Slashdot Mirror
Opera Beta Released
Wil Mahan writes "According to the LWN daily updates page, a beta version of the Opera browser has been released for Linux, and is available at Metalab (1.9 MB). Looks like Opera fufilled its promise of a full public beta before Christmas."
Will it be be open sourced ?
mvg,
Kris "dJOEK" Vandecruys
Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
Well ... downloaded it, started it, looked fine, :(
couldn't log into slashdot (pressing the button didn't do anything), went searching for an option that could help me, which eventually crashed the
browser
Hmm, not quite stable yet.
Thomas S. Iversen
Hey, when did they become opera.com. They used to be "operasoftware" and "opera" really had something to do with singing.
I've been using opera for the BeOS on and off the last few months cause it's still buggy.
:-)
But it's getting better with every new release and I sure am happy with the look and feel of it.
Now for linux too yay!
Together with the deal with Be for being it's browser on BeOS and Stinger (A lean version of BeOS for webpads) This should generate enough revenue and attract enough investors to allow them to seriously speed up development.
On to a version that doesn't crash when you change too much preferences!
Happy holidays everyone!
However, I would like to call attention to a truly free (beer and speech) browser that has been available for Linux (as well Windows, Solaris and AIX). This is the W3 consortium's Amaya browser.
Some features (adapted from the w3 page):
1. Is a browser as well as editor
2. Amaya maintains a consistent internal document model adhering to the DTD.
3. Amaya is easily extended.
Several APIs and mechanisms are available to change and extend its functionality with the least modification to the source code. Amaya thus allows for easy customization by providing a means for extensions to access Amaya's internal procedures and functions.
4. Support of MathML protocol.
But best of all, it's released under the W3 Copyright which is fully compatible with the GPL
Why not give it a try?
Binary Distribution
Source Code
RPM distribution
I had a few rendering glitches, and post forms don't seem to work (voting, login, etc..). But overall, it's a fast browser and I'm sure it'll run well on older computers.
As for quicker computers, Mozilla M12 is starting to be a pretty good candidate. (and it's Open Source)
Hmm, as far as I know, 'Opera 4.0a' indicates that it's an alpha release...
It hung after I resized the window.
i got pretty excited, so i downloaded it run it and quickly became disspointed. it rendered the screens horribly. i tried www.cnn.com and it butchered it to pieces. i tried amaya, it was not all that great (almost same as above), but i have the source code, and i can try to fix it if i want to. but if i am going to pay for a browser, it better work better than stuff i can get for free (Mozilla, Netscape, Amaya). yeah, it loads quicker, and it has a much smaller footprint, but if Netscapes renders the screens properly, i'll stick with the bloat and lagginess until Opera looks better or Mozilla is complete
Seriously.. Stop complaining about people wanting to make a little money. If you use a program all the time, 100$ is not a lot. Hey, you payed for the computer, right?
--
sick and tired.. and it's christmas
Wow, this is pretty cool. I downloaded it, installed it and pointed it at slashdot. Yes, it's obviously beta with some things to fix (and a somewhat odd UI) but it's fast. Starts up within 1/2 second or so and seems to render pages fast ...
... although Mozilla seems to have 'shrunk' (in terms of bloat) over the last few releases ... still, the Linux space should be large enough to allow them to continue development/support of Opera under Linux ... I wish them well even if they're not open sourcing Opera ...
I think we have another (serious) entry in the Linux browser market with Opera. I've obviously just played with it for a few minutes now, but for a 1.5M download, it's pretty cool. The important question now is: how come it's so small? What features doesn't it have that Mozilla does have? All in all, I welcome the Opera people/browser to the Linux world. The more the merrier. Competition is good and will force any other browser makers out there to keep on their toes.
I still prefer Mozilla as it's open source, but this seems to be a nice addition to the Linux software world. What I'm wondering is: with Mozilla and (the rapidly aging) Netscape out there for free, what kind of market penetration do these guys hope for? This might be a good browser though for low end machines that don't have the RAM/CPU that mozilla seems to eat
try using open on a text file then type a url
into the resultant window.
however i had to post this in netscape as it wouldnt submit.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Hmm, if I were trying to release a browser for the Linux market, I'd be sure PNG was at least partially supported in the beta version.
When I saw that the beta was out I downlaoded it quickly beofre it was hit by the mass crowds who were bounds to slashdot the page. I untarred it and ran the script expecting it to goto the Opera webpage... but it didn't, just a grey background. After fidling around for awhile I figured out how to make it goto a web page. But unfortunatly every every web page I pointed it to either didn't render at all, or came up horibly mutilated. If anyone else had any beter luck with this, I would like to hear about it.
Mozilla will also have MathML Check this out for linux: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/reeases/m12/mozi lla-i386-pc-linux-M12-MathML.tar.gz
---
Screenshot
I quickly downloaded Opera while it was still possible. (/. effect 80k..40k...12k/s!) Anyway my primary Linux box is an Alpha and this is a binary, so either open the source (preferred) or get an Alpha binary compiled. I did try it on an Intel, a plain old P133 from yesteryear and it kinda worked.
It has allready been stated what most of the obvious bugs are, can't submit anything and it quickly hangs after trying a few things. Not mentioned yet as far as i can see is the fact that it has a rather outdated Windoze look to it. The BeOS version is sharp and it works quite well. Also, there was a small problem in rendering some types of images such as; "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It isn't ready for market yet, but i'm considering throwing some of my money their way in the belief that if several people do that it will provide the necessary motivation to finish the job! It is however rather fast and so far unbloated, and just maybe this can be the 'browser on the floppy'.
More like Pre-Pre-Alpha!!!
QPaintDevice: Cannot destroy paint device that is being painted followed by segfaults. Hmm, even de alpha labeled M12 release is better, in fact I'm using it right now to type in this message. There's still quite a way for Opera to go before they can even think about charging 30 bucks for this...
Happy Holidays!
It was quick as hell, but it really does not matter when it cannot load any pages huh??
This beta runs about as well under FreeBSD's emulation of Linux. Just as others have said, I can't use submit buttons, and occasionally it segfaults, but otherwise, it runs!
Ugh! This isn't beta software. Its barely alpha quality. Totally useless!
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
All of the above, and
Keep trying, Opera developers. Once this actually works it will be ready for beta testing.
I used it for a few minutes and it is awesome.
I couldn't submit any forms, and the default
flyspeck font is too small, but other than that
I enjoyed it.
Only 7MB of memory used. Hopefully no memory
leaks either...
Keep up the good work, guys!!
Compare this to the unhelpful messages you get in a certain other OS when a DLL is missing... you are completely screwed in that case.
But I'm still screwed. Suppose I don't know where to get this from. Suppose I don't know how to install it. This should be distributed staticly linked. Make no assumptions.
My problem is I'm not allowed to install system libraries, although I can have my own ~/bin -- so what am I supposed to do about this crap?
Computers are hardware. Until we get replicator technology I won't be able to copy a computer for zero cost. I can take a software CD, pop it in my drive and burn another copy for cost of the media.. $1. If I downloaded it I can reproduce it for nothing by simply making another copy on my hard drive and distributing it. The original person loses nothing by me having 1 or even 10,000 copies. This is why piracy is such a load of baloney. Nobody loses any money because of piracy. I certainly will NOT give them one penny for Opera but I may use it if someone comes out with a crack or a key generator for it. Actually, I don't even know if I'd use it then considering the Windows version sucks ass compared to IE and Netscape. I don't see what people think is so good about it.
Learn the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, for one...
Last time I tried it (granted, several years ago) it came nowhere close to the functionality of Netscape at the time. I don't even think it could do tables or display animated gifs. Probably doesn't have style sheet support OR javascript and java. What good is it? And how compatible is the html used? Is it compatible with IE and Netscape (THE standards of the web no matter what W3C would like to think).
$ ./opera /lib/libm.so.6 (0x4000f000) /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x40028000) /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x400cd000) /lib/libc.so.6 (0x400d9000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000) /usr/lib/libstdc++-2-libc6.0-1-2.9.0.so libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2 ./opera
./opera
./opera: error in loading shared libraries
libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
$ ldd opera
libm.so.6 =>
libX11.so.6 =>
libXext.so.6 =>
libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2 => not found
libc.so.6 =>
$ ln -s
$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.
$
(wait...wait...load goes up...wait...wait...)
^C
$ strace
(extraneous output deleted)
select(4, [3], NULL, NULL, NULL) = 1 (in [3])
read(3, "\1.:\0\0\0\0\0\276\276\276\276\276"..., 32) = 32
brk(0x856e000) = 0x856e000
time(NULL) = 946046288
open("opera.ini", O_RDONLY) = 4
brk(0x856f000) = 0x856f000
(more waiting...it's hung up at this point)
Too bad they didn't just statically link it. Oh well, I'm not about to go build a new libstdc++ just to test a beta web browser.
The whole thing has StarOffice-ish "look and feel" -- large window, MDI in it, widgets are exactly the same as in StarOffice.
It has good chances to become usable, however MDI shouldn't be the only option for windows handling -- while it may be tolerable in Windows, in X it looks like an insult to the idea of window manager.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I'm not a systems adminstrator, and I can't call one because today's a holiday. So I can't do this. Windows isn't even this bad.
So, Linux is just a Unix that's had its source stripped? What the hell do I want a castrated system like that for? The reason I fled commercial Unices was for lack of source. This is no better. What tripe!
What's MDI?
What's good/bad? Some people have mentioned Amaya and Mozilla, but what about Konqueror?
Or at least make it an option to turn off MDI. Half the people in the UNIX world *HATE* MDI and will not use any program with it.
but they made it...
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
It's open source too - enough said
I was able to run it under Debian potato. I've had the same problems with logging in to /.
;)
/tmp/opr. (That last may have been /var/tmp/opr, I've symlinked /tmp to /var/tmp). There was no man page or info page.
What did work worked fast. I didn't check memory use. I almost forgot what browser I was using!
I did think that I'd be willing to pay even $100 if the final version is as solid as I expect it will be. I'm glad to see someone mention that the expected (announced?) price is only $35. Geez, I haven't bought software since OS/2 in 1993! (Unless you count the MS tax *sigh*, I did reformat immediately
I haven't checked on where to submit bug reports yet. There is one 'bug' I haven't seen mentioned yet. I have no idea what files the binary installs on my system. I checked a few common places. It wrote directories ~/.opera and
Well, besides not knowing what a binary is doing, I have no other problem; it is a first release, after all!
There wasn't a single page I visited that didn't have rendering mistakes. The most annoying bug seems to be that if the page finishes loading before images are displayed, it just stops rendering the pages. Sometimes you don't even SEE some of the images on a page, just the holes where they're supposed to go.
It's apparent that there's no support for the HEIGHT and WIDTH options to img src= tags; they're just rendered at the original size.
Forms don't work. Submit buttons do not appear to do anything. Sometimes, input areas don't appear, so you can't even fill out the form before finding out that you can't submit it anyway.
Paragraph spacing is "odd". Anyone who writes pages to fit just right is going to go insane trying to get pages to look identical on IE/NN and Opera!
In all, I would say that this is not a beta. It's not even an alpha release.
Now the good news: :-)
What is encouraging is that pages do render VERY quickly compared to NN4. The status bar has a lot of geeky information (transfer speed that updates more quickly than NN's, and an elapsed time monitor), and it displays the full URL of each item that is being loaded. There were other widgets on the status bar that I didn't play with.
When Opera does have a true beta out, I'm sure it will be fantastic. It didn't crash on me, so I suppose that puts it ahead of NN :-)/2. But if you're expecting to jump in and use this starting today, you will be VERY disappointed. Instead, look at it as a "coming attractions" demo.
Bob Donahue
Dumb is making a statement like that when you know that this is an alpha version. Obviously no one would expect you to pay for this product. This is like saying that M1 of Mozilla was not worth paying for.
----------
Twisted Little Gnome - The Podcasting Network http://www.twistedlittlegnome.com
No frames support, poor "tactile" feel for when something is clickable, can't handle a simple redirect, often loads a page but won't display it, segfaults in a minute or so.
