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Native Version Of Opera browser for FreeBSD

An anonymous reader writes "Norway based Opera Software finally released a native FreeBSD version of its fast, standard based browser yesterday. The browser has been available in the ports tree as an app running in Linux binary environment. Opera 6.1 is the first version released for FreeBSD, it has the same set of features as the Linux version."

52 comments

  1. This along with Pheonix... by questionlp · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think a native release of Opera 6.x for FreeBSD and the recent announcement of Pheonix would add two nice lighter weight [graphical] web browsers to FreeBSD. I've been using Mozilla 1.0 and 1.1 under FreeBSD (along with the Java 1.3.1 JDK, using both the regular and the Linux ports of JDK 1.3.1) and it runs fine... with the exception that it can get quite sluggish.

    Running the Linux version of Opera 6 on FreeBSD is faster than the native build of Mozilla, but getting the plug-ins to work has been a bit of a hit and miss.

    Now what would be great would be a native version of the Macromedia Flash plug-in for FreeBSD :)

    1. Re:This along with Pheonix... by LizardKing · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you're finding Mozilla sluggish, and haven't compiled it from source, then perhaps you want to look into rolling your own distribution. I've just built the latest nightly release on my NetBSD box, using "-O2 -march=i686" as the optimisation flags. It runs *very* snappily on my 1.2Ghz Celeron laptop, and is still usable on my 233Mhz desktop machine.

      Chris

    2. Re:This along with Pheonix... by evilviper · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Pheonix isn't nearly ready yet... but if you want lightweight, go for Dillo!

      Personally, I could care less about Opera plugins, what I hate is how often it's crashing. If it wasn't for the fact that it saves all URLs, I'd be too concerned about crases to use it at all.

      As for Flash, I won't take it even if was available. And by the way, the GPLed Flash player works natively with Mozilla (check the ports), although there's a lot of instability there. I suppose a decent browser like Opera might fare better than Mozilla.

      My qualms with Opera:
      * Lowsy printing (often garbled and overlaping text)
      and
      * It's based on QT, so interoperability with my GTK programs has been a strugle (Copy and paste into Abiword doesn't work)
      * Terribly lowsy interface. Even with it's billions of options, Mozilla's preferences are easier to work with than Opera's.
      * Unfortunate method for handling tabs. When closing a tab, instead of going to the tab left or right, it jumps through them in the most recently used order. Bah!

      That said, if it proves to be stable, I'll be quickly handing over the cash to register it. I really hope they distribute a version for OpenBSD as well (it should only need a recompile).

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    3. Re:This along with Pheonix... by questionlp · · Score: 1

      I actually modify the port's Makefile to disable parts that I don't need, switch --disable-optimize to --enable-optimize (or something to that effect).

      I already have -O2 and -p3 set as make options in /etc/make.conf on my FreeBSD laptop. It does make it a tad faster... the problem is that it slows down over time (the machine I run it on is a P3-800 laptop with 384MB of RAM) and it occurs while running it under WindowMaker or KDE3.

      It's definitely not as bad as OpenOffice.org and StarOffice 5.2 (the former as a native package and the latter running under the Linux ABI).

    4. Re:This along with Pheonix... by questionlp · · Score: 1

      I've played around with Dillo a bit, but right now, it doesn't have all of the features that I like. Maybe in time, that will improve.

      For me, I find Opera 6 crashing usually after 15-20 minutes of use... and it doesn't always save all of the preference changes that I would make during a session. The preference dialog is just as cluttered as IE5 on the Mac.

      I haven't really used the Tabs part of Opera a whole lot...

    5. Re:This along with Pheonix... by essdodson · · Score: 1

      You may also want to build it without chatzilla, and mail/news. This not only improves the build time, but seems to make it faster. There's also galeon which is marginally faster than the mozilla built from ports.

      --
      scott
    6. Re:This along with Pheonix... by evilviper · · Score: 2

      Dillo is getting very close. In fact, with the 3rd party pathces, you can add a history list, SSL via stunnel, basic js support, etc. In fact, this comment was submitted using Dillo.

      I'll be the first to admit that it can't replace a full-featured browser, but it is incredibly fast, and only missing a handful of important features at this point.

      I must say, I've had much better luck with Opera than you have. Someimes it will crash ouickly for apparenly no reason, but for the most part, I can heavily surf for hours. And when it does crash, typically only about 1 out of 10 sites is not remembered.

      Preferences dialog sucks, but it's not something you need to work with often, so I've put up with it.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    7. Re:This along with Pheonix... by evilviper · · Score: 2

      For anyone wondering... I tried the FreeBSD version of Opera, and it's just as unstable as the Linux version.

