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BSD Operating Systems

Opera Releases Stable FreeBSD Browser 116

Posted by timothy from the fat-lady-gargles dept.
1nsane0ne writes "The Register is reporting that Opera has released a production FreeBSD version. It appears to have fixed some of the problems that I found in a few hours of playing around with the betas and will be interesting to test a bit more."
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Opera Releases Stable FreeBSD Browser More

Opera Releases Stable FreeBSD Browser

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  • My Obligation (Score:3, Funny)

    by jonnyfish ( 224288 ) <jonathan...m...fisher@@@gmail...com> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @04:06PM (#4573480) Journal
    It is my duty as a random Slashdot idiot to ask the following:

    isn't BSD dead?
    • Yes, an Opera to accompany the dead is nice.

    • Re:My Obligation (Score:4, Informative)

      by pfish ( 576318 ) <pofish AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday October 31, 2002 @04:33PM (#4573737)
      It's still very much alive...

      It may not be perfered by many, but it's still heavy in development, and prefered by many ISPs.

      • Re:My Obligation (Score:5, Interesting)

        by OzJimbob ( 129746 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @06:30PM (#4574682) Homepage
        Too true. My boss at the ISP I sysadmin at started insisting 6 months ago that we use FreeBSD on every machine instead of Linux. And I recently switched my own web server over to FreeBSD and haven't looked back. While Linux is making in-roads on the desktop with distros like Lycoris [lycoris.org], FreeBSD is where it's at if you want a plain, powerful unix server environment. But then, now that software like Opera is available, FreeBSD is becoming more usable on the desktop as well!

        • Re:My Obligation (Score:4, Informative)

          by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @07:52PM (#4575175) Journal
          I wasnt happy with 4.6 FreeBSD, but when 4.7 came out, KDE3 compiled. Xfree drivers that worked for my video card. Koffice compiled without problem. Everything worked for KDE/Gnome.

          The biggest problem I had with FreeBSD was ports didnt compile, but 4.7 most ports I tried compiled out of the box. Only grip I have is, its still using gcc 2.95, while 3.2 is out. But I hear 5.0 is completely GCC3.3 based.

          • Re:My Obligation (Score:4, Informative)

            by reg ( 5428 ) <reg@freebsd.org> on Friday November 01, 2002 @05:12AM (#4576998) Homepage
            Have you tried installing a second compiler for ports... gcc 3.2.1 (which is in current) wont buy you anything with the base system, other than 15% slower compile times. But you can install the gcc32 port, and then use 'make CC=gcc32 CXX=g++32' to build ports such as KDE or Gnome which might benefit from the newer compiler. You might also want to insure that you use the correct -march setting for your machine also, because gcc 3.2.1 will generate worse code than 2.95 if you just leave it to the default arch (vanilla 386).

            Regards,
            -Jeremy
            • Exactly, even if you install gcc3.2.x you cant compile the kernel yet with it. I tried just to see if it would work, it didnt. (Yup, the port description warning is correct)

              When the base system is gcc3.x based, it should have show an improved speed. On my gentoo linux desktop with AMD optimizations compiled in, you notice the speed increase.

              I'll prob snag a copy of 5.0 development later and play with it, I already have to grab the cvs version of Xfree for ATI Radeon 9700 support.

        • All the servers at the ISP I sysadmin run FreeBSD.
        • My boss at the ISP I sysadmin at started insisting 6 months ago that we use FreeBSD on every machine instead of Linux.
          Why ? I have many servers with linux and I've always wanted to test FreeBSD. But I don't see any reason.
          I've seen posts about the ports software admin better than rpm. But the true is RPM rocks for servers. It keeps you up to date and never broke for me.

          I don't want to start a Linux vs FreeBSD thread. I'm willing to try. Just give me a reason.
          • You can try FreeBSD on a spare computer.. I dont like recompiling every piece of software, myself. Of course you can just pkg_add -r any program but you can do the same thing with Debian/RedHat using apt-get.

            I prefer Debian stable for the servers I run at work ( I work at an ISP). Makes for easy admin'ing and more time to slack off ;)
          • RPM? I think you mean "apt-get" rocks for servers...
            .
        • If by "Linux is making in-roads on the desktop" you meant "Linux is not making in-roads on the desktop" you would be correct.

    • Re:My Obligation (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dannon ( 142147 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @04:38PM (#4573771) Journal
      Since they've got Opera now, it'll be a little while longer. At least until the fat lady sings.

    • Re:My Obligation (Score:5, Funny)

      by dacarr ( 562277 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @04:55PM (#4573920) Homepage Journal
      Opera has an OS/2 version [opera.com]. You figure it out.

    • Re:My Obligation (Score:3, Funny)

      by jo42 ( 227475 )
      Mebbe its time you installed HeadExtractionDevice.rpm on yer leenooks box - as in extract head from rectum... :-p
    • It's halloween so.... well, it is just around for today.