This has miles to go. What's interesting to me is that this is supposedly part of a port series that uses a common codebase. Based on that statement, I expected it to be a buggy cousin of the BeOS version in terms of where it stood in feature support. From the looks of this, it certainly doesn't look like they're managing to write cross-platform code.
Contrast this with everyone's favorite oft-delayed vaporware, Mozilla. A baseline Mozilla-based Communicator 5 now seems about 6 months away, and some 18 months past initial targets. But the codebase is by most measures 98% cross-platform, and it shows in the way the Win32, Unix and MacOS versions are progressing in lockstep.
Indeed, at the moment, Konqueror is in much better shape. Heck, the GNOME and Tk HTML widgets are in better shape.
I'm sure Opera will get something nice out the door. I'm still not sure what Opera's place in the world is, though. Consumers who use old, slow computers generally don't buy software. Companies that want to use old computers would probably be better off from a manageability standpoint if they turned them into X or ICA terminals (running Linux, DOS, *BSD, or whatever), and made full-featured browsers available on centralized servers.
As far as a lean, stripped-down browser goes for local execution, it looks like perfecty good Opera clones could be built out of Mozilla code. And since the MPL allows for BSD-like commercial extension, Mozilla's support for XML, DOM, plugins and so forth makes for a more realistic browser for the future. As DHTML continues to go mainstream and become a staple of web-based application development, Opera's austerity will come to look quaint.
MDI (Multiple Document Interface? or something) is what you see commonly in the Windows world and _never_ in the Unix world. MDI is when you have a main window and every document/image/file/whatever you open is in a new window that is contain entirely within the main window. Examples of this - MS Word, Adobe Photoshop, mIRC (as default), Jasc Paint Shot Pro, Opera.
Compare this to the unix world, where, for example, you run gimp and have the tool dialog and the image you're working on free floating anywhere on your desktop.
Thank you, http://www.W3C.org (location: http://www.w3c.org/), for standing athwart the tide of them who would take shortcuts and shouting "enoughttp://"!
why do I feel like this is the quake opensourcing argument all over again? First off, of COURSE it's going to have bugs. it's their FIRST LINUX RELEASE. Yes, some of them seem obvious enough that they should have been fixed. But instead of bitching about how a program that you haven't had to pay for (and won't until it's out of beta) has bugs, submit bug reports. sure, you can't debug or get the code, but pop off an e-mail mentioning a particular problem.
it's small, blazing fast, and isn't a system hog. I'ts missing e-mail? GOOD. I wanted to separate those two programs out anyway. at $35 and free minor release upgrades, I'm going to be proud to support them. I've talked to some of their sales people over the past few days while I tested out their windows client to see what we were looking at as far as a linux client. they were extremely helpful and patient with even my most obnoxious questions. This is ONE case where a commercial product is smaller, faster, and better than an open sourced "free" one. point me at a browser that DOESN'T have the same sort of problems that opera does FIVE RELEASES OR MORE IN, and I'll be amazed. Netscape is the closest, and for pete's sake, it's HUGE. You think once Opera is done, Mozilla will be able to compete? only on the free side, man. We can't directly affect the way Mozilla is going any more than we can Opera. Oh sure "but I can go in and change it myself". But how many of us have the time and knowledge to look through a code base that HUGE??? Not me, that's for sure. So don't look YET ANOTHER gift horse in the mouth. Please. If you can't be happy about it, keep your mouth SHUT and go sulk in the corner.
You see, without that little doohicky, the universe stops.
http://propheteer.org
Two corrections: Word 2K is SDI. All other Office 2K programs are actually MDI but default to behaving as if they are SDI. Photoshop allows you to pull all of your working palettes out of the main window and place them wherever you want. This makes it easy to put all of your tool palettes out on your second monitor and devote your main, large, hi-res monitor to just image display.
and now we have a garantee for future products
I don't understand why so many people get excited about Opera. I can't believe there is a company that actually expects to make money by selling a web browser. Specially a web browser that has _less_ features than IE or Netscape or Mozilla. This is rediculous. Yes, it is somewhat faster, but this speed comes at a cost. Last time I have checked it did not have java support. Many sites just don't render correctly with it. I certainly wouldn't pay a dime for something like this. I am using Netscape 4.7 glibc2.0 version, Thank you very much.
Amaya package is now configured
Amaya configured with libWWW
Amaya configured with Math support
Amaya configured with Graph support
Motif seems not installed on this machine
Thot and Amaya need Motif 1.2 or 2.0
Thot and Amaya probably won't compile
Motif isn't free (Yes, I know about Lesstif, doesn't work here)
"Even Prophets don't know everything"
Honestly, Opera has had a pretty functional BeOS beta for like 6 months. /.
Never gets a mention on
But when they release a crappy ass barely alpha quality release for Linux, it's a front page story.
Call me flamebait, but WTF?
All that aside: If you go to Opera and you happen to run Windows or BeOS you'll find new versions there as well.
Bugs, tech discussions, etc. can be found on theirdiscussions page (most of the links there are newsgroups, which works rather well).
No Zen is good zen
not to be picky, but word 2k actually opens separate windows for each document. very nice! now I can alt-tab between docs. (why they didn't also do this for excel 2k, I will never know.)
you know, one thing I never figured out, why didn't they make it so you could type alt-# to switch between docs in the old versions? alt-w # is very awkward. (perhaps you can configure keys to do this, I never checked.)
anyone have screenshots available?
Although it's great to see Opera coming, i think that KFM would be an adequate browser for 90% of my needs if they'd just fix the stupid cookie bug. (KFM never saves cookies, even when you tell it to.) Is it too much to ask KDE developers to step back from Krash long enough to fix this stupid bug, which would render stand-alone browsers largely superfluous? Why should we have to wait until KDE 2.0?
