Browser for non SSE2 processor

[Member sparty411]

Hey all, I dipped my toe in the AntiX waters yesterday, and I have to say that I’m enjoying it! However, I do have one small problem though.. While the Firefox Quantum builds for non SSE2 processors is really neat, it just seems to be too bloated for my poor Pentium iii 1133 MHz processor to handle. I did notice that the last no SSE2 build of Palemoon is in the repo’s, and it does run REALLY well, but it is quite dated at this point, and probably quite insecure. Can someone recommend me a Mozilla browser / fork that will run well on my machine?

[Member sdsddsd]

Helpful

Up

0

::

You could try the mozilla addons uBlock-origin and noScript to block resourcehungry content away.

[Member sparty411]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I’m using Umatrix to block the majority of garbage, but it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. Even with scripts disabled entirely, it struggles badly. A user known as Roytam1 on the MSFN forums does weekly builds of Palemoon 27 for Windows XP with security patches from upstream. He does builds for No SSE, No SSE2, as well as SSE2. I wonder if it would be possible to recompile the source for Linux.. I would be up for trying it, but I have no knowledge of what changes I might need to make, to coax it into building. I would ask this question on the Palemoon forum, but they tend to be rather hostile to anyone trying to do non official builds.

Here is the source, for anyone interested.

https://github.com/roytam1/palemoon27

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by sparty411.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by sparty411.

[Member fatmac]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Likely better to use Dillo where it works for you, & Mozilla when it doesn’t.

Compiling a big program takes some skill, I wouldn’t contemplate it, personally. 😉

Linux (& BSD) since 1999

[Member ModdIt]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hi Sparty, if you rip all the crap like telemetry, ping madness and remote tools etc out of quantum. That means plenty of about:config changes, take out hidden web extensions, add no script u block and a good hosts file to reduce ad and tracking load you may find it meets all you need. As delivered it is using much more memory and processor than my trimmed down version. Sound with Alsa working reliably too. Posted a how to on that. My download came with experiments enabled and will not accept a user.js. That has been threatened by Mozilla more than once to prevent misuse by extensions. My opinion, lying again…
Palemoon forum is not really hostile, just rightly worried about borked builds or changes damaging the reputation of a really good browser. For sure the reason for problem with No Script which breaks sites. People blame the browser instead of their lack of knowledge and drive the devs crazy. I do use PM with No Script, it breaks sites not the browser.

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Well, if you are good at coding you can probably come up with something. That’s way beyond me and I have settled on using older browsers or less featured browsers on my Pentium-III machines.

In my opinion you should not expect modern browsers on a Pentium-III.

But I have two P-III’s running SeaMonkey 2.49.x with NoScript or uBlock origin and it is just bareable for most things. I wouldn’t do shopping or banking. But for general information it is adequate.

I also have had good results with Netsurf and Links2, and sometimes Dillo.

I had one Pentium-M laptop that was non-pae and I used Palemoon and Slimjet and SeaMonkey on that machine.

Seaken64

[Member sparty411]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I have succesfully compiled UXP / Serpent for SSE only processors, and it runs quite well. No knowledge of programming was required on my part; just an afternoon of researching compiler options, and creating a .mozconfig file.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by sparty411.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by sparty411.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by sparty411.

Attachments:

1. 

   UXP_SSE.png
   

[Member sparty411]

Helpful

Up

0

::

And Pale Moon 28.8 as well.

Attachments:

1. 

   NM_SEE.png
   

[Member andyprough]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hi Sparty, this is great work, congratulations! Can you point me to the info on what to put in the .mozconfig file? I’d like to try this myself.

[Member sparty411]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I took the easy way out, and did the build inside a 32 bit build environment, as I have no idea how to cross compile for 32 bit, from a 64 bit build environment. MY Q9400 and 8GB of RAM completed each of the builds in roughly 40 minutes.

Do note, I believe you should set the mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS=”-s -jx” to double the number of cores your build machine has, for optimal CPU resource usage during compilation.

