[openpsion] Firefox 1.5 for netBook

[Brian D. <du...@ap...>]

On inspiration, I have compiled the latest firefox 1.5 (code name "Deer Park") 
on my netBook.  This took about 24 hours, using an external PCMCIA IDE drive for 
storage and swap space.  Compiled with "-O2 -mcpu=strongarm1100 -mtune=strongarm1100".
You can grab this package off of our Sourceforge "Files", under a new listing
"NetBook Applications":

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=8846

There is good news and bad news, etc.

The compilation was basically:  download the firefox source package and unpack, 
configure, make, make install.  (with LDFLAGS="-lstdc++" to fix some c++ library 
errors).  I am amazed the compilation finished and the netBook stayed up and running
the whole time...I routinely get the kernel seizures I've mentioned before.  Perhaps
it was the 300 MB swap space.

The tarball package is about 14 MB in size, and the installation takes about
55 MB into /usr/local/.  I am unsure of what other packages are required to
run it, but I think it is stand alone to a large extent.

The browser seems to take up about 25 MB of memory - more as you browse, 
of course.

It still takes about a minute (60 sec) to start, but it does seem a little snappier
in browsing, opening windows, etc.  than previous mozilla-based versions.  
Perhaps my imagination, perhaps it is the compile options, perhaps it is that 
version 1.5 is supposed to be a little faster at browsing.

Obviously, minimo could also be compiled.  But it seems that minimo development is
more aimed at Windows CE these days, however.  There isn't a minimo source package
(per se) for linux like there is for firefox.  Minimo is not likely to take any
less memory than firefox from the looks of things, but perhaps it will be smaller
than 55 MB.

Happy Holidays!

B.D.