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RPM-Firefox


AussieJohn
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To anyone even vaguely thinking of trying The Firefox1.0 from norlug-de, forget it. It is a disaster. (sorry norlug but it is not good enough at the moment. I don't think you did any where near enough testing of it before releasing it into the wild)

 

First of all it wants to install a whole heap of other packages that the genuine Firefox installer does not require or if it does it is already included in the installer.

 

Second and worst of all it freezes the system at regular intervals requiring using the computer reset button to enable it to reboot. It did it on a clean Mandrake10-OE install and also on a clean Mandrake10.1-CE install. And when you do un-install it , it does NOT take out the other packages that it required going in. In other words it leaves rubbish behind. Not good.

 

It's only advantage was that it was included in the start menu, whereas you have to manually do it when using the Firefox installer. The installer version of Firefox was also impressively faster than the norlug rpm.

 

Avoid it at all costs. A real disappointment at the moment.

 

John

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AussieJohn

 

Buchan Milne has packaged Firefox 1.0 for Mandrakeclub members. I imagine the Mandrakesoft version will be in contrib in a few days time. A quick look at the dependencies for the NORLUG one; its assuming you have fully installed all updates available for MDKL 10.1 prior to installation. It obviously wasn't built against a vanilla install.

 

If the Firefox 1.0 rpm isnt in contrib by Friday. I'll upload it myself. Stay tuned.

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To anyone even vaguely thinking of trying The Firefox1.0 from norlug-de, forget it. It is a disaster.  (sorry norlug but it is not good enough at the moment.  I don't think you did any where near enough testing of it before releasing it into the wild)

 

First of all it wants to install a whole heap of other packages that the genuine Firefox installer does not require or if it does it is already included in the installer. 

 

Second and worst of all it freezes the system at regular intervals requiring using the computer reset button to enable it to reboot.  It did it on a clean Mandrake10-OE install and also on a clean Mandrake10.1-CE install.  And when you do un-install it , it does NOT take out the other packages that it required going in.  In other words it leaves rubbish behind.  Not good.

 

It's only advantage was that it was included in the start menu, whereas you have to manually do it when using the Firefox installer.  The installer version of Firefox was also impressively faster than the norlug rpm. 

 

Avoid it at all costs.    A real disappointment at the moment.

 

John

 

Firstly, the rpm wont be bringing in ''''rubbish'''' as you call it. That ''''rubbish'''' are things that open source programmers have worked hard on and spent hours if not days improving and perfecting. Without these, the developers of firefox would have had to reproduce much code or it would simply not be in the state it is now.

 

You would now be asking, why doesnt the installer need these. That's because the binary included in the installer has these either included with it and puts these in the firefox directory, or these are built into the program's binary itself.

 

All the open source programs on your system that have been packaged *properly* aka 99% of them, are built the same way as the firefox rpm you got, with depended libraries all in seperate rpms.

 

Calling these extra libraries rubbish is akin to calling all the libraries Mandrake control center uses rubbish, it needs plenty of extra things, gtk, perl-gtk among others.

 

You also expect the rpm to take all these things with it when you remove it. Sorry man, you are pointing the blame in the wrong spot. This rpm is incapable of taking these extra things with it. Taking extra things like that is the job of the package manager. The only way for this to occur is to have the extra things dependant on firefox, which is stupid, they dont need firefox to work. It means that if other programs use the libraries in their code, you'd need firefox too.

 

And you also say that norlug needs to test more. Come on, chances are this guy is a single bloke doing what he can to help others, it probably worked on his machine. He doesnt have the resources to test on everything out there. Linux is so varied, it's impossible to test every configuration. He simply did what he could.

 

To finish, you come here and bitch about his rpm and work, yet I am betting you didnt even give him the courtesy to drop him a line, send him an email and explain your problems in a possible attempt to help him.

 

iphitus

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Um...

 

My young friend...not to start a war here (or be disrespectful)

 

Have you installed this version?

 

As you seem to me a "Linux Guru" (way ahead of me by light years) - did you offer to help Aussie John? Or the author?

 

Pehaps AJ did "jump the gun" with his comments, however your comments are not very helpful either (my opinion).

 

Let us educate and help each other here not blast and downgrade.

 

I have been away so long I qualify as a complete noob at this point...

 

(No, I haven't moved to Iowa yet....still commuting...still learning the new job)

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Um...

 

My young friend...not to start a war here (or be disrespectful)

 

Have you installed this version?

 

As you seem to me a "Linux Guru" (way ahead of me by light years) - did you offer to help Aussie John?  Or the author?

 

Pehaps AJ did "jump the gun" with his comments, however your comments are not very helpful either (my opinion).

 

I have been away so long I qualify as a complete noob at this point...

 

(No, I haven't moved to Iowa yet....still commuting...still learning the new job)

Sorry, I didnt mean it to come across as attacking, I just corrected a few of AussieJohn's words. Besides, he was the one afterall going at this guys package.

I would have installed hte package myself, however I am not running any rpm based distros on here at the moment. I also would have contacted the author myself, but I got a 404 when I piped norlug.de into my browser.

 

Let us educate and help each other here not blast and downgrade.

I taught him about shared libraries, open source development and what to do if package doesnt work :P

 

If thats how you took that post AussieJohn, my apologies.

 

iphitus

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I agree with iphitus that it is wrong to blast abuse at a developer like this, especially when he is providing you with something that he spent his time on, for free. And what's worse - without taking time to find out how these things work.

 

But, we need to remain tactful as well. :banana:

 

# emerge firefox :afro:

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cjc, iphitus explained (ok, maybe in a harsh way) that what Aussiejohn complained about is actually desired behaviour.

 

I think by the way Aussiejohn started this topic, he wasn't asking for help, so iphitus didn't offer any.

However, he did explain why it's actually GOOD BEHAVIOUR and fully in line with the package management system that the deinstallation of the dependencies that came along with FF was NOT done when FF was deinstalled.

 

I for one, think it is important to have these points explained so that people learn the linux way.

So although one can disagree with the tone of iph's post, the informational contents are imho important and contributing.

 

As for proper common courtesy and politeness, yes, the world could do with more.

From Schopenhauer: politeness is like an air cushion - it may have no tangible contents, but it softens the blows of life.

 

The major lesson to learn is: if you're going to use bleeding edge packages, don't swear when they don't work, feed back to the source that there are issues, and feed forward to unsuspecting users that you had some problems.

 

 

Oh and all in all, I know AussieJohn to have good intentions - in this case (as in some other messages I have read of him) he clearly meant to help others avoid wasting their time, which is a good thing .

 

So I find good stuff in all messages here. Or am I just easy to make happy?

Maybe I'm just happy that all here are using Linux! :D

 

Heck, I just got distracted for a sec, do a preview, and boom! lots of other replies...

Mine fits right after cjc's... ;)

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