My first opera session:
./runnow ~/opera-19991224 ./runnow ~/opera-19991224 ./opera ~/opera-19991224 ../ ~/opera-19991224
:)
one% cd opera-19991224/ ~
one% ls ~/opera-19991224
gif opera runnow
one%
one%
Sorry, not implemented: ProxyServerConfigurationDialogx::slotHelp()
UNDEFINED STRING -- SEE PrefsManager::GetLanguageString()UNDEFINED STRING -- SEEone%
one% cd
one% rm -rf opera-19991224 ~
opera-19991224 opera-19991224.tar.gz
one% rm -rf opera-19991224* ~
one%
Yes, it is beta. I think I'll wait another 2 or 3 months.
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
until they fix those nasty bugs and release a version for us Alpha Linux users! Then I'll buy as many copies as I can afford/have machines for..
LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!
Hey all,
... and then which kernel versions ?
;)
Quite a few comments seem to be slagging off this release with views such as 'segfaults after a mintue' and the like.
Well, what do you expect ? Tell me how many distributions of *nix's are there out there... and now how many libraries... and now how many versions of those libraries
I think most of those who post these types of comments have never even attempted to get substantial program working accross many platforms. I certainly havn't, I'm a PHP programmer, so that isn't going to happen... but I can appreciate how difficult the task is.
So, chill out a little... This release of Opera just about works for me and it is very quick... it's not like Netscape which is so *slow* and crashes 90% of the time if a lookup on an URL fails... and that's happened on *every* platform I have tested it on...
As for the comparasins to Mozilla... I'm running on a 400 Mhz 128mb system... and yet it still crawls along... fair enough, it's not even officially alpha status yet.
So, finally, sod off to all you so ready to slag of an attempt to produce a half-decent browser.
P.S. Don't forget that Opera 3.62 works perfectly under WINE... well, for me that is
It's very very unstable. I was able to bring up slashdot 50X faster than with any other browser, but it's got a lot of work to do. Mozilla is a lot farther along and doesn't use Qt. Also, Opera costs money, and Mozilla is free, not to mention way farther along in development.
Good day and Merry Christmas RMS,
Dave
I welcome any new piece of software; expecially when there is only a few others that do the same thing. It keeps everyone else on their toes and encourages competition.
Opera loads and displays nicely; but it hurt my feelings when it wouldn't load my site: http://www.jackchaos.com
It sites there doing nothing, and eventually begins to take X with it until I kill.
-Oy Vey
Quite slow, messed up on a few pages for no reason. Somewhat nice, but by no means a contender to replace even NS 4.x on my system.
big drawback dummy
I'm still not sure what Opera's place in the world is, though. Consumers who use old, slow computersgenerally don't buy software.
.1 second. (no, really) From my experience with Opera on Windows I'd say that opera is the only browser that comes close to being able to meet my criterion. The Windows version is also about the most stable browser I ever used. I really think the Linux version will be even better, once it's done. I'm not going to dump on them for releasing a little early just so they could get it out before Santa comes.
I'm not a consumer. I'm running a 300 MHz, and typical browsers whether by Microsoft, Netscape, the KDE team, or whoever, take a ridiculous time to launch, let alone what they do to my machine performance by hogging all the memory. In my book, no program you run should take more than a second to load. Personally, I prefer load times less than
I guess Opera's best strategy would be to open-source their code the rest of the way, let us geeks fix the code some more, proclaim themselves a linux company, and cash in with an IPO.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
-Kris
First of all mozilla is further along. I'm using a nightly build to post this. It works great and getting better daily. For the longest time I couldn't figure out how to get a browser window opened I just kept on hitting file->new. It crashed before I saw a web page. I eventually got to see a web page taking a tip from a previous poster by trying to open a file and then typing in the url in the window that opens. It rendered yahoo horibly. It made yahoo look uglier than it really is. I am totally unimpressed. Then I noticed a whole bunch if GIFS! in the directory where I extracted opera. You would think they had some more tact and used pngs or xpms. It also used an interface similar to many windows programs and star office. I don't like star office just for that reason. I don't like to see windows in windows there is no reason for it. I just don't see myself paying $100 dollars for software thats gonna suck this bad. I don't think that they will make user interface changes when they go to beta or release. I'm happy with mozilla.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
Well the program itself seems to run fairly well. It didnt crash on me but it would not let me log into slashdot. Some .jpg images came up looking wierd also. It is gunctional right now though. Goot work Opera, hope the actual release comes soon. It loads much faster than Netscape and of course looks better than lynx. It could be my happy medium.
PS- One more thing, could installation be any easier? Just tar -xvzf (filename) and then click on the shell script and it works! I wish Quake installed that easily!
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
Just do a backtrace on the core, and...
:)
oh. Nevermind.
Binaries ROCK, eh?
Use lynx. It's light years out in front of any of them in terms of speed and convenience.
At around $39, Opera was much cheaper to buy than a hardware upgrade for my mother's 486SX with 8 MB RAM, which she used until early this year. Without Opera, the web was effectively unusable on this hardware.
Mozilla may well win in the longer term, but my experience with Opera on Windows has been very good.
Haven't yet tried the Linux version but the Windows version does have frames, redirects, etc - I'm surprised they've released such an incomplete version since it sounds more like an alpha than a beta.
Opera was, perhaps unfortunately, never designed to be cross-platform as far as I can tell (which is one reason it has a small memory+disk footprint).
For someone running Linux on a low memory 486 or Pentium, Opera may still be the better choice. Since a lot of Linux boxes appear to be 'recycled', there may actually be a good market for Opera here.
(a) You lack write permission to system directories. This has NOTHING to do with linux.
(b) You appear unwilling to learn how you can install libraries in your home directory and use LD_LIBRARY_PATH to make the app search your home directory for shared files.
It's hardly linux's fault that you lack sysadmin priveliges and that you are lazy.
They should release a libc5 version for all of us out there that care for a little bit of stability. =p
You should run the runnow script, it preloads a couple things.
Actually, it's not that the system is too complicated. Linux is hardly more complicated than Windows. The problem in this specific case is that you are running an older version of Linux, and the Opera binary was compiled for a newer version. Somewhat like trying to run a program that was designed for Win98 (and uses Win98-only features) on Win95.
Then why didn't they tell me which Linux O/S version it was for?
M12 is stable and its fast. It works flawlessly on most of the sites, now who needs Opera.
Because Linux is Linux. Everything works the same everywhere. They don't need to tell you anything.