      Due to Opera's instability, clipboard problems, lowsy interface (prefs, tabs, bookmarks), lack of an HTML editor (for quick edits before printing) and it's grossly insuffecient printing capabilities, I'm back to using the slow-as-molasses Mozilla.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  2. Re:Can you hear the... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    No... but I can hear Steve Ballmer ramming his rod up Tux's ass.

  3. This is great news by dcstimm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have always been a big fan of freebsd. I am currently using it on my server. I think this is long over due. Most apps are being released for windows a linux and they forget about freebsd users. Like Nvidia drivers, UT2003, quake3, DOOM III (when it comes out). And alot lot more. They still havent released the src yet for phoenix 0.1 (I could always check it out of the cvs) so we wont see it on freebsd for quite awhile.

    The reason linux gets so much more attention than freebsd is because of Tux the penguin. I know this might sound stupid but Tux makes people want to switch over. And once they see nvidia drivers and native games in linux they are hooked. Then once they get used to linux and want a real chalange they check out freebsd.

    Most people that are curious about Unix will try linux first because people say its more user friendly. Mandrake and Redhat are super easy to install. I think for bsd to get as much market share as linux they need to do the same thing. Of course we will have freebsd (they way it is) for servers but wouldnt it be nice to see a gui installer for it?

    Oh well Until then freebsd users will always have to wait for software.

    1. Re:This is great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      bsd is for people that love unix. Linux is for people that hate windows.

    2. Re:This is great news by __past__ · · Score: 1

      Still gets better: NVidia drivers are on the way, too...

    3. Re:This is great news by Quill_28 · · Score: 1

      I don't know if the above statement is true, but it did make me laugh.

    4. Re:This is great news by Arandir · · Score: 1

      Everytime I see that statement, the more true it has become.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    5. Re:This is great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most apps are being released for windows a linux and they forget about freebsd users.
      ...
      I am currently using it on my server.

      So we are to conclude, then, that you are unique in using FreeBSD on your server, whereas all the other FreeBSD users are running it on their desktops, and chomping at the bit for some commercial software to buy?

      It should be instructive to look at the experience of linux, which after all FreeBSD (unlike the other BSDs) seems so apt to imitate and/or surpass. There are actually Linux distributions with graphical installers, fully automatic hardware detection, integrated graphical control panels, and heavily-customized GUIs designed wholely for desktop use. A huge number of end-users have at least tried to install Linux on their PCs, and only a small subset of those, who both survive the installation and subsequent configuration, like the result system, and find it too confining and inflexible, who even come to the point of considering switching to FreeBSD (almost no end-user will go to FreeBSD first without some kind of prior experience, since its virtually unknown outside the Unix and open-source software worlds). So it is fair to say that at any given moment, the number of desktop linux users dwarfs the number of desktop FreeBSD users (I didn't say *BSD, so don't say anything about OS X).

      And what has been the result of marketing commercial and/or proprietary software to desktop linux users? It has been an abject failure. Loki is out of business, Corel has dropped their linux product line, whatever ApplixWare has turned into is floundering about trying to sell themselves as some kind of ASP or thin-client outfit, and even whole-hearted supporters of Linux who are continuing their efforts, such as id software, admit they made almost no money on it. This is the linux commercial software market. Now given that FreeBSD users are far fewer, and correspond to the most technically adept Linux users, people whose idea of a "graphical user interface" involves a means of displaying multiple sessions of their dogmatically-inspired choice of vi or emacs in terminal windows at the same time, why should any company waste a single dollar recompiling their software for FreeBSD so that these said users can decline to buy it?

      You can explain almost any piece of commercial/proprietary software which has appeared on FreeBSD mainly as an act of good will, which the provider probably concedes will make no money, but will enhance their corporate prestige among the sort of intelligentsia who are at least aware of FreeBSD. When it costs little the benefits are clear. If there is a single person at Opera interested in BSD, they have probably had builds of it internally for a very long time, since it has been ported already to every other Unix flavor. The same can explain the port of (pre-Mozilla) Netscape long ago. As for nVidia, they will probably not even have to recompile the driver itself, because XFree86 uses a platform-indepedent driver format, only the marginal task of porting the kernel module remains (and FreeBSD already has a linux-like AGPGART interface, which is used by the DRI drivers, the linux equivalent of which nVidia's driver can optionally use, so they may not even have to port much of their kernel module). As for games and other commercial software, yes, you will have to wait, or run it in FreeBSD's decent linux-compatibility mode like many of your peers are doing already. But since you, like most of them, probably also have a computer running a certain Microsoft operating system which has proven a far more viable market for commercial software, chances are you will simply, if you want to use a commercial program unavailable on the operating system of your choice, use said Microsoft product instead, in which case there is no market pressure at all for it to be ported to anything else.

    6. Re:This is great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh, that's strange.

      Every time *I* see that statement, the more true: "FreeBSD is for people who irrationally hate Linux for its popularity. Linux is for ...(whatever)..." has become.

