PaleMoon from source SlackBuild
 

Hi,


I recently have been working on possible updating the script at SlackBuilds.org so that it will build a temporary gcc-4.9.4 and then build Pale Moon with that version of gcc. I think this will resolve issues for those who still have issues. I am wondering if anyone would be willing to test out the package I produce with gcc-4.9.4 and test to see if it works for them and or resolves issues if they had them. I am hosting the package on dropbox atm

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n8n2bu2tsh...6_64-1_SBo.tgz

What issues are you encountering with the package that is build with the Slackware gcc 5.x compiler?
What Slackware-specific issues exist that can be contributed to Slackware's compiler? When I asked the Pale Moon developer about this, he said that most issues are reported for Debian and its spinoffs and he was not aware of Slackware-specific issues.

I think it's based on user's report about remember password feature that was reported in IRC

That user was drunk, did not know what he was doing at the time, and did not answer to my questions to be more specific. Password manager works for me in Pale Moon (my own package, compiled with gcc5, not the SBo source-build).

Pale Moon is just an re-branded Firefox, because of the Debian's Zealots. Nothing more. :P

There is nothing magic into Pale Moon compared with Firefox, excluding the name change.

Same, we could stay in a old Firefox release, renamed/re-branded i.e. SlackFox... :hattip:

I just know that I was told that 4.7 series to 4.9 series is stable and gcc 5 and 6 are testing. I know some people report having issues. I know I've observed an issue with yahoo causing the browser to crash that I think is resolved with using 4.9.4. I am just trying to be helpful.

I am not bashing you, at all :-)
I think it is great that SBo has a script for a source build of Pale Moon. If possible, I always prefer programs that are compiled on Slackware instead of relying on "official binaries".
It's just that the Pale Moon developer is not a Linux guy, so he relies on some other people to tell him what's working and what not. Those people are all running some kind of Debian/Ubuntu/Mint variant, and when I told him I rely more on the stability of Slackware's un-patched compilers than on the stories about crashes on other distros, he answered that I should do what i think is best.

So, I use gcc5, and at the same time am using "-Os" as optimization flag, similar to "-O2" optimization but with better respect for code size.

What we used to have to do with Slackware's Firefox builds in the past, was to apply no optimizations at all by specifying CFLAGS="-O" and "--enable-optimization" without parameter. Perhaps I will try that in future builds of my own package.

I am at work now, so I can not test, but tonight I will test Pale Moon with Yahoo pages.

You're thinking of "iceweasel".

Please read up on Pale Moon. It is not a re-branded Firefox. It is based on an old firefox codebase and since then has been independently evolved.
In particular, Pale Moon has not followed Firefox when that made the switch to the Australis User Interface. Read https://www.palemoon.org/layout-differences.shtml

The PaleMoon built from source on SBo crashes pretty reliably for me on this site (using Slackware64 14.2):

http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/

It probably has to do with the ads, but PaleMoon's AdBlock Latitude didn't fix the problem. I haven't tried the repackaged official binary or Alien Bob's version, but this could be another one to check if you are looking for problematic sites.

I'm using the repackaged binary, and I just clicked around on that site a bunch with no problem. (I'm using Adblock Latitude as well)

I'm kind of wondering what kind of compile time it is taking Eric. Last time I compiled Pale Moon it took over 2 hours, but that was on an old C2D@2GHZ w/4GB RAM.

I just tried with the repackaged binary version, and I have no problems with that site either now, with or without AdBlock Latitude.

On my laptop with Core-i5 2.5 GHz, it only took about 30 minutes.

try having a look at the README and the SlackBuild for the OPTIMIZE build option (what Alien Bob was writing above).
if might be useful there's also an ENABLE_DEBUG option.

I read the README before building, but by the time I had tested it I mostly forgot about what it said. :tisk: I'm using the Oxygen icon theme, so that may be what's causing the problem. I will try testing some more when I get time.

There is a hack if you're using the Oxygen icon theme; just modify your launch command to point to a different theme.
It's on the forum here somewhere.

Yeah, the link is in the README for the from-source PaleMoon on SBo.

http://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sof..._segfaults_etc

Anyway, I'm building now with ENABLE_DEBUG=yes and OPTIMIZE="-Os". We'll see what happens.

note that, in some cases, simply enabling debug might stop the crashes, so if you are willing to do some tests, might be useful to play with the parameters one at a time.
regarding the OPTIMIZE one is worth to try -Os but also simply -O (still like Alien Bob wrote above).

... or you install my patched oxygen-gtk2 package: http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slac...s/oxygen-gtk2/

In my conversations with the Pale Moon developer he mentioned that there was a commit to the oxygen-gtk2 repository which was meant to solve crashes in certain firefox-derived browsers (such as Pale Moon) but that patch was never part of an official release, so many distros do not have a proper oxygen-gtk2 package that fixes the theme-related crashes in Pale Moon.
Slackware's oxygen-gