Why porting Mozilla to Amiga??

[bbrv]

Hi mikeymike...the problem with Opera is that we and you have to pay for upgrades...

R&B :-)

[mikeymike]

And the other thing about this thread that really gets me is this - as soon as someone does something bold and original to get some decent software ported to AmigaOS, they get slated because they (in so obviously enlightened peoples' opinions) "picked the wrong software".

Have you thought that maybe once we get something like Mozilla ported, that it might encourage A: new users to come over to OS4 or later, and B: developers to port other applications to AmigaOS, and C: possibly encourage those developers to get involved in writing apps natively for AmigaOS?

I don't like Opera, but I still think it would be cool if the bounty had been put up for it to be ported, and at least I could be sure I could have a reasonable, up-to-date web browser which is ready for when I get myself an A1 with OS4.

Amiga development, both hardware and software, will go at a snail's pace if the Amiga community doesn't get new blood.  That comes largely through ported software to provide the sure stepping stone between platforms.  And no, I'm not advocating ported software over native software either.

This Mozilla bounty is the only truly interesting news I've heard on the Amiga front for a long time.

[mikeymike]

@ bbrv

As much as you have to for IBrowse, but anyway...

[jeffimix]

Like maybe people who don't liek the idea of Amizilla can't stop posting so much wasteness, and like port something small and specialized(as in like a Just web browser, not web browser, date book, code writer, IRC chat machine; mail reciever) for themselves that way all I need read here are progress reports on all the great things coming for Amiga instead of how its all going to be horrible because our hardware is old (about which you guys have done???)

[Targhan]

I think it's important, because development begets development.  Whether it is more sources available for our coders or inspiration, something new coming to the platform usually inspires more efforts.  Having a reference for the KIND of project would make other ports of the same family easier.  

[anarchic_teapot]

jeffimix wrote:
Like maybe people who don't liek the idea of Amizilla can't stop posting so much wasteness

People who don't share your viewpoint have nothing useful to say? How charming.

I don't want Amizilla myself because Moz is slow and breaks too easily, even with a fast(ish) GUI like Gnome. Opera really is blindingly fast on the same machine (Aone G3XE running Debian and connecting via a proxy as well). Other people can put up the cash for Moz if they want, I won't stop them and I hope the result makes them happy.
There's far worse things they could spend money on.

[Wain]

One thing that people on here need to remember/know, is that Mozilla runs slower under LINUX than it does on its other variants.  

This has been a big problem for the Mozilla development group, and a lot of work has been/is being done to address it.

Howeve,r please be aware that if you're using Linux speeds as your basis for comparison on speed, that there very well may not be that particular difficulty once it's on AmigaOS.

There is also the question of HOW you came by your binaries, did you go and get the executables? or did you compile the source code yourself under gcc.  This can have drastic differences in your execution speeds also depending on a  number of factors.

Mozilla is big, and it's also relatively slow, but I think it would be reassuring to computer users who would consider moving to an Amiga system to see at least one piece of software they can identify, and don't have to worry about one day going its own proprietary and incompatible route.

[Waccoon]

Also note that each version of Mozilla performs differently.  I used v1.0, v1.1, and v1.2, and they were all horrible.  I recently tried v1.4b, and it is MUCH better than it used to be.  The Mozilla team especially cleaned up the menu rendering code, so I no longer have to hold down the mouse button to open a menu.  I can actually click, now.  

Now that I'm using the significantly faster version, I've grown quite attached to it.  I still think there's too much fluff in there (CSS really sucks, and is truly a plague upon the world).

Loading speed is a big problem, but I'm sure the total codebase for Mozilla is significantly less than IE.

When people talk about porting "Mozilla" to the AmigaOne, are they talking about the whole browser or just the rendering engine?  As a browser, Mozilla's interface is a real mess, which is why I've created HTML link pages for my favorite sites, instead of using bookmarks.  Again, too much fluff.

Off topic:  I think browsers should implement vector rendered skins.  All the skins I've seen for Mozilla are too damn small, even at 1280x1024!  In fact, I'm very disappointed that Flash is the only real vector technology widely used on the Web these days.  Flash rules.   :-D

[Tomas]

Which slows Windows by using up all its memory and forcing paging VM - AAAAAAARGHGHHHHHHHH!

With IE, you are forced to have it in memory... Actually mozilla eats up less memory than IE does... And dosent make the computer slow unless you sit there with a pc with 128MB or less.... When it is actually in mem, it starts up in less than a sec... And its much faster to browse with also, even on my k6 450....

And if you also take in mind that amigaOS is way less memory hog than windows, linux and such, it should fly even with as little as 64-128mb...

[Argo]

I agree with Mike.
   So, If you got a better idea then port it. Can't code, start your own bounty.


Amiga's Most Wanted. Could be interesting?  

[Tomas]

bbrv wrote:

Hi mikeymike...the problem with Opera is that we and you have to pay for upgrades...

R&B :-)

Opera can we just forget, since its a closed source and they are not willing to port it to AmigaOS, MorphOS cause they dont see any profits in the small userbase...

[KennyR]

Are all applications supposed to run full speed on an 030/50?

No, of course not. I am exaggerating wildly. A 060/50 would be a more representational CPU speed for the average Amiga user today. Mozilla will not run on this spec in anything more than a true crawl. Even less if you use PIO0 (which almost every Amiga uses). It will be unusable. And yet all the 68k Amiga users expect a port.

This is the real painful part of the whole Mozilla thing. They want something useless to them and are paying for it in droves. Sort of reminds me of Clickboom's Quake, somehow.

I have used Mozilla on two different PCs. Okay, my XP box lacks the memory to be fast in anything. When I installed Mozilla for my family I had to get rid of it again because none of them used it - IE loaded much quicker. And on my own PC, a P200, Mozilla was just a waste of time. It just was too slow. Even the scrolling and GUI resizing reminded me of my vanilla A1200 days.

Look - if the people who like Mozilla thought as you do, it's obvious that they wouldn't put up money to get it ported. However, as they're putting up money for it, it's obvious they disagree with you. So stop trolling. And get your facts right.

I apologise for trolling. I'm very hot and bothered at the moment. But I am certain that 68k is much too low a spec for Mozilla, except on an Amithlon box. If you don't agree, fine. But there are going to be a lot of angry and disappointed people when (if) Mozilla arrives. Angry people leave the Amiga. Ask AxE.

[Tomas]

And for those who bitch about mozilla being slow, try downloading the newer versions.... It was true that the old versions was damn slow.... Try for example mozillafirebird..

Here its much faster than IE on both windows and linux.

[kolla]

How much can you trust such statistics when most of non-IE/Moz browsers spoof as them?

It's a funny circle - due to webduhsigners creating pages for IE, other browser have to spoof as IE, which again gives the webduhsigner the impression that only IE users are visiting, so webduhsigner do not have to care about others.

And then we have the browser developers, those suckers, who have to do all kinds of magic mumbojumbo to mimic the behaviour of IE, so that websmurfs can browse those sites that webduhsigners create for IE. And those websmurfs that actually use non-IE browsers also complain alot when their browser doesnt behave like IE does, Ofcourse they expect that the browser developers, those suckers, shall make their browsers behave like IE.

All in all - developing a web browser must be the ####tiest programming job around, trying to follow the "standards" of webduhsigners and IE/Moz, and at the same time satisfy the websmurfs.

W3C? Pardon?  :-D

[mikeymike]

No, of course not. I am exaggerating wildly. A 060/50 would be a more representational CPU speed for the average Amiga user today.

How about the average application today?  Applications and uses of computers have increased a huge amount since the 68060, why on earth should anything new be designed to run for such an old processor?

I'm not saying that's an excuse for sloppy coding, but to take an extreme example, if all applications still had to run on an A500, in particular its half a meg of RAM, how much would we be holding back the evolution of computers?  The same goes for processing power and general architecture.

Most UNIXs will run better on older hardware than their predecessors, but if you want to do high-end stuff with them, you've got to supply with high-end hardware.  A web browser on its own may not be a formidably complex piece of software, but what about all the supporting software underneath it?  Face it.  a 68060 is ancient.  It may have been a nice processor in its time, and people may still be making do with it now, but they're not doing anything high-end (today's standards) with their systems.  What am I doing with my PC right now?  Watching a DVD (or playing an mp3 list), mail window open, net connection running, writing out a post about things that I'm surprised I have to explain to persons who claim to know anything about computers, and also running SMTP, WWW and an FTP server on my machine.  How much of that could I do with an 060-based Amiga with say 64MB RAM with ease?  Ok, surprisingly more than most PC users would think, but no, they don't even compare.

I'm sorry, but the m86k Amiga users shouldn't expect a port of any up-to-date software from other platforms.  It's about time they upgraded.  However, I seriously don't think it's them putting up bounty money for Mozilla.  Why on earth would they be putting up such serious amounts of bounty money when they can't be arsed to upgrade?  Not that many people are so stupid that they expect their hardware to be able to run everything forever.

[KennyR]

I'm sorry, but the m86k Amiga users shouldn't expect a port of any up-to-date software from other platforms. It's about time they upgraded.

Ah, now we agree. I know 68k is too slow for Mozilla (or vice versa) and you know it. Problem is, there are 1000s of 68k users out there waiting for it who don't know it. We in #AZ get loads of requests to make ANR faster on slow CPUs like 030 and 040. Of course, we can't.

And I think it is just those people paying the cash for Mozilla. Who else would it be? OS4 can't get a port because dev materials aren't present yet. MOS people aren't going to pay because it wouldn't technically be 'Amiga' and a MOS port from this source is unlikely. Emulator people don't need a port because Mozilla runs on Windows. That only leaves one bunch of people.