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."
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
Hmm, as far as I know, 'Opera 4.0a' indicates that it's an alpha release...
It hung after I resized the window.
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
Screenshot
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.
Because this is a kludge. Instead of using a native API, they are using one API pretending to be another API. The end result would inevitably be something that didn't work quite right, and would never work quite right. Not to mention the fact that it would "feel" like a "piece of windows" running under linux, rather than a real linux app. If you're willing to stoop to this, why not just run the native windows version on native windows under vmware ?
I've had the native Windows version almost running properly under recent versions of wine, so I'd imagine that it would have been trivial for them
No, it wouldn't. Part of the problem with WINE is that they need to emulate the bugs in win32. It's not just a matter of debugging wine, it's making a perfect clone of win32, that does exactly what win32 does. When you are running through an emulation layer, you are tying yourself to an API that is unreliable. Using a bad API puts you in a very bad position, because your chance of ever getting something that works properly is very slim ( unless you fix the API, which in the case of WINE is not easy ).
On the other hand, by using QT, which is a very nice API btw, they have managed to port most of the code in a very short timeframe, and now they only need to worry about their own bugs, as QT is pretty solid.
And how do you propose to "replicate" the creative efforts of the software author ? Are you attempting to argue that the software author is not worthy of compensation for his/her efforts ?
Nobody loses any money because of piracy
This statement is extremely dumb. If the author puts in time and effort into a piece of software and isn't properly compensated because a bunch of leeches don't pay their dues, they have lost money.
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
If you are not prepared to give money for it, you have no right to use it. BTW, if you think it "sucks", don't use it. Myself, and a lot of people disagree with you though.
(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.
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...