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Arctic Fox web browser for 10.6 (32 & 64-bit)

Hi All,

I was able to compile Arctic Fox 27.9.15 on Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS PowerPC today! :)

I had to add the GCC 4.8 and the libatomic1 via the repository 'ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test'. Additionally I had to compile Python 2.7 because Arctic Fox depends on Python 2.7. Now, Arctic Fox 27.9.15 works on a nine years old Linux system! :) I will test it and after that I will try to release it.



Cheers,
Christian
 
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xeno74 said:
Hi All,

I was able to compile Arctic Fox 27.9.15 on Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS PowerPC today! :)

I had to add the GCC 4.8 and the libatomic1 via the repository 'ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test'. Additionally I had to compile Python 2.7 because Arctic Fox depends on Python 2.7. Now, Arctic Fox 27.9.15 works on a nine years old Linux system! :) I will test it and after that I will try to release it.



Cheers,
Christian
Click to expand...

The more the merrier. :)

Man, if only Symbian had this kind of community attention...
 
How did I complete miss these last pages on this thread .

Just a quick recap for my personal uses.

There is a 32-bit Altivec PPC Artic Fox for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS ?
Is there a Leopard build for the G4 or G5?
 
10.5 is in the works, but a low priority at this time. Between leopard WebKit and tenfourfox, 10.5 doesn't need a browser as bad as 10.6 or ppc Linux at this time. With that said, I spent last week in leopard modifying numerous lines of code, and got AF to start compiling on 10.5. It gets 68 minutes in to the build now before it fails. Before that it wouldn't even get past the configure stage. Unlike 10.6 or linux, 10.5 support requires lots of work and hacks. Baby steps, baby steps. ;)

Cheers
 
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Hi All,

I released a test version of Arctic Fox 27.9.15 for Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS PowerPC (Lucid Lynx) today. Maybe it works on Debian 6 (Squeeze) too.

Please note: It doesn't work on Ubuntu 10.04.0. You need Ubuntu 10.04.4. Unfortunately 'mach package' doesn't work on Ubuntu 10.04.4 so I had to create the package manually. That means, the package is much bigger than the default package. However, Arctic Fox 27.9.15 works fantastic on Ubuntu 10.04.4. The default old web browser Firefox can't access many websites anymore. Arctic Fox is faster and brings Ubuntu 10.04 back to the web. :)

Download: arcticfox-27.9.15-ubuntu10.04-powerpc.tar.bz2

Additionally you need the libatomic1 package.

Download: libatomic-ubuntu10.04-powerpc.tar.bz2

Please copy the file 'libatomic.so.1' to '/usr/lib/' with the following command:

Code: 
sudo cp libatomic.so.1 /usr/lib/

Maybe you need Python 2.7 as well. I had to compile Python 2.7 because Arctic Fox depends on Python 2.7 but it wasn't difficult to compile it.

Compiling Python:

Code: 
./configure --prefix=/usr

Code: 
make

Code: 
sudo make install

After that you can start Arctic Fox with:

Code: 
./arcticfox

Screenshot of Arctic Fox 27.9.15 on my refurbished Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS (GCC 4.8.1, Python 2.7.3, kernel 5.0-rc6 etc):



Cheers,
Christian
 
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I don't know if anyone's brought this up before, but I find the use of themes to much improve the user experience.

I've personally found White Moon, Material Moon, and Australium to be very good.

http://addons.palemoon.org/addon/australium/

http://addons.palemoon.org/addon/material-moon/

http://addons.palemoon.org/addon/white-moon/

Dark Moon also looks very nice.

http://addons.palemoon.org/addon/darkmoon/

And Past Modern makes Arctic Fox look like the Seamonkey browser.

http://addons.palemoon.org/addon/past-modern-revisited/

Just make sure to download a version compatible with Pale Moon 27. This can usually be achieved by going into the "Version History" link in each page.
 
Last edited:
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I'm embarassed to ask but after reading 6 pages I'm lost.

What do I need to do to install this on Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS ?
Which source do I need , do I still need to build and compile it on my G4 ?
 
Last edited:
Lastic said:
I'm emberassed to ask but after reading 6 pages I'm lost.

What do I need to do to install this on Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS ?
Which source do I need , do I still need to build and compile it on my G4 ?
Click to expand...

Just go to the Downloads page (https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/wiki/Downloads), choose the option with the "PowerPC G4/G5 (Ubuntu16/Debian9) Linux" caption, download and save it to your Downloads folder in your Home directory, and follow my installer.

You don't even need to unzip it. It will replace Firefox as long as it's installed, but that can be undone and reset to normal as previously documented in page #7 of this thread.

