firefox. Found that Firefox starts somewhat slower under Knoppix with icewm than with KDE.

Posted by bluefreak on Dec. 10 2004,07:33

do we have a mydsl extension for opera 7? i run opera 7 on windows 98 in my pentium 166, 48mb ram box. its quite snappy. and although it takes quite long to start up, its fast compared to firefox. an opera7 extension would be great.

Posted by drewlane on Dec. 10 2004,17:04

Do you think that < Mozilla MiniMo > will ever be an option for DSL?

Drew

Posted by bluefreak on Dec. 15 2004,08:42

MiniMo is a browser for small devices, such as pda's and smartphones, i think. and its only available for ARM now.

Posted by guni on Dec. 15 2004,20:29

I think adding Firefox is a misstep looking at the goal of the distro. Dillo and links-hacked do already a lot, the people who would need firefox for those flashy sites (which don't fit in with DSL either

) can easily download a firefox .dsl for that. They can remaster the cd to add firefox.. but I don't think it belongs on DSL, not in my idea of DSL at least. There sure is better use for that space isn't there?

grtz

Posted by laughing_gas on Dec. 15 2004,22:17

John's take:
< http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/talk/node/26 >

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 15 2004,23:35

Dillo and Links-hacked do a lot, but they are far behind with some of the most common web elements, CSS being a prime example. One might consider decent layout to be flashy and unnecessary, but I don't. I use Dillo for reading basic HTML pages stored locally, just for the startup speed...everything else is much better in firefox. Then again, I don't even use DSL online, so I don't know why i'm posting this... =o)

Posted by mpie on Dec. 16 2004,15:13

enable the turbo more type about:config in the address bar and play with the settings can greatly increase speed even on old 331 mhz celery processors with as little as 64 mgs of ram

Posted by drewlane on Dec. 16 2004,16:32

I think turbo mode uses more memory to enable quicklaunch.

I thought it was only for Windows, too?

Posted by mpie on Dec. 16 2004,17:30

nope can enable it under dsl and makes a diff stats machine 331mhz celery 64mb ram!!!! try it see what i mean. All the config files are applicable across o/s's you can fix the mail too issue here too!!!