Are you just trolling, or are you that dumb? Read the original poster's problem. It's a library version issue.
hi, i have a problem with a commercial beta version of a piece software. Linux s ux!
my honda won't go. the little meter for gas is on E. honda sux!
my girlfriend's Jetta needs an alignment, and it pulls to the left! VW sux!
you're right. Linux is crap. i think i'll go back to my other OS, where it cra shes constantly, but at least all the DLL's are there. unless they get corrupte d. or if the just don't work. or if they are not there.
but i do like your logic. a library not found, therefore linux is crap.
LD_LIBRARY_PATH? but that means i'll have to learn the export command!!! (assum ing your using bash). Linux is not ready for average Joe User, so you can't exp ect everything to be handed to you. part of being a Linux user is taking the ti me to learn how the basic system works. not to be a kernel hacker, but understa nd a few simple things, such as libraries and the such. until then, quit your w hining i check out the LDP.
My impressions:
1. It is FAST. It beats the crap out of Netscape4 I use now in Linux.
2. My current version of Netscape is almost as unstable as this early beta version of Opera.
3. It is amazing Opera is only ~5Mb.
4. I has (or will have) everything I need from a web browser.
I really wish Mozilla development team concentrated on a simple web browser and left alone all bells and whistles. Really, how many of us use Netscape mail? Pine is much better for me.
Whatever happened to the initial goal of Mozilla team to make a browser that fits on a floppy? Sorry to say, but Opera beat them in here. (OK, Gekko fits on a floppy, but the ENTIRE Opera fits on a floppy - or almost fits).
Mozilla becoming a ~20Mb source code monstrosity.
Can anybody tell me what is it about a web browser (plus all imaginable bells and whistles) that makes its source code bigger that the source code for the entire Linux Kernel? Should any application be more complex than a full featured operating system?
If you just look at the browser, all Opera is missing (in the Windows version, which is stable, small, and damn fast) is DHTML, Java, and a few small things like images as table backgrounds. In fact, the only sites I've seen that don't render correctly have either been badly written (depending on bugs in the way Netscape and IE display pages) or use DHTML (which I suspect will be supported in Opera 4.0, since the Linux version is willing to at least hide divisions through stylesheets). Sites with correct HTML display fine. As for Java, all you have to do is download Sun's Java Plug-in. If you do Java programming anyway, you'll want the latest JDK, which already includes the plugin. Otherwise, the JRE's an extra 6 or so megs. THIS is the major reason Opera is small: simply because Java takes up huge honkin' amounts of space.
I'd've expected a VB plugin instead.
And does that crapware still auto-reload POST data?
I've been waiting for this beta for a long time now...
:)
:) But overall, I give it a positive rating.
I'm still using my 486dx4/100, which can be a bitch with Netscape.
When I heard that Opera was finally available for linux, I was ecstatic. I'd been checking up on the www.opera.com/alt_os.html page for days, hoping to learn that the beta was finally out. (Interestingly enough, still no mention of it!)
I was disappointed when I finally ran it -- it's not the ultimate solution, but I think I will use it instead of Netscape for the next while (when I'm not using lynx, that is).
Why?
+ it is smaller and faster. I hate waiting for Netscape to load
+ it renders pages more readable (usually). Netscape tends to make certain pages look like crap when the font sizes are coded to be small. I know I can force Netscape to use only my own font preferences, but that can make other pages look worse.
+ it is smaller and faster.
+ I'm sure that now that it is publicly available, the bug reports will just fly in. With increased pressure, I believe this software will make some significant leaps in the near future.
It's not without it's problems forever. So far, I haven't experienced any crashes (strangely enough, I rarely do in Netscape - or other software which is supposedly crash-prone - either. Could it be hardware related? Could my slow but high-grade 486 hardware be less likely to allow crashes than your average beige box K63? I dunno.).
However, "submit" buttons fsck up on me. Furthermore, I'm not a huge fan of the GUI layout. But then again, I've always used a browser with a Mosaic-inspired GUI. I'm sure I'll grow accustomed to it. I don't like the way Opera displays links either. Perhaps that will change? Who knows. I have yet to explore the configurable options at this point either, so I may find more I dis/like about the software soon.
It's a 'technical preview', which seems more or less equivalent to a daily build from the looks of things.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I am really, really tired of waiting forever for a browser that works without problems on Linux. What the hell? This beta is a rush job that doesn't half work. Why bother? Where the hell is Netscape 5 or a version of Mozilla that doesn't crash even more often than Netscape 4? Where is the much vaunted advantage of Open Source when it comes to producing a simple browser? This is really beginning to burn me. Do I have to drop my own work and projects and go write my own? Why is Konqueror all bundled up with the rest of KDE? Why not break some of these things loose on their own to fill such pressing needs? Or did the code end up so tightly coupled and entangled that this isn't possible? If so, what does this say about the way we are designing and implementing these tools?
I don't mean to be a grinch but it sure looks like I won't be getting one thing I very much wanted for Christmas.
However, if you would take the other guys advice, and fix the problem instead of whining, you'd have it working by now.
i hate netscape (opera isn't looking too good either with it's windows-inside-a-window design). i truly do. in linux/freebsd, not only is it slow and bloated, but it likes to crash when there's a hint of java or when you get it confused by trying to close windows. some people will most likely say i'm lame because i want the EVIL EMPIRE(tm) to release a version of IE for linux/freebsd, but that's okay. if it works, i don't care who makes it. i know many people who would also like to see IE for linux/freebsd, and i hope it's released someday.
And you expect to put this on a home user's desktop? 'Tis to laugh, sir.
Um no.
Mozilla M1 was not "alpha". Actually, there was no M1, so I'll assume you meant M3. M3-11 were build-up milestones where the core feature set were created. M12 is supposedly "Engineering Dogfood" (although there has been some talk about "alpha" status).
Mozilla seems to use much more memory than Opera (although I didn't run the Opera beta/alpha/whatever very long), but Mozilla M12 could shut the sidebar easily, it could display the icons on toolbar buttons and work for most of the time where I found the Opera alpha to be annoying and require more perseverence to use. (This may be because of its quirky interface as well, I'm not an experienced Opera user).