These lines are tailored to the MATE Desktop Environment with Firefox already installed. Instructions follow below:

Install Arctic Fox: (depends: firefox preinstalled)

1. Copy this text:

cd ~/Downloads/ && sudo tar xvjf *.bz2 && sudo mv -f ~/Downloads/arcticfox/ /usr/lib/ && sudo pluma /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

And paste it into Terminal.

2. Delete everything in the text editor window.

3. Copy this text and paste it into said text editor window:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Arctic Fox
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
GenericName=Web Browser
X-GNOME-FullName=Arctic Fox
Exec=/usr/lib/arcticfox/arcticfox %u
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=/usr/lib/arcticfox/browser/icons/mozicon128.png
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;
StartupWMClass=arcticfox
StartupNotify=true

4. Save, close the window, and make sure it worked by checking your Applications menu for the new Arctic Fox entry.

To Update Arctic Fox: (depends: arcticfox preinstalled)

1. Copy and paste this text into Terminal:

cd ~/Downloads/ && sudo tar xvjf *.bz2 && sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/arcticfox/ && sudo mv -f ~Downloads/arcticfox/ /usr/lib/

2. Make sure the update was successful by verifying the version number under "About Arctic Fox".
Click to expand...

This installer has worked for me several times without issue.

That is all.
 
Last edited:
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Its a self contained archive. Just download, extract and double click on arcticfox to run. Lots of people create a /bin directory in there home. Or as I do, I extract to /opt. Then just copy firefox.desktop in /usr/share/applications and rename to arcticfox.desktop and change exe and icon path for a menu entry. Or choose the above option from z970mp.

Cheers.
 
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Hello. I'm having trouble to build it for Snow Leopard 32-bit. I have XCode 3.2 and Macports (and I've installed Clang 3.7 following the Readme tip). I think it has something to do with using the default Clang instead of the Macport'ed one.

Code: 
0:10.49 configure:3290: checking whether the C compiler (clang  ) works
 0:10.49 configure:3306: clang -o conftest    conftest.c  1>&5
 0:10.49 /Users/xxxxxxxx/Downloads/Arctic-Fox-master/configure: line 3305: clang: command not found
 0:10.49 configure: failed program was:
 0:10.49
 0:10.49 #line 3301 "configure"
 0:10.49 #include "confdefs.h"
 0:10.49
 0:10.49 main(){return(0);}
 0:10.49 configure: error: installation or configuration problem: C compiler cannot create executables.
 0:10.49 *** Fix above errors and then restart with               "/usr/bin/make -f client.mk build"

Also, I have the following question: is there any performance advantage of building ArcticFox instead of using the pre-built binaries? I'd like to enable every Core2Duo extensions that my Unibody Macbook supports, but don't know if building by myself will improve something in this area.

Thanks in advance!

------
P.S.: just did a
Code: 
find / -name clang
(copy the path found for clang 3.7)
Code: 
export CC=above_path/clang
Code: 
export CXX=above_path/clang++

Then it successfully passed the Clang test step... but [P.S.2] it still doesn't compile.

Code: 
Arctic-Fox-master/obj-x86_64-apple-darwin10.8.0/_virtualenv/bin/python /Users/xxxxx/Downloads/Arctic-Fox-master/config/expandlibs_exec.py --uselist --  /opt/local/bin/ccache /opt/local/libexec/llvm-3.7/bin/clang++ -Qunused-arguments  -Qunused-arguments -Wall -Wempty-body -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsign-compare -Wwrite-strings -Wno-invalid-offsetof -Wno-inline-new-delete -Wno-c++0x-extensions -Wno-extended-offsetof -Wno-unknown-warning-option -Wno-return-type-c-linkage -isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.6.sdk -fno-exceptions -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-rtti -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-exceptions -fno-math-errno -std=gnu++0x -pthread -DNO_X11 -pipe  -DNDEBUG -DTRIMMED -g -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer  -fPIC  -o libplugin_child_interpose.dylib  Unified_mm_ipc_interpose0.o   -framework Cocoa -lobjc  -framework ExceptionHandling  -Wl,-executable_path,/Users/xxxxx/Downloads/Arctic-Fox-master/obj-x86_64-apple-darwin10.8.0/dist/bin -Wl,-dead_strip    -dynamiclib -install_name @executable_path/libplugin_child_interpose.dylib -compatibility_version 1 -current_version 1 -single_module    -framework Carbon
Executing: ar crs librdfutil_external_s.a nsRDFResource.o
ranlib: object: librdfutil_external_s.a(nsRDFResource.o) malformed object (unknown load command 1)
ar: internal ranlib command failed
make[5]: *** [librdfutil_external_s.a] Error 1
make[5]: *** Deleting file `librdfutil_external_s.a'
make[4]: *** [rdf/util/target] Error 2
make[4]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
chmod +x libplugin_child_interpose.dylib
strip -x -S libplugin_child_interpose.dylib
strip: object: /Users/xxxxx/Downloads/Arctic-Fox-master/obj-x86_64-apple-darwin10.8.0/dom/plugins/ipc/interpose/libplugin_child_interpose.dylib malformed object (unknown load command 8)
make[5]: *** [libplugin_child_interpose.dylib] Error 1
make[5]: *** Deleting file `libplugin_child_interpose.dylib'
make[4]: *** [dom/plugins/ipc/interpose/target] Error 2
make[3]: *** [compile] Error 2
make[2]: *** [default] Error 2
make[1]: *** [realbuild] Error 2
make: *** [build] Error 2
 