If you are building for Athlon XP, you may want to set -march, and -mtune to “athlon-xp” rather than “pentium3”.

YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST INCLUDE the “-mno-sse2” option! This is what makes the build compatible with our aging SSE only processors.

ac_add_options –enable-application=browser will build Serpent.
ac_add_options –enable-application=palemoon will build palemoon.

Sorry that I can’t really explain this process more effectively than I have. I’m not a programmer.

Do a bit of research on GCC flags here. You might be able to squeeze more performance out of it than I was able to.

Anyway, here you go:

mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS=”-s -j8″
ac_add_options –disable-crashreporter
ac_add_options –disable-tests
ac_add_options –disable-debug
ac_add_options –disable-updater
ac_add_options –disable-mozril-geoloc
ac_add_options –disable-webrtc
ac_add_options –disable-safe-browsing
ac_add_options –disable-parental-controls
ac_add_options –enable-release
ac_add_options –disable-necko-wifi
ac_add_options –disable-eme
ac_add_options –disable-gamepad
ac_add_options –enable-dbus
ac_add_options –disable-gio
ac_add_options –disable-pulseaudio
ac_add_options –enable-strip
ac_add_options –enable-install-strip
ac_add_options –enable-application=browser
ac_add_options –enable-optimize=”-O2 -march=pentium3 -mtune=pentium3 -msse -mno-sse2″

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by sparty411.

[Member seaken64]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Nice! Glad for your success.

This is one of the problems I’ve had over the years with Linux. I find the whole process of compiling software confusing. Maybe one day I’ll work through it and learn how to do it. But for now I’ve found Debian to most useful for installing software. I could never figure it out when I was with Slackware. Just a dunce I guess!

There are others here to do packaging and compiling. Maybe you can share what you have with them and can put together some packages for Slimjet and Palemoon for non-SSE2 on antiX.

Thanks for sharing.

Seaken64

[Member VW]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Allow me to be of assistance. This is the Debian Packaging Tutorial.

H.T.H.

“These are the times that try men's souls" - Thomas Paine

[Member sparty411]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I dont have time to learn about packaging right now, but I’ll look into it later. Here are google drive links, for those who might be interested. Just untar, and launch with the respective executable binaries.

I am not a developer, and do not intend to provide any support for these browsers. Please do not seek support for these unoffical builds on the palemoon forum.

Basilisk – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jc3s3a4y4XT3JIIeCrHQEqDwh3bUUutz/view

Palemoon – https://drive.google.com/open?id=1m90PpYf34XldXy1nBpNKu3vml1F3PmPL

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by sparty411.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by sparty411.

[Member sparty411]

Helpful

Up

0

::

andyprough wrote:

Hi Sparty, this is great work, congratulations! Can you point me to the info on what to put in the .mozconfig file? I’d like to try this myself.

I’ll post my mozconfig later on this evening, as I am not currently at the build machine.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by sparty411.

[Member sparty411]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Here is my .mozconfig:

mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS="-s -j16"
ac_add_options --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2
ac_add_options --disable-crashreporter
ac_add_options --disable-tests
ac_add_options --disable-debug
ac_add_options --disable-updater
ac_add_options --disable-mozril-geoloc
ac_add_options --disable-webrtc
ac_add_options --disable-safe-browsing
ac_add_options --disable-parental-controls
ac_add_options --enable-release
ac_add_options --disable-necko-wifi
ac_add_options --disable-eme
ac_add_options --disable-gamepad
ac_add_options --enable-dbus
ac_add_options --disable-gio
ac_add_options --disable-pulseaudio
ac_add_options --enable-strip
ac_add_options --enable-install-strip
ac_add_options --enable-application=palemoon
ac_add_options --enable-optimize="-O2 -march=pentium3 -mtune=pentium3 -msse -mno-sse2"

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by sparty411.

[Author]

Posts