If you want simple program installation, use package management exclusively. Someone will make an rpm or debian of it soon enough. You just have to wait a little longer. This combined with (gnorpm & rpmfind) will allow you to easily install almost any software package as root. The remaining problem is simplifying installation for non-root users. The problem here is that many packages are not made relocatable. RedHat really needs to fix this, and they need to design some sort of standard bin, lib, & etc structure for user specific programs and then export all neccessary varaibles. Then, rpm should come with a tag, --for-me-only , or --user-specific, so it installs in said users directory.
Come on! Lighten up! Is this how the Linux community is going to react every time some piece of commercial software is ported to our fine OS? Cut these guys some slack! Have you ever tried to write an application as complicated as a browser? Even targetting ONE platform is immensely complex.
Yes, the rendering quarks and their time to port might suggest some slight problems in their cross-platform architecture, but geez! Software just isn't that easy, folks! Personally, I'm amazed they have it working at all...
If someone were to ask me to port some huge piece of graphic code to X-windows, I'd estimate about a year for a completion time. X ain't easy, HTML rendering ain't easy, cross platform threading ain't easy, making money off software ain't easy...and these guys are trying to do it all. So the version they're throwing out before Christmas is a little buggy. Big freaking deal. They're a small company supporting several different platforms! X and UNIX are not the most natural environments to step into.
Cut them some slack and offer some words of encouragement when a company is willing to port their software over to Linux. That's what most people want, right? Application support under Linux? Even if it's not an application you're gonna use, it's still a step in the right direction. The more companies that support Linux, the more well known and accepted out platform becomes. Before long, you have companies *assuming* they'll have to support Linux rather than asking if they should bother or not...
Are you feeding the trolls or are you just that dumb? Read the original response, it was flamebait. It's a problem of him not being moderated down, and you too.
Redundancy abounds!
How can I change the font size? All the fonts on the pages I view are teeny weeny. When I go to document appearance and try to change the font size and hit ok, nothing happens.
See 12 referrs to the number of the release. Talk to me when Opera gets to 12.
:) Maybe if Opera would release their work more often it would be in better shape than it is now. For all we know this could be the 1000th build of this year, but the first public release. Another reason why Open Source rocks :)
Oh boy, talk about stupid reasoning
And then lets talk when Mozilla makes it to its first release and Steve Case decides that it is his. Open source my a*, you will pay more for Aol's netscape 5 than you ever will with Opera.
Sorry, once again flawed reasoning. Read the Mozilla Public License some time.
I trust Case less than Gates.
And I trust Open Source more than Closed Source. BTW don't trust anyone that's after your money (that includes Case and Gates).
Mozilla? The greatest open source con of our time.
Ehm no, that would have to be the Sun Community Source License. Thanks for playing, come back when you have a clue or maybe two about Open Source......Brought to you by Linux and M13-nightly
(b) I don't expect someone completely lacking in expertees to use unsupported alpha quality software.
"If only" takes the optative subjunctive, you know. That means "was" has to be "were". Would that grammar were still properly taught!
I downloaded the Opera binary to give it a run. I was impressed by how small it was and how small of a footprint it has while it is running. However, it's important to remember that with Mozilla you can create a small web browser as well. Everything is embeddable so you can create whatever interface ( with whatever size ) you want. Everything is modular so if you don't want it, you don't have to load it. Here is a screenshot of the "simplebrowser" test program. It's simple. It's small. The nice thing about Mozilla is that you can design any interface you want around it since it's completely embeddable. You like the Opera interface with MDI? Write one! There's nothing stopping you.
:)
I also found it interesting that they called this a "beta release." Mozilla is more stable and has a greater amount of its final functionality impelemented than the current Opera release. We didn't want to call the Mozilla M12 release "Alpha" because we weren't comfortable enough with its level of stability (although we consider it almost there.) Yet another example of the redefinition of the word "Beta."
I though you could switch between windows in MDI (such as word) using Ctrl-Tab. Or was it Ctrl-F6? Too bad I don't use Windows, so I can't check. :)
LoppEar.
If you count the C libs and all the shell proggies you need for basic functionality you'll see that mozilla's codepage isn't that big it seems that way because it's fragmented in the tarball but that actually makes it easier for someone to browse the code.You shouldn't wine:build it, strip the libs and then check the actual size (hard ,extremely modular architecture).The big memory footprint comes from mem leaks but they're advancing rapidly.Lastly i can use Mozilla as my page's reference so as far as I'm concerned I'll stick with it.No other browsers can display it 100% ;)
A conspiracy theorist might notice that this thread has spread enough FUD to make the response to Mozilla M1 look universally worshipful.
> pages to fit just right is going to go insane
> trying to get pages to look identical on IE/NN > and Opera!
Um. How does one go about writing pages to fit just right? This sort of involves knowing the resolution being used by the client, the font size, and a bunch of other details that there is no way to know.
Not to mention the fact that the whole concept is anathema to the logical-formatting ideal that HTML should strive for.
It's a lot faster. Not only is it far faster, it's also more stable, and if it's STILL not fast enough for you it gives the user an incredible amount of control over how it operates - for real speed experiment with the image loading modes. (I am talking about the windows version here - the linux version, contrary to the blurb above, is actually an alpha NOT a beta release and still very buggy and unstable. Much like ANY Alpha release - tried KRASH?) It's had java support for ages. It supports any netscape compatible plugin. If you WANT java, just download the plugin from sun and install it. This is an advantage - not a disadvantage - those that want JAVA get it and those that don't are not obligated to have it. I have never found a site with valid HTML that did not render properly in Opera. The last few releases it's even been so forgiving that crap HTML like usa.net (for example) render just fine on it - I have mixed feelings about that. HTML is not a layout language. If your goal is to totally control layout, use .pdf. HTML is a logical language, for the presentation of information. It is deliberately abstract to allow the same logical structures to be rendered differently in different environments (think cross-platform). The problem is some web designers want to rebel against this and try to achieve total layout control in HTML. This is an utter renunciation of the very purpose of HTML in the first place, and the end result is all those stupid pages that you need IE 5 at a given resolution to view. Don't blame Opera for not rendering them as intended - blame the idiot that wrote them for not learning how to use HTML - or alternatively finding an appropriate format to do what he did. HTML isn't it. And yes, I'm using Netscrape 4.7 to post this - but only because of a lesser of two evils choice - I would rather use Linux than Windows EVEN THOUGH that means using Netscrape atm. When Opera is ready to use on Linux that choice will be a whole lot easier to make. And finally, yeah, it isn't open source. Of course it would be nice if it was. But better an open source OS with a good closed source browser than the other way around. I wish the Mozilla folks all the luck in the world, but I'm sure not gonna hold my breath waiting for Mozilla to be half as functional as Opera.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
It's a lot faster. Not only is it far faster, it's also more stable, and if it's STILL not fast enough for you it gives the user an incredible amount of control over how it operates - for real speed experiment with the image loading modes. (I am talking about the windows version here - the linux version, contrary to the blurb above, is actually an alpha NOT a beta release and still very buggy and unstable. Much like ANY Alpha release - tried KRASH?)