Last edited:
@brdeveloper : There really is no need to build it yourself. The binaries are already pretty well optimized. The 32-bit version will pick up and use any available 32-bit plug-ins you have installed. If however you are dead set on building it yourself, you'll need to kill your current macports install and start over. Building for 32-bit on a 64-bit machine requires the macports "universal" packages (needed for cross-compiling). Without doing that, you'll end up just building a 64-bit binary, or it may just fail to build.

EDIT: If you do end up installing the universal packages you'll only get the option for clang-3.4. This is fine as i patched the code to allow 3.4 on snow leopard. You'll also need to set --disable-applemedia in your mozconfig if using the 10.6sdk. There are sample mozconfigs in the source tree you can use, or use as reference.

Cheers
 
Last edited:
wicknix said:
@brdeveloper : There really is no need to build it yourself. The binaries are already pretty well optimized. The 32-bit version will pick up and use any available 32-bit plug-ins you have installed.
Click to expand...
@wicknix This is good to know!

If however you are dead set on building it yourself, you'll need to kill your current macports install and start over. Building for 32-bit on a 64-bit machine requires the macports "universal" packages (needed for cross-compiling). Without doing that, you'll end up just building a 64-bit binary, or it may just fail to build.
Click to expand...

Now that you've talked, I think I misunderstood something. If I remember well, Snow Leopard on Unibody Macbooks was installed with a 32-bit kernel by default (unless I applied an EFI hack discussed here in MR, which enables booting with the 64-bit kernel). Anyway Intel 64-bit Macbooks support 64-bit apps (at least it's what I'm seeing on system monitor). So I actually don't know what should I do on my environment to build ArcticFox on any of its flavours (32 or 64 bit). I'd be fine with a 64-bit build, I guess.

Thank you!
 
timidpimpin said:
Why on earth would you be running Ubuntu 10? It's not Mac OS, so you're not stuck on older OS with Linux.
Click to expand...

Probably for the same basic reason of continuing to run Panther or Jaguar.

Because you might like it better, it might run better, or simply because you viably can.

For what it's worth however, I could not play many videos under Arctic Fox 27.9.15 in Ubuntu 12.04 (being told my browser is unsupported), but I have no issue with video playback in Ubuntu 16.04.

As far as 12.04 goes, considering its latest Firefox is version 39 from 2015, and taking into account that Firefox 39 has no trouble with playing videos, I'd say Arctic Fox is really more useful for web browsing in 14.04 and up, otherwise the built-in browsers should be OK for some or most tasks, depending on the OS.
 
z970mp said:
Probably for the same basic reason of continuing to run Panther or Jaguar.

Because you might like it better, it might run better, or simply because you viably can.
Click to expand...
I agree... I'm trying to build a functional Snow Leopard for building a "backup" home studio at my father's house. I'd like to use my M-Audio Fast Track Pro and run Logic 9, Reaper and Nikon Scan 4 (I also have an old Nikon Coolscan V). I know I could dual boot, but I'd like to save SSD storage by keeping only one OSX installation.
 
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z970mp said:
Probably for the same basic reason of continuing to run Panther or Jaguar.

Because you might like it better, it might run better, or simply because you viably can.

For what it's worth however, I could not play many videos under Arctic Fox 27.9.15 in Ubuntu 12.04 (being told my browser is unsupported), but I have no issue with video playback in Ubuntu 16.04.

As far as 12.04 goes, considering its latest Firefox is version 39 from 2015, and taking into account that Firefox 39 has no trouble with playing videos, I'd say Arctic Fox is really more useful for web browsing in 14.04 and up, otherwise the built-in browsers should be OK for some or most tasks, depending on the OS.
Click to expand...

The video issues in 12.04 are due to outdated gstreamer plugins. If you could backport the latest gstreamer-plugins (good, bad, and ugly), you may be able to get video to stream in AF under 12.04. I'd have to dig out my iBook with sid installed to see what the actual plugins filenames are, but you could probably find them by doing 'apt search gstreamer'.
 