      Must be a difference of perspective.

    7. Re:This is great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The reason linux gets so much more attention than freebsd is because of Tux the penguin.

      Uhm... you think Google and Amazon rolled out Linux on thousands of systems because of a mascot? How on earth did this get modded up? It's nonsensical.

      I use Linux because it supports USB joypads. Hugely impressed as I am with the FreeBSD project as a whole, I'll still be using Linux to play my SNES emulators in the meantime :)

    8. Re:This is great news by rplacd · · Score: 0

      Heh, yeah. I really need that now. I upgraded from a TNT2 to a GeForce 4 Ti4200, which isn't supported by XFree86.

      The JDK thing is an issue, too. To build 1.3 on FreeBSD, I need the JDK sources, which Sun is reluctant to give out. If you try to download it, you'll find that you need to be in one of 60-odd countries to download source code (which I'm not). I end up relying on friends to build me a JDK package.

      What happened to the official JDK port?

    9. Re:This is great news by Arandir · · Score: 2

      I don't have the time right now to do an exhaustive survey of Linux reportage, so let me just submit some anecdotal evidence as to why Linux is more and more becoming the Anti-Windows instead of the Pro-Unix operating system.

      1) The number of Register articles and Slashdot posts that begin with the words "If Linux is to replace Windows then..."

      2) The bile expended by Linux users in attacking Microsoft. Your local cableco and telco are monopolies as well, but no one is calling for the public execution of their CEOs.

      From my perspective, Linux users are obsessed with Windows. Please note that this has nothing to do with Linux the operating system. It's merely my observation of postings by Linux users and articles by the Linux press.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    10. Re:This is great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      From my perspective, Linux users are obsessed with Windows

      Interesting, Arandir. From my perspective, most FreeBSD users (I know you're one) are obsessed with the publicity Linux gets. I read the FreeBSD mailing lists, and many lists are crammed with posts discussing the reasons why Linux has gained media attention; how we can attract Linux users; differences between FreeBSD and Linux etc.

      Then there are the articles on BSD Today etc. comparing Linux's VM to FreeBSD's; how to convert over; the superiority of Ports over .debs or RPMs. And so on.

      Point is, don't let some loudmouth advocates skew your view of Linux users as a whole. Some of us just use it because it works (with a decent distro and knowledge). I use FreeBSD as well, for the record. But zealots exist in both camps.

    11. Re:This is great news by Arandir · · Score: 1

      Point is, don't let some loudmouth advocates skew your view of Linux users as a whole.

      It wouldn't be a problem if the quiet people stood up and shouted now and then...

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    12. Re:This is great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But Every mandrake GUI installer I've tried has been horribly terribly broken. I always use the drake's Text setup mode, because I always seem to have a GPU that has quirks with auto detection...
      (and what's with ATI cards only showing up in the text-only setup list of cards for Xfree 4.2?)

    13. Re:This is great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      zealots do exist in both..but i think it's important to draw a line between being a zealot and an advocate.

      i personally didn't like linux when i tried it, and eventually switched to freebsd, which i love. however, despite my qualms about linux, i'll still admit where it has merits. same with freebsd.

      my question is, why is it so hard for many linux zealots to admit the positives about freebsd? alongside that, why keep saying it's dead? people using open-source software and operating systems is a flat-out good thing, whether it's linux or *bsd.

  4. A thought: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I think a native release of Opera 6.x for FreeBSD and the recent announcement of Pheonix would add two nice lighter weight [graphical] web browsers to FreeBSD. I've been using Mozilla 1.0 and 1.1 under FreeBSD (along with the Java 1.3.1 JDK, using both the regular and the Linux ports of JDK 1.3.1) and it runs fine... with the exception that it can get quite sluggish.

    Running the Linux version of Opera 6 on FreeBSD is faster than the native build of Mozilla, but getting the plug-ins to work has been a bit of a hit and miss.

    Now what would be great would be a native version of the Macromedia Flash plug-in for FreeBSD :)

  5. dying? by drDugan · · Score: 2

    can someone please explain why people keep trolling that _instert_OS_here_ is dying?
    I thought when clicked here I'd see it again -- and sure enough, another 'BSD is Dead'
    troll.

    WHY?

    1. Re:dying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My guess is they're the extremist Linux zealots. The ones who vehemently attack Windows (more so than everyone else.) On the other hand, *BSD users are admittedly fewer than Linux users, and they don't attack anyone who uses a different OS. They just use what works best for them and get on with it. This infuriates said Linux zealots, who now take out their anger on the BSDs with their "$OS is dying" posts. It's just like with kids: everyone picks on the quiet kid; he's not doing anything wrong, but he doesn't have anything bad to say or do to anyone, so others pick on him. And he doesn't want to fight back and sink to their level, so he more or less puts up with it.