.pdf. HTML is a logical language, for the presentation of information. It is deliberately abstract to allow the same logical structures to be rendered differently in different environments (think cross-platform).
It's had java support for ages. It supports any netscape compatible plugin. If you WANT java, just download the plugin from sun and install it. This is an advantage - not a disadvantage - those that want JAVA get it and those that don't are not obligated to have it.
I have never found a site with valid HTML that did not render properly in Opera. The last few releases it's even been so forgiving that crap HTML like usa.net (for example) render just fine on it - I have mixed feelings about that.
HTML is not a layout language. If your goal is to totally control layout, use
The problem is some web designers want to rebel against this and try to achieve total layout control in HTML. This is an utter renunciation of the very purpose of HTML in the first place, and the end result is all those stupid pages that you need IE 5 at a given resolution to view. Don't blame Opera for not rendering them as intended - blame the idiot that wrote them for not learning how to use HTML - or alternatively finding an appropriate format to do what he did. HTML isn't it.
And yes, I'm using Netscrape 4.7 to post this - but only because of a lesser of two evils choice - I would rather use Linux than Windows EVEN THOUGH that means using Netscrape atm. When Opera is ready to use on Linux that choice will be a whole lot easier to make.
And finally, yeah, it isn't open source. Of course it would be nice if it was. But better an open source OS with a good closed source browser than the other way around. I wish the Mozilla folks all the luck in the world, but I'm sure not gonna hold my breath waiting for Mozilla to be half as functional as Opera.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I'm sorry for you, but Linux is all about Free Software and Open Source. I don't care if Opera is being released for Linux if it's commercial. I can pay for it, I'm rich, but I DON'T WANT TO SUPPORT COMMERCIAL CLOSED SOURCE APPLICATIONS FOR LINUX. I love you RMS. Lynx rules!
Excuse-me, but Lynx is the best browser available for Linux (and other OS). And it's released under the GPL. You need more? Ah, want to view those teen pics? Use Zgv or any image viewer as an external program. Ah, you REALLY need to waste your time seeing shits like backgrounds and gifs? Oh.
Why not release those shits statically linked? Now you need to get all these libraries they're using to compile it? Special Qt, libstdc++... Uh.
I've been waiting for this moment for along time, so I obviously grabbed it asap! After using it for a about 15 - 20 minutes I was pretty disappointed. Why? Here's a few examples:
.JPG and then either right clicking on the image, (causes previous page to load) OR it's a totally invisable .JPG until you go to different workspace in X and then shoot back. (wow! the image suddenly appears!)
Seg faults. Try bringing up a
Personnaly I think Mozilla M12 is further ahead.
But it is nice to see! Hopefully things will progress at a rapid pace.
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
in my first sentence, i also typed "it's" when i should have typed "its." i guess i'm not as perfect as i build myself up to be. :(
I don't know if the quasi-alpha release has all the
features of the Windows version...yet.
Also, Opera has some drawbacks but for me they
are outwieghed by features like these.
Superior Keyboard access. I hate the rat. With the following key strokes I can:
Z- go back one page
X- go forward one page
1or 2 move forward or backwards thru MDI
(sorry, I like MDI)
H bring up local window history
reduce or increase page display by 10%
7 or 8 decrease, increase display by 100%
3, 4, minimize maximize windows.
There are also single key strokes for cascading and tiling windows.
You can add and subtract menu bars, title bars, scroll bars, status bars, buttons bars etc, to go go into full Kioskand back again with just a few key strokes. You don't need to close the
browser, reaunch it in K mode. When you want to go back again, a few simple key strokes, and add back one at a time ( or not) all your " bars". whatever. You don't have to exit, and reload a regular instance of the Browser.
Control + J. this is *way* cool. Instantly you cut away all the dross and clutter of a Web Page
(poorly or well designed) and you have an alphabletical listing of all the links
on the page. If I am at Salon, and want to go to next page, I just ctrl j, hit n, hit enter and I am there. No scrolling down to find where the link is.
This is a very useful innovative feature.
The bookmarks, called Hot List is most respects
superior to Netscape. Mainly bcs, you can navigate
through the folder levels, by menu style selection.
Hit c and it goes to a folder or item that starts with
a C. Last time I looked Netscape still can't do this.
You can configure the hell out of Opera.
One example, is you can set it to Open with Your
5, 6, &, 12, whatever.... favourite sites right on
start up.
You can make your own tool bar button sets.
The list goes on and on.
Finally, there have been several legit criticisms of Opera a. but bemoaning the quirky
Gui? Come on that is almost as lame as complaining ( as opposed to observing) there are
bugs in this quasi alpha release.
There is a difference btw being quirky and just being not familiar with something..So you'll have to
learn a new interface. I never thought I would hear
a bunch of Linux users crying " but I don't know how it works". If you learned Linux you can learn
Opera while brushing your teeth.
Opera Rocks.... or it will once they get all their
aughts and nots straightened out.
I hope Opera meeting Linux is like when Oxygen
first had a menage a trois with Hydrogen. The world
ain't been the same since.
