Opera

Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: Opera
started by: DamnSmallBrain

Posted by DamnSmallBrain on Jan. 03 2006,01:21

Can we use an Opera browser in place of the Firefox browser?

Posted by _pathos on Jan. 03 2006,01:31

lol replacing firefox with opera on linux distribution

interesting idea but...no way. Firefox is more popular and open source. I don't know if the opera license would even allow it seeing as versions of DSL are sold on pen drives etc.

Posted by doobit on Jan. 03 2006,01:52

There are three different versions of Opera extensions available through the DSL extention panel.

Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 03 2006,12:28

For older computers, the Opera versions that can be installed from the myDSL repository (Network and UCI sections, I think) are noticably faster than Firefox.

Posted by clivesay on Jan. 03 2006,13:35

Just so you know.....

I recently did a comparison of FF and newer Opera on a p166 with 32mb ram.

Opera at first opening was 95 seconds....ouch!
Firefox was 75 seconds.....not much better

BUT

on second opening....

Opera was 35 seconds
Firefox was still 75 seconds.

Good info to know

Chris

Posted by doobit on Jan. 03 2006,15:23

Hmm that's interesting. What do you think is happening in Opera the second time that's not happening in Firefox?

Posted by John on Jan. 04 2006,00:01

Robert and I came very close to releasing an RC with Opera in place of Firefox. The main reason why we didn't switch was because of Opera's closed source license which would not let us do what we wanted with it.

Posted by hs7sv on Jan. 04 2006,01:41

What's about < Flock >?

Posted by DamnSmallBrain on Jan. 04 2006,06:25

Dunno about the specific terms of Opera's licence, but in Windows at least, the program is now free, (for the latest versions 8.50 and 8.51).
Are the terms of the license still the same?

Posted by delaguer on Feb. 02 2006,10:22

installing opera is a breez in DSL... thanks guys! opera is my favorite web browser and it certainly run faster on old computer such as the one that I have (at least thats how it seems on my laptop

)

so far DSL works great (still running 1.5 here), keep up the good work!

go opera go!!

Posted by delaguer on Feb. 02 2006,10:22

xxx sorry double post xxx

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 02 2006,16:00

Quote (Guest @ Jan. 04 2006,01:25)

Dunno about the specific terms of Opera's licence, but in Windows at least, the program is now free, (for the latest versions 8.50 and 8.51).
Are the terms of the license still the same?

There's a huge difference between freeware and open source. Last time I checked, Internet Explorer was free. It is not open source, however, which means it cannot legally be modified to suit the needs or desires of the user.

Posted by Delboy on Feb. 08 2006,13:34

Yes Opera is quite a bit quicker on second opening. Over the last couple of years with DSL on an old laptop, I have allways found myself using Opera for 'proper' browsing (Dillo for quick hits on bookmarks) and e-mail. The contacts database feature means that is really quick to retrieve old stuff. The file size is small at 3.66MB. I have never really used Sylpheed and Firefox. Firefox is so slow and doesn't score as high as Opera on security from what I've read - a real concern nowadays.
Mikshaw: why would Opera need to be modified to fit in DSL?
Grafpup and other earlier Puppy versions and MCNlive manage it without any fuss about licences.
Flock at 8.5MB is huge by comparison and seems to be version of mozilla. No thanks.

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 08 2006,15:15

Quote (Delboy @ Feb. 08 2006,08:34)

Mikshaw: why would Opera need to be modified to fit in DSL?
Grafpup and other earlier Puppy versions and MCNlive manage it without any fuss about licences.

I don't believe i said it needs to be modified in order to fit into DSL...that was just something i used to explain a major difference between freeware and open source software. In any case, John already stated that they wanted (not "needed") to make changes to it for DSL, but the license forbids.
Additionally, I seem to remember someone once saying that DSL probably would not include non-GPL-compatible applications in its base....but i might be mistaken.

Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 08 2006,17:31

My guess is DSL will not include applications that are not open source and freely distributable.

Although the GPL license is the most common was to achieve this, it is not the only way.

For example, I believe that most Mozilla products (Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc) are covered under a Mozilla Public License or somerthing to that effect.

But Opera license is definately not unrestricted so it is a great example of "freely distributable" does not equal "freely modifyable"

Posted by pr0f3550r on Feb. 08 2006,18:26

We (can I include myself in the DSL community) might/should ask Opera.com to give us a particular freeware licence that allow us to redistribute it for free. Mozilla did it before launching the triple licence (MPL, GPL and binary-only).
I like Opera, apart from the licence objection, the other problem is that it doesn't display .xul files.

Posted by D0rk on Feb. 09 2006,16:23

Quote (clivesay @ Jan. 03 2006,08:35)

I definetly agree with you mate. Opera is much more faster than Firefox. Iam on 200MMX with 128MB memory and Firefox is slowest browser i have ever use.

Opera is free now and can be modified as you want it to be. So i cant see any good reason not to change it. Even Opera's browsing technique is faster than Firefox's. :cool:

Posted by struppi on Feb. 09 2006,18:13

i think it's not possible because of this license thing.

BUT: it would be really cool to have opera instead of firefox. extensions are nice, but firefox is extremely slow - and opera runs like a charm on older machines. it would fit great into the dsl philosophy.

Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 09 2006,18:47

You can still use it.

Just download the appropriate extension from the myDSL repository.

Users with limited RAM should use the UCI extension for Opera

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 09 2006,19:53

Quote (D0rk @ Feb. 09 2006,11:23)

Opera is free now and can be modified as you want it to be.

I see some people still do not understand the differences between "free" (as in no charge) and "open". If you actually read the Opera license, you'd see that Opera cannot be modified. Opera cannot be used on anything but a pc, which may hinder future development of DSL if Opera was included in its base.

Opera is a commercial product...it may be free of charge and now free of ads, but it is still commercial (not open source, not GPL-compatable, not friendly to those who strive for open standards).

This does not mean it can't be included in DSL, but that it probably won't be.

Posted by D0rk on Feb. 10 2006,00:41

Quote (mikshaw @ Feb. 09 2006,14:53)

Quote (D0rk @ Feb. 09 2006,11:23)

Opera is free now and can be modified as you want it to be.

well i didnt mean programmer way modified.

I ment avarage joe way modified. u can make ur custom menus in Opera without any programmer skills.

ect. Choose how many and what kind of search boxes and where u want to place them. ect. google, find on this page, download.com.... U add. pop up blokker,zoom,own kids of buttons,Irc.......

Opera rocks