FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

I keep up with the Fennec beta builds and I noticed that Mozilla stopped making them for Maemo as of a few weeks ago. I could not find a posting about why they were not being built so I shot off an e-mail. The response is disheartening.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Sucks but I can see why. I'm a nightly user and honestly, it is seriously better than the standard one (much faster.) That and it doesn't seem any less stable if you ask me.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

So basically "Firefox for mobile" has been reduced to "Firefox for Android" now.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Opera browser is very smooth and nice. Try it love it :)

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

And my respect for opera grows even more.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

And Firefox for N9 as well, and supposedly for Windows Mango as well, isn´t it?

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

I love Opera because they still release updates for my N800 after all these years.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

firefox.. why u turn into nokia? :(
no u tell me!!
why?! why why why why why?!
*beats u with a stick like an indian parent*

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

kinda sad and doesn't care at the same time. fennec has a potential and the browser is a good one. but, a somewhat failed project that didn't met the expectations with it's slow start ups and resource hungry. can't understand why microb still beats firefox when it's the image of the former and the former get updates...

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

I suspect MicroB beats fennec on start-ups because as I understand it, aspects of the MicroB browser are preloaded into memory when the N900 boots. So microb is always partially open. (Keep in mind Conversations uses modified browser windows to open up each conversation too, so the part of microb that's always open is multi-purpose.)

Honestly though, if only Fennec used the stock status/menu bar instead of their own at the top, I would switch to whatever the latest nightly build is. I would /strongly prefer/ to also have the swirl-to-zoom gesture and the mouse cursor selection, but even with the lack of those I'd be willing to convert.

(Not so much to Opera as my main browser, but that's mainly because I don't like non-desktop pages and at some level I still care about having flash, though the constantly worsenning out-dated-ness of our flash player makes that less and less relevant. But major respect to Opera for continued support. I do use it on my N900 occasionally, even if I'm unwilling to use it as my main browser.)

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

the new update for Opera has a "mask-as-desktop" option which is better than microB and firefox.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Right, I just don't get how they could shoot out one new build after the other and still it's way sllllllloooooooooooowwww!
How can they still not nail it after version 3785 something?

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Yeah, I just noticed the update mentioned in the Opera 11 announce thread. As for "better"? That's subjective. I'll reserve a full opinion for once I've updated Opera and played with it, but unless Opera can use the built-in Flash yet, that's already one thing it's inferior at. I concede however that it's probably better at more basic things at this point, since web rendering engines keep improving and MicroB is comparatively old.

But I suspect my opinion will be that it's equal to MicroB - and once that happens, my use will still default to MicroB because of the little UI things like swirl-to-zoom. *Shrug*

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

fennec_7.0.1_armel.deb is there: http://moff.mozilla.com/latest/maemo.../binary-armel/ .

Are we talking about version > 7.0.1 or nightly builds only?

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

fennec is up to version 10 for meamo on the nightly builds. the last 'offical release' was version 7. who knows how long more it'll go on though as the first poster said.

fennec 10 plays html5 videos
microb doesn't.
opera doesn't.
chromium doesn't.

if opera doesn't play html5 by now it may never do so as opera basically 'invented' html5 video.

edit: i love opera btw and use it more than microb now since the latest version.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Fennec is not bad, but it is useless for the N900. It requires far too much RAM to be useable. It is the Swap usage that makes it slow. I wish the N900 had more RAM :(

I switched to Opera as my main browser. Sure it has its quirks, like no flash, and MicroB has a better interface and rendering (IMO), but it is not resourceful at all. Opera is fast and while using it I don't have to reboot daily. MicroB uses quite some RAM too, which ends up to Swap, which then for some reason slows Maemo a lot in the long run.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

What is with people and having MicroB slow down their N900s? I have never (that I can remember) experienced such an issue.

Now, I have swappiness at 25 (instead of default 100), vfs_cache_pressure at 200 instead of 100, and a number of other memory/data-write relevant settings altered. So maybe that's part of it?

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

To be honest, I could not care less for Fennec. I was trying every Nightly build for a long time, and it *always* amazed me, how - after all this time - they can't produce something at least semi-usable. Ironically, because I love Firefox/Iceweasel for Desktop.

In my opinion, microB beats up Fennec/Opera totally, and with just small addition of tabs and language correction addons, it would be ideal. Still, for "serious" tasks, I use Iceweasel via Easy Debian. And it amuse me much, that full-blown Iceweasel with quite a number of addons is more usable than *any* incarnation of Fennec. Sure, sometimes I got slowdowns in Iceweasel, but with correct settings and swap on microSD, it's totally usable.