  • Good to hear (Score:5, Informative)

    by Helmholtz Coil ( 581131 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @05:51PM (#4574382) Journal

    Very good to hear. I love my FreeBSD desktop dearly, and one of the last ties I had to enabling Linux compatibility was a release version of Opera. So far I have yet to find a better combination of

    • low-profile,
    • high speed, and
    • functionality
    in a single browser. Most of the other browsers I've come across were of the "choose any one of the above" variety. I've found niche uses for all of them, but Opera was the best choice on a old P75 for me.

  • The real news (Score:5, Informative)

    by schussat ( 33312 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @06:22PM (#4574632) Journal
    The real news here isn't simply that the BSD version of Opera 6.1 has been released, but that 6.1 is now available generally for Linux -- both i*86 and PowerPC platforms. This is a really significant development, and it means that, as of right now, the Linux version of Opera is now at a higher release number than for Windows (which is at 6.05 right now). The Opera folks are really moving on Linux development.

    -schussat

    • FYI, Opera 6.1 is built on QT 3 platform.

      I guess its why it is a real improvement. Most of cut/paste stuff problems (I heard, win32 users here) are gone.
      • This is a really significant development, and it means that, as of right now, the Linux version of Opera is now at a higher release number than for Windows (which is at 6.05 right now). The Opera folks are really moving on Linux development.
      It was only in the last couple of days I went to download Opera - however there was no shared lib version to work with the Mandrake 9 QT libs, however the new v6.10 does have rpms for mdk9!

      What I think Opera are trying to do here is to sell a browser to the niche (but fast growing market) of *nix desktop users - which most other software companies do completely ignore.

      Much thanks to Opera for thier continued support of these platforms and for producing a great, damn fast and stable browser... The speed of Opera getting a version out for new versions of distro's is a definate sign (IMHO) of their comittment to both these platforms and users.
    • I wonder why the Mac OS X version sucks the proverbial shit.

  • Nice (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rppp01 ( 236599 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @06:30PM (#4574683) Homepage
    I am glad to see Opera available to yet another platform. Perhaps Opera is trying to become the netscape of Unix-land.

    Opera is a lot faster than Mozilla, and I think it is a prime browser. I've been using it off and on for almost 2 years (I knew a guy who was from Norway, and was huge on this browser even back then).

    This is awesome. Way to go Opera. Congrats FreeBSD.
    • I am glad to see Opera available to yet another platform. Perhaps Opera is trying to become the netscape of Unix-land.

      You completely lost me there. If 'Opera is trying to become the netscape of Unix-land', then that makes Netscape what???

      Perhaps you meant Opera is trying to take Netscape's spot by porting to all the Unix platforms?
      Perhaps you meant Opera is tring to be the Internet Explorer for Unix?
      Perhaps you meant Opera is trying to make their browser as unstable and feature-bare as Netscape 4 an Unix?

      I just don't follow.
      • Perhaps you meant Opera is trying to make their browser as unstable and feature-bare as Netscape 4 an Unix?

        The instability of Netscape is just truely astounding. I still remember getting lots of "bus errors" when trying to run Netscape under Red Hat 5.0 and thinking that I was doing something wrong. ; )

        Netscape 7 under Wintel seems a lot better, but I can't help but wonder why they would bother any more. I'm running it out of morbid curiosity, just wanting to see if they've upgraded the speed and stability from the Netscape 6 (molasses) release. Maybe they're trying to be a minority of minorities. I can't see any niche left that they could fit into, even if they could fix all the old problems.

        Choose an arch and choose an OS and you can always be sure that Netscape will crash on it, right when you actually are about to do something at a stage that you think you should be cut-and-pasting, just in case.

        • Yes, Netscape 4 was unstable.
          Yes Netscape 6 was stripped of the best Mozilla features.

          Still, the performance & stability in the latest versions of Mozilla is quite impressive.

          As for niches, Netscape lost out because it was slow and unstable. Now that Moz has all the features known to mankind, it just might make a killing once again. The fact that it is open source (not under the GPL) means that anyone can use it, extend it, and modify it.

          I would dare say that Netscape/Moz has a very good chance to take back the desktop, as this time it's Microsoft that has been sitting around while the competiton catches up.

          Even if you don't believe that Moz has a chance against Internet Explorer, it's still the best Open Source browser, and I would argue that once the performance improves a litte more, it would be the best browser, anywhere, period.
          • Even if you don't believe that Moz has a chance against Internet Explorer

            I quite like Moz and really hope that it continues to get better. My mind is certainly open. Netscape 7 and the new Mozilla's are looking good.

            I would actually like to see Mozilla kick arse, especially against IE. I just learned to really hate Netscape and when 6 came out it was like the last straw.

            I'm sure the open source community will keep making Moz great. It's just that when I think of Netscape, all I can think of is the slow buggy Netscape of times before open source was able to improve it.

  • I'm amazed Opera did that (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bogie ( 31020 ) on Thursday October 31, 2002 @06:48PM (#4574804) Journal
    Feel free to chalk this up as a "BSD is dead post", but considering how few people use linux as a desktop, there must be 10 times less BSD desktop users. Really I'm not trying to troll, but there are just not nearly as many bsd desktop users as there are linux ones.

    That said I'm surprised Opera would port for that small a user base, especially considering its a payware browser. I guess the same could have been said for Beos which never had a large user base.