    2. Re:dying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you would find that if people stopped replying to them every so often, they might disappear. But now its sort of a tradition. Also, there is credible evidence that the main source of the "*BSD is dying" post uses a script to post it automatically, so it requires little personal effort.

      The fact is that *BSD users are some of the easiest to provoke OS zealots in the world. If you casually say something in a post about BSD being dead, you will get 4 or 5 replies saying "Don't believe the trolls -- BSD isn't dead, its thriving". And keeping a steady flow of these posts keeps showing this amusing behavior at its best.

    3. Re:dying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My guess is they're the extremist FreeBSD zealots. The ones who vehemently attack Linux (more so than everyone else.) On the other hand, Linux users are admittedly fewer than Windows users, and they don't attack anyone who uses a different OS. They just use what works best for them and get on with it. This infuriates said FreeBSD zealots, who now take out their anger on Linux with their "$OS is dying" posts. It's just like with kids: everyone picks on the quiet kid; he's not doing anything wrong, but he doesn't have anything bad to say or do to anyone, so others pick on him. And he doesn't want to fight back and sink to their level, so he more or less puts up with it.

      The best part is that it works with MacOS, IRIX, Solaris, winXP or whatever else you choose to make yourself feel rebellious.

      Stick it to the MAN, brother.

    4. Re:dying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      I think you're right.
      But it just goes to show that the average Linux weenie is 15-years-old with a sense of humor
      to match.
      It's pretty well known that at least one of the more
      prolific BSD-is-dead trollers falls into this
      category.

    5. Re:dying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > everyone picks on the quiet kid

      how about everyone picks on the retarded kid who had years of head start ahead of other kids but still can't barely keep two things in mind at the same time.

  6. Browsers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use Linux myself, though I do like FreeBSD, but what would be *REALLY* cool and good and useful for *BOTH* would be a 'command line' version of say Mozilla, that would run without XFree.

    Web browsing is one of the few things I use X for, and I would jump at the chance for something more featureful and useful than lynx. Ugh, lynx. Yes, there's links, but getting it to run is hit or miss unfortunately.

    1. Re:Browsers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use Linux myself, .... lynx. Yes, there's links, but getting it to run is hit or miss unfortunately.

      Hrrrrrm. I've not had that problem on FreeBSD with lynx. Perhaps its a 'linux' 'feature' you are experiencing

    2. Re:Browsers by doozer.rm · · Score: 1

      Lynx and Links *are* textbased, but to call them command line base arouse the pedant in me.
      I'm sure thats what you meant, but if you reeeally want a command line base "browser" you should check out Plan 9 (http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/) and webfs, and voila you can view webpages in the filesystem and use *real* command line tools on them.

    3. Re:Browsers by archen · · Score: 1

      You can get Links that has image support (yeah, I didn't believe it either until yesterday)

      Links

  7. Nice to see, by voodoo1man · · Score: 1
    but I wonder what benefits it offers over the Linux version in binary compatibility mode right now (not that I don't want a native version). I'm running 6.02 on FreeBSD 4.3, and nothing seems to be broken (well, I don't have the JRE, don't need anything besides flash, and the file browser does the compat mode path redirection - typing the path works ok).

    On a similar note, how well does Opera run on NetBSD's Linux (and I guess FreeBSD too now) binary compatibility system? I've recently decided to switch to NetBSD instead of upgrading.

    --

    In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.

    1. Re:Nice to see, by saintlupus · · Score: 1

      On a similar note, how well does Opera run on NetBSD's Linux (and I guess FreeBSD too now) binary compatibility system?

      I haven't tried it recently, but I ran Opera under the Linux compatibility in NetBSD 1.4.x - worked without a hitch.

      --saint

  8. Theft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I agree. Look at how people remove the BSD license and put on a GPL instead, STEALING the code.

    Sometimes the GPL community honor the license, and don't remove the BSD copyright, the GPLed code is embraced and extended BSD code. (kind of like Microsoft.)

    As the gutless wonder Bruce Perens likes to say 'the new BSD license is great, because you can slap a GPL on it and "protect" the code.'

  9. What does Netcraft have to say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a feeling Netcraft has confirmed *something* about this announcement.

  10. Not really like that !! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gentoo Linux is for people who were ex BSD users but find portage better, don't like to be behind times. BSD is great !! Gentoo is something even better. Just my opinion.

  11. What we can learn from BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    What We Can Learn From BSD
    By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

    Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

    Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

    These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

    As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

    Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were soon nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

    The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like a dying empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.

  12. Go Buy A License by Local+Loop · · Score: 2

    Thanks to Opera Software for recognizing this need. I've requested a FreeBSD port via their web form and am thrilled to see that they listen to their customers.

    Now, everybody go buy a license to support this excellent work.