When I'm on travel, but in range of high-speed wifi, I use even more uncommon setting - +ssh'ing to my desktop PC and using Firefox/Iceweasel via remote desktop. Again, with correct settings and fast wifi connection, it's working real-time and nobody notice I'm remote'ing. To be honest, I'm writing this post using such method.

---

In case of so many options for comfortable browsing on N900, we could rather feel sorry for Fennec - it didn't stand up to the task and failed miserably. "Their" loss.

/Estel

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

yeah, the problem is as html5 video takes over from flash video, those of us who'd like to keep our n900s will only have fennec to play those videos. so i'm happy that fennec at least does that. chromium & opera for n900 don't do html5 video and probably never will unfortunately.

my browser setup is now like my media player setup, lots of programs because there is no one perfect solution.

1. opera for normal surfing, the latest version is superb , imo.
2. microb for playing flash content
3. fennec for html5 videos (also plays flash, but don't use it, prefer microb)
4. chromium for java applets (with the offical oracle/sun arm java plugin installed)

it could be worse i suppose, at least i CAN access all this active content.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

It happens for me with particular sites. BoardGameGeek is one. Nfl.com is another. Also, any forum site that has a lot of YouTube enbeds just kills the browser.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

How can I add this to repos? Right now I have added this to repos: http://drkscrtlv.livejournal.com/320344.html

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

"Not Found"

So I guess they moved the whole structure.
7.0.1 :
http://moff.mozilla.com/7.0.1/maemo/.../binary-armel/

I was looking for some firefox 8.0 / fennec 8.0
equivalent but
http://moff.mozilla.com/ does not show any
and I cannot find it somewhere else. :(

It's funny but
http://www.mozilla.org/de/mobile/
says:
"Holen Sie sich Firefox für Maemo, indem Sie Firefox.com/m mit Ihrem Handy besuchen."
and when I go there with fennec 7.0.1 I get: Android :(

Within fennec-8.0.source.tar.bz2 I still can see:
./toolkit/xre/nsNativeAppSupportQt.cpp :
"#if (MOZ_PLATFORM_MAEMO == 5)
// Osso context must be initialized for maemo5 otherwise we will be killed in ~20 seconds
osso_context_t *m_osso_context;
#endif"

So the source is still there.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

I'm actually using fennec 8.0b1, which is however not available anymore.

Trying to download a newer version is really hit-and-miss, but every now and then I download (one of) the latest versions I find, just for archiving purposes (in case they also disappear at some point).

I don't use fennec that much (I don't browse that much on the N900), but I do like it (and it's not so slow, startup is like 3-4 seconds or so) and am disappointed that they're dropping it.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Could we make Fennec/Firefox available in the extras(-devel) repository?

the older version should be easy enough to build.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Just found this one:
http://forums.internettablettalk.com....php?p=1053095

and
ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/repos/trunk_en-US/dists/fremantle/extras/binary-armel/
or
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.o.../binary-armel/

As it is alpha version be aware that it might do strange things. ;)

I will give it a try.

Edit:
also quite interesting:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.o...al-maemo5-gtk/

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

from the ~a1 part i guess those are all alphas, right?

found a 8.0 romaxa.bolshe.net/fennec/test/fennec_8.0_armel.deb

and 9.0 romaxa.bolshe.net/fennec/mozilla-beta/fennec_9.0_armel.deb

well, obviously not production grade neither.
will test 'em & post back

EDIT. those are likely Harmattan versions...

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Both 8 and 9 demand a lot of libs, that aren't there after -f install

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

I just heard that Flash has finally made its way onto Firefox Mobile in the Android version. I wonder if it's updated in the Maemo version too.

// Roth

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

I more have my hopes up that someone is going to build on the recent work on browsersd, and upgrade the Gecko rendering engine used in MicroB, that would be really amazing.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

looks like those are Harnattan packages asking for quite a few dependencies in newer versions then what Fremantle PR1.3 sports...

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Thanks. From time to time I have a look at the mozilla ftp server, but at least to me it's not clear what all the various maemo-like folders mean.

The "latest-beta" now only points to the 7.0 version, but previously (i.e. when I originally downloaded), it was 8.0b1 (which I still use).

There are millions of nightly/alpha versions, but at least to me it's not clear which is which and what differences there may be (even the "10a1" seems to change multiple times during one day, however maintaining the same name -- confusing! :)

Anyway, for all I care, 8.0b1 works fine, ergo I don't "need" a newer version.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

tried fennec for the 1st time yesterday with fennec_10.0~a1_armel and found it painful. i havent got 8.0b1 to test so maybe a filehost is allowed for sharing ? alternatively i do have :
fennec_8.0_armel
fennec_8.0~a1_armel
fennec_9.0_armel
but after v10 really not sure which to test ! does anyone have experiences of these builds ?

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Well, it was a good run. Looks like mozilla have finally stopped producing nightlys for maemo fennec.

From what I can see, the last .deb ever produced is here

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.o...ra-maemo5-gtk/

It's version 10.

When version 11 came out, the nightly would crash on startup, so I suppose rather than trying to figure it out, they just removed it from the build process.

The only hope would be for someone here who has a maemo sdk installed somewhere to see if they can build it from source, rather than relying on mozilla to build it.

Fennec is our only hope for playing html5 videos.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Here's how to build it for maemo

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Buil...07q3/Fremantle

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

100% agree - could not care less for Fennec. It's funny, cause on desktop, I'm happy Firefox user - but, mobile version was total fail from beginning to the end.

I keep it on my device (nightly builds), just to give it a chance, and see if they - at some point - can make something that could even *start* to be considered possible replacement for microB.

Fennec failed miserably, so:

// Edit

Damn You, fennec! They failed even on providing correct pre-removal scripts (possibly, post-removal too). Had to wipe out this crap manually... Someone got list of files to rm -r?

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Good luck playing html5 videos then.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Rebuilding microB using more recent gecko engines solve html5 problem. Still, I don't see why we should care, cause inside html5 You can still embed proprietary coded video, with no library to decode it (using HW acceleration) provided for our device. There is no such things as "html5 videos" (standalone).

So, basically, you're saying, that fennec is going to save us from getting hit with Battle Axe - by hitting us with Giant Mace.

/Estel

// Edit

Of course, if industry decide to use open standards - like Theora - embedded into their html5 websites, that's ok. Still, we can use it (theora) already, so html5 is again of no interest to us.

html5 is rather sh*t for sh*tty web-based applications, less for videos/media/etc. I.E, you will get more chances to have malware installed/proceed, cause html5 websites gain more permission to use Your crucial software/hardware components ;)

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

i am able to watch smooth webm and smooth ogv 360p html5 videos with fennec. google via youtube are throwing their weight behind webm.

As for rebuilding microb, this won't happen without breaking conversations or ovi maps with the voice guidance hack (which i love and use), so I can't see it happening.

So, apt-get purge it now, but you'll be back as soon as someone with an iphone laughs at you for not being able to watch a video.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Here's a better guide to building the QT version of fennec which is faster on Fremantle

http://developer.mikek.dk/#post50

Maybe we can do it ourselves instead of relying on mozilla.

Re: FYI - Fennec on Maemo no longer supported
 

Honestly, could not care less for ovi maps - we got plentora of other possibilities for maps, navigation (both tile based or vector based) and whatsnot.

Ho ever, I don't see reason why porting more recent gecko engine to microB shall break anything. It's transparent for other programs, thanks to recent work on re-writing browserd as open source (actually, this task was finished, not so long ago).

I wish, but this sh*t is broken even at point of pre-removal scripts.

If I would care about iPhone (users), I would probably not sit here ;) To be honest again, browser-embeded videos are of little-to-none interest for me. I'm discussing here, from pure technological/practical point of view - just saw that someone is (again) spreading FUD about html5 being cure for current flash problems ;)

Not to mention that it won't happen, cause I'm using Iceweasel (via Easy Debian) as browser, mostly. AFAIK, it incorporates same plentora of new features (of gadgets) as desktop Firefox. Here goes another (extremely) funny thing - Iceweasel (=debian version of desktop Firefox) is working better, than Fennec (crippled version of Firefox - using same engine as desktop, but with less features). Of course it require proper configuration of chroot, but...

IMO, any work on porting more recent Fennec's to Maemo is pure waste of time, when we have Open browserd available. It could be spend on porting actual version of Gecko engine to our beloved N900, which would be more profitable/sane/rationale.

but, of course, it's matter of freedom - if someone want to play with toys like fennec, why not. There always will be some who care (and use), and I'm not against it, by any means.

/Estel