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@brdeveloper : I'd suggest just use the pre-built binaries and save yourself the headache. ;)
The issue with building "on" snow leopard is that it's sdk lacks a bunch of frameworks needed for full media playback. You "can" build it, but with limited audio/video capabilities. What i've been doing is building the 64-bit versions on either 10.7 or 10.8 using the 10.7sdk (don't use a newer sdk as it creates UI oddities in snow leopard) with a standard macports install. I build the 32-bit versions on snow leopard with the 10.7sdk also (to have all the media components built in), and i use a macports universal cross-compiler install, as my 10.6 build machine is 64-bit.

This mozconfig will allow you to build a "media-limited" 32-bit binary on a 32-bit 10.6 machine:
https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/blob/master/mozcfg-10.6

This mozconfig will allow you to build a "media-limited" 32-bit binary on a 64-bit 10.6 machine:
(change sdk to 10.7 and change --disable-applemedia to --enable-applemedia if you want full media playback)
https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/blob/master/mozcfg-i386cross
(the --disable-applemedia flag was something we added to bypass configure looking for CoreMedia.h to allow building on 10.6 with 10.6sdk. 10.7sdk and above include this file)

This mozconfig will allow you to build a 64-bit binary with full media capability on 10.7 or higher:
https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/blob/master/mozcfg-10.7+

Hope that helps.

Cheers
 
You are correct. AF is a fork of Pale Moon, not Firefox. It uses Pale Moons sync service. Speaking of sync, is it even worth having? Or should i remove it in future releases?

Cheers
 
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wicknix said:
You are correct. AF is a fork of Pale Moon, not Firefox. It uses Pale Moons sync service. Speaking of sync, is it even worth having? Or should i remove it in future releases?

Cheers
Click to expand...

It's certainly handy on Firefox. Their system at least saves all your bookmarks and logins, which makes it incredibly easy to move to different computers or phones. It works on TenFourFox, but that's obviously a lot closer to Firefox I guess.

Once I move all my bookmarks and logins over to Arctic Fox will it's sync work the same as firefox?

It's certainly worth keeping either way IMO.
 
wicknix said:
@brdeveloper : I'd suggest just use the pre-built binaries and save yourself the headache. ;)
The issue with building "on" snow leopard is that it's sdk lacks a bunch of frameworks needed for full media playback. You "can" build it, but with limited audio/video capabilities. What i've been doing is building the 64-bit versions on either 10.7 or 10.8 using the 10.7sdk (don't use a newer sdk as it creates UI oddities in snow leopard) with a standard macports install. I build the 32-bit versions on snow leopard with the 10.7sdk also (to have all the media components built in), and i use a macports universal cross-compiler install, as my 10.6 build machine is 64-bit.

This mozconfig will allow you to build a "media-limited" 32-bit binary on a 32-bit 10.6 machine:
https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/blob/master/mozcfg-10.6

This mozconfig will allow you to build a "media-limited" 32-bit binary on a 64-bit 10.6 machine:
(change sdk to 10.7 and change --disable-applemedia to --enable-applemedia if you want full media playback)
https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/blob/master/mozcfg-i386cross
(the --disable-applemedia flag was something we added to bypass configure looking for CoreMedia.h to allow building on 10.6 with 10.6sdk. 10.7sdk and above include this file)

This mozconfig will allow you to build a 64-bit binary with full media capability on 10.7 or higher:
https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/blob/master/mozcfg-10.7+

Hope that helps.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Thanks for answering @wicknix . It's clear that you had a substantial effort to get everything working. I think I shouldn't care with building by myself since I wouldn't make it better. I have other stuff to setup this "backup" workstation for audio and photo (film scanning) work. One of them is downloading earlier versions of software I own, e.g., Pixelmator and Logic. The only sites I find earlier installers are the ones that make me afraid of getting a virus. I didn't find a safe strategy to get old software without too much risk.
 
z970mp said:
Just go to the Downloads page (https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/wiki/Downloads), choose the option with the "PowerPC G4/G5 (Ubuntu16/Debian9) Linux" caption, download and save it to your Downloads folder in your Home directory, and follow my installer.

You don't even need to unzip it. It will replace Firefox as long as it's installed, but that can be undone and reset to normal as previously documented in page #7 of this thread.

These lines are tailored to the MATE Desktop Environment with Firefox already installed. Instructions follow below:



This installer has worked for me several times without issue.

That is all.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for this easy install guide, worked like a charm .

I was almost compiling from source for nothing.

Excellent browser , thanks to all working on this project.

I might actually start to use Linux PPC instead of Leopard.
 
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