The Opera News Server is:
news://news.opera.no/opera.linux
You know I think this could be the start of a beautiful relationship.
signed Penguins Can Fly.......When the Fat Lady Sings. and sing she shall.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but for me, it *SEEMS* that the StarOffice browser is pretty good. I haven't done any advanced testing, but it doesn't *SEEM* to crash as ofter as nutscrape, and works a bit better than Mozzila and Opera. (I just tried the Opera beta out, and it seems to crash just a bit too often, but hey, its a beta).
:).
:)
Only thing is, StarOffice isn't free. (Well, it is free (as in beer) for personal evaluation use).
Its also a pretty damn hefty download for just using it as a browser. 70megs download. ~150-170 installed. But, atleast you get an entire office suit for that price
If this thing doesn't crash that much, I might buy it.
I use to have a funny sig, but slash cut it off, and I forgot what the punchline was.
stesch@parsec:~/opera-19991224 > ./runnow
./opera: error in loading shared libraries
libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
If you use a program all the time, 100$ is not a lot.
I totally agree! I gladly pay a million bucks for any software that I use more than once! Heck, I'd pay - like - a billion $$$ to Bill 'cause I use Windows all the time and it got - like - a million little programs in it! Did you know that those weird files named .dll are also programs! Yes, it is true - there is even more value for money in Windows that you'd think (unless you are educated like me - I've taken a computer course at community college - so now I know EVERYTHING about computer-thinga-majjigies).
Hey, you payed for the computer, right?
I sure didn't! Thank God for race riots - that's the only time I go shopping - like - window shopping - if you know what I mean! Buy quick, use a brick - I always say!
W S B Fucci butti! (that's merry christmas in italian for those who haven't attended night school.)WSB
Considering plains, my homepage isn't at all that plain and if it isn't fancy enough, it's not because of the standards is strict. And you can validate it on http://validator.w3.org
It's great to get Opera for Linux too. As we so often want to point out: the freedom to choose is important. Also Opera and Mozilla will definitely battle each other and result in better products.
I downloaded both. Opera starts up fast. I pressed enter and there was the window. Then I visited slashdot with it. The front page loaded fast and it also showed this topic nicely. The feeling I got is that Opera loads slashdot pages faster than Mozilla but Mozilla renders the page faster. Just resize the window to see the difference. However, Mozilla's slowness with big Slashdot pages come from early incremental reflow code and still unoptimized table code. However, some new code has gone in lately to make Mozilla faster.
Opera also lacked features. If you click on submit buttons, nothing happens. Also it has big problems with some web pages. But as programmers know, this is very normal at this stage.
Check out the latest Mozilla. The Linux version has become a lot faster lately. It also crashes a lot more seldom and renders pages better than ever. There's still a lot of bugs left but this one is almost good enough for daily browsing. And as Mozilla could use some good testers, report the bugs you find at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org
In a nutshell: Opera is still far behind Mozilla. It's not possible to use it for daily browsing. Mozilla is almost there.
If they distribute it as binary only, they should provide with versions compiled agains variety of existing libraries, or make static binaries as netscape does.
It's called jumps. I just type j, enter sl, and here I'm. No need to waste your time on an alpha quality commercial application.
MDI: Multi-document interface. Or in this case: Massive Document Interface. Allows you to have hundreds of web pages open within one window and control them all with a single click. I really like it - its the heart and soul of Opera. On the win32 version, it is not uncommon to have 40-50 websites open and use less than 5-8meg for the whole deal. The main benifit is found while reading the /. here - just a shift click put a thread opening in the background while you continue to read in the foreground - maximizing bandwidth.
I think it's mainly a how-you-use-it issue.
At 40-50 simultaneously open pages, I can see an obvious benefit from having a main containing program to organize all the browser windows together, and conserving memory from not defining multiple sets of menus, toolbars, etc. If programs are always run maximized, then non-MDI also is not necessary. This may be the general case for desktops at 800x600 or smaller.
Speaking for myself, but I think also for many others, I don't usually have nearly that many simultaneous windows open so I prefer to space out all my windows, including non-browser ones, on my desktop (they may still have areas overlapping). With an MDI browser in this situation, to have my browser windows spread out, I would have to make the parent window large enough, and this would cover-up my other non-browser programs.
Here in Finland there has just been introduced the
new so-called WAP services for mobile phones. They seem gllued-together crap to me, although I haven't enough interest to go to a phone store to check them out. The services, such as some sort of email and some information services, are all text-based and they work on top of traditional GSM SMS text messages. And all of them seem to be proprietary and work only on one operator's network.
The scary part is, the advertisers refer to WAP services as new Internet. "See www.sonera.fi or wap.sonera.fi!" Notice also that the people should know how to get the services just by looking at the prefix. The guy who first named a web server www.domain.suffix should be hanged by his/her balls...
NOSPAM@REMOVETHIS.NO.SPAM - you'll find the real address somewhere
The whole idea of Opera is a web browser that is smaller and faster than anything else out there. That means highly optimized and stripped down code...and that means that cross-compatibility goes out the window. Don't use cross-compatibility as a measuring stick for code that was designed to not have it.
Ahh... so it has a name. MDI huh? I used it for a few minutes and thought 'ugh - just like star office. I'm never going to be using this one.' Kind of a shame - it sure did load fast.
... with eskimo chains i tatto my brain all the way...
Are is this merely opera buffa? :-)
Someone had to say it.
A big "Cigar, dude" to you for being the one to
actually be the one.
Star Wars is way lame. Any longtime reader of
Science Fiction knows it is a hodge podge of
ideas & concepts that were done better elsewhere
befoe they were ripped off.
What was impressive at the time, was that Star Wars was the first sci- fi movie to have the special
effects to do a sci- fi story any justice. Fans are confusing this with story itself which is mediocre at best.
I guess you can't begrudge a generation their touchstone but why pick something that is to Movies what McDonald's is for food. It irks me to see Star Wars as
an ambassador for Science Fiction. It is an embarassment.
Sorry. I know this is off topic , but I couldn;t resist.
I did not quite understood, is there a difference in libc5 and glibc2 licenses, or is there going to be any?