    Anyway good for Opera. Its too bad the other 99.999% of Desktop ISV's out there ignore any linux or nix, that isn't OSX. I keep waiting money in hand, but year after year they never come, Sigh.

  • Opera's appearance (Score:2, Informative)

    by rsax ( 603351 )
    I've tried Opera on Windows 2000 Pro, FreeBSD 4.6 and NetBSD 1.6 .. when I used it on *BSD, only the linux version was available and it had a really 'chunky' appearance which didn't match the rest of the KDE environment (the default one or the themes I tried). I know they have 2 versions of the browser available : a statically linked QT one and a dynamically linked one. I've tried both but no luck. Other than that it's a great, fast browser which I'd definetly like to purchase.

    That being said, as each day passes it's going to be harder and harder to pry Mozilla from my cold dead hands, especially with such great add-on software [mozdev.org].

    • The newest versions of Opera for Linux are really good about working with QT 3. I have mine set up and skinned with Mosfet's Liquid just fine. In the past though, that wasn't the case. They used to use QT 2, but about a month ago they switched. There were some problems at first with black boxes on certain windows when you would apply QT skins, but that seems to be fine now. Also, linking to libqt-mt would also couse a few incompatibilties, but that may have been corrected.

      They are trying to keep the binaries as small as possible, and that is tougher for them to do on Linux, due to the subtle differences between some of the distributions. At least, that is the impression that I got from the programmers.
  • Hmm.. 6.1 is groovy, but I was actually hoping for a release of 7.0 (Presto) at the end of this month. Anyone know what happened to it?
    • It is looking like there will be a bit of a delay for the Linux and BSD versions of Presto, until some time after the Windows release. That is probably why they are trying to get 6.1 as stable as possible- to gear up for 7.0.

      Actually, I don't expect Presto to arrive on Linux until December or January, at the earliest.

  • Browsers, Java, etc. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Having Opera come out with a native browser for FreeBSD is a good thing but what is really needed is decent Java support.

    Yahoo's reason for choosing PHP over Java/J2EE, is simply due to poor Java (especially threads) support in FreeBSD.

    I am not using FreeBSD because Java support totally sucks compared to Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

    • Re:Browsers, Java, etc. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, just to point out the obvious from a slightly different angle, Yahoo selected "FreeBSD and PHP" over "Linux and Java/J2EE". So while you seem to think that FreeBSD thread/Java support in -stable is worse than Linux, Yahoo must also think that Java support in Linux isn't that great either.

  • ...that BSD is... no, no, it doesn't tell me that. It tells me that Opera must be very portable, since they wouldn't have invested too much effort on the *BSD desktop market. Really, I'm surprised that this required much effort at all since the BSDs run X and most of the major X-based desktops anyway. I mean, I can see how you'd have trouble porting from Windows to *NIX, but once you've ported to one *NIX, the rest shouldn't be that difficult unless you've shot yourself in the foot, which the Opera developers plainly haven't.

  • I've been using Opera [v6.02] on FreeBSD for some time now with no problems--what's the big deal?

  • A real Review (Score:3, Informative)

    by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @08:13AM (#4577327) Journal
    Since this is severly lacking, I thought I'd let you know how Opera actually works (you know, instead of just saying how happy/unhappy I am, that it exists).

    I liked one think about the pre-release beta version... I didn't see any banner ads. It was likely accepting my Linux registration, despite not being the linux version.

    The release (6.1) does not accept a Linux registration key, and you have to register all over again... Understandable, but still irritating.

    That said, this is far better than the initial beta, or the Linux version under emulation. Just plain and simply, it is far more stable... I have yet to have it crash on me. Athough I've only been using it for a few hours, this is a very very good sign.

    Additionally, I was previously unable to paste text from a webpage in Opera into AbiWord, and a couple other apps. That has now gone away, and the clipboard is working (mostly) as it should.

    <RANT>
    That's step one. Now all they have to do is *completely* redesign the interface and I'll be a happy Opera user. Since that's probably not in the cards, I'll continue to use Opera as little as possible.
    </RANT>
  • why does the company even bother doing this? *BSD has already got an excellent Linux emulation system and they can run Linux version of Opera.

    Why? Why? Why does the company do this?

    I can never understand...
    • I think it is as simple as there being many free software geeks at Opera, some like Linux, some like FreeBSD, and one of the FreeBSD geeks figured that Opera is easily portable, so it was just a matter for somebody to sit down and do a all-nighter to get it done. So, the answer to that question is probably: Just because we could.
  • Users thinking that Opera is dead should be reading Slashdot a little bit more carefully. This "small time" browser is very quickly becoming the leading source of components for embedded systems' web browsers (it's small screen rendering is the only way to go). This is not to talk about the accomplishments it has made on PC and workstation platforms, without a doubt it contains one of the fastest page rendering subsystems out there. I am willing to bet anyone that Opera will be a little bit more than rich by years end.

  • So when's Opera going to port to my platform? My SE/30 is just dying to run Opera on it's black and white 512x342 screen. I bet the ad banners won't even fit.

    OK, I'm only kidding. Partially. *grin*

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