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Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

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Re: Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

#51

Post by linuxontheweb »

qweqwe14 wrote: post #43
linuxontheweb wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there is technically no such thing as an "actual Linux system." There are mainly GNU/Linux systems. If one is using the word "Linux" from a high-level systems theoretical perspective, the they are speaking about a certain philosophy related to how they approach the question of performing general computations. So, it is from the "Unix philosophical" point of view that I use the word "Linux." This also seems to b…

At the most basic level, Linux means "Linux kernel", which you clearly don't have here. You can't run ELF files, you can't create processes, you can't load kernel modules, in fact the only things you can do are those that you directly emulated in JavaScript, which is a very different experience than interacting with a real Linux distro. Your project has none of the capabilities that are very much expected when someon…

Well, although I certainly can get enjoyment through never-ending hours of coding, I am mainly doing this project to get something to actually work.

I would tend to look at this project as an implementation rather than an emulation.

The current implementation of the shell is certainly in a highly bare bones state, but that can definitely change over time if that is in fact where the development process leads. If it gets to the point of being able to quack like a POSIX shell, then who's to say that it isn't really one?

Re: Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

#52

Post by Filligree »

Zetobal wrote: post #3
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #2

"Considering that it remains the dominant web browser for Linux" Is this actually true ? These days I use FF as my primary browser, but that's recent after a conscious (ethics driven) choice to switch. I kinda got the impression most people are just installing Chrome after install.

It's the standard browser on many distros so if we just count installations it's probably true.

I'd need to go out of my way to uninstall it, but that doesn't mean I use it. It's far too sluggish.

Re: Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

#53

Post by Almondsetat »

ploxiln wrote: post #23

I was running debian stable for the last few years (until a few days ago, due to a brand new laptop ...) and was perfectly happy with the Firefox linux build tarballs: 1. untar as root into /opt 2. symlink /opt/firefox/firefox to /usr/local/bin/firefox 3. compose a 13-line firefox.desktop and put in ~/.local/share/applications/ Only the first step needs to be repeated when there is a new release.

> compose a 13-line firefox.desktop and put in ~/.local/share/applications/

And that’s where the problem lies. Apt has great documentation, creating .desktop files and their syntax? Not so much

Re: Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

#54

Post by Sander_Marechal »

AnonCoward42 wrote: post #49
jeroenhd wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on Ubuntu so I'm also using the tarballs. I wouldn't want to have to update it manually every time, though. Instead, I've extracted Firefox into ~/.local/opt/firefox and the auto-updater works as expected. I'll definitely switch to the apt distribution down the line, though. Package management is one of the main reasons why I use Linux in the first place.

Beware that on Ubuntu the apt version is actually only a shim to the snap install. (Edit: at least on latest LTS and above and default repositories)

I think OP meant switching to the Mozilla APT when they offer stable alongside nightly. Not switching to the snap-ed Ubuntu version.

Re: Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

#55

Post by Sander_Marechal »

r9295 wrote: post #32
dyingkneepad wrote: post #27

I think web browsers should be the exception to Distro's "stable" release rules. Browsers do not work at all like every other package. There are so many security implications, everything is so complex that I really think having whatever is the newest release is actually the most stable strategy. New releases tend to be pretty stable considering how much testing they get everywhere.

Debian regularly dispatches security patches in the form of updates for firefox/chromium. It's the same as running "apt upgrade"

Debian ships Firefox ESR, not Firefox stable. As a web developer I cannot work on just ESR.

Re: Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

#56

Post by jeroenhd »

AnonCoward42 wrote: post #49
jeroenhd wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on Ubuntu so I'm also using the tarballs. I wouldn't want to have to update it manually every time, though. Instead, I've extracted Firefox into ~/.local/opt/firefox and the auto-updater works as expected. I'll definitely switch to the apt distribution down the line, though. Package management is one of the main reasons why I use Linux in the first place.

Beware that on Ubuntu the apt version is actually only a shim to the snap install. (Edit: at least on latest LTS and above and default repositories)

Indeed, that's why I switched to extracted binaries now and why I'm hoping to go back to Mozilla's own repo soon.

Re: Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

#57

Post by bee_rider »

linuxontheweb wrote: post #35
qweqwe14 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but what I think you've done is just emulating a shell, not an actual Linux system. For that, you need to emulate some architecture that Linux supports, like x86/RISC-V/ARM. With that you should be able to boot a real Linux kernel. One guy even made a RISC-V emulator inside VRChat using a shader[1]. Doing it in JavaScript will probably be easier, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone has done that already. Unt…

Well, there is technically no such thing as an "actual Linux system." There are mainly GNU/Linux systems. If one is using the word "Linux" from a high-level systems theoretical perspective, the they are speaking about a certain philosophy related to how they approach the question of performing general computations. So, it is from the "Unix philosophical" point of view that I use the word "Linux." This also seems to b…

Why not just call your system Unix on the web, if it is more borrowing from the Unix philosophy?

I don’t know what the Linux philosophy is. I think it is the kernel of choice for GNU based systems because it existed and was open enough to use, while Hurd was more philosophical (to the point where, when it was needed, it existed more as an idea than a thing).

Linux is where it is because they make pragmatic decisions when when necessary.

Re: Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

#58

Post by qweqwe14 »

linuxontheweb wrote: post #44
nonameiguess wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that anybody doubts this, but until you can run a browser as a UEFI boot option, you've just created a third layer of choice without doing anything to solve the first two.

Wouldn't launching a browser within a bare-bones X11 session in some kind of kiosk mode during system initialization be a proper solution?

You need to have an operating system to run a browser, unless you want to make a browser on bare-metal. I don't think you currently understand the topic very well.

Your project is essentially an incomplete implementation of a shell where all commands are builtins, and the interactivity is limited by what you directly programmed in JavaScript.

What you are trying to make is a lot harder than you think, you first need to emulate a CPU and go from there, not read whatever user types and try to behave like a Linux system, which ChatGPT can do already.

Re: Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

#59

Post by bee_rider »

smallerfish wrote: post #4

Tangentially related, Firefox-from-snap completely broke for me recently in a way that I couldn't be bothered to diagnose ("error: cannot communicate with server: Post http://localhost/v2/snaps/firefox : dial unix /run/snapd.socket: connect: no such file or directory"). It prompted me to finally wipe Snap fully from my system and install Firefox from the Mozilla PPA. The only other Snap app I currently use is Intelli…

I’m pretty sure I’ve got some passwords on my system in the Firefox password holder for the Snap version, some for the Deb version, and not sure which are where, but I’m afraid to touch that whole thing for fear of deleting something important.

So, here I am, stuck with Snap. Eww.

Re: Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly

#60

Post by qweqwe14 »

linuxontheweb wrote: post #51
qweqwe14 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the most basic level, Linux means "Linux kernel", which you clearly don't have here. You can't run ELF files, you can't create processes, you can't load kernel modules, in fact the only things you can do are those that you directly emulated in JavaScript, which is a very different experience than interacting with a real Linux distro. Your project has none of the capabilities that are very much expected when someon…

Well, although I certainly can get enjoyment through never-ending hours of coding, I am mainly doing this project to get something to actually work. I would tend to look at this project as an implementation rather than an emulation. The current implementation of the shell is certainly in a highly bare bones state, but that can definitely change over time if that is in fact where the development process leads. If it g…

If you are genuinely interested in creating a working shell, take a look at POSIX shell specification[1] and list of and functionality of command-line utilities[2].

If you implement most of it then you would be able to call your project a POSIX shell.

[1] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V...

[2] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/idx/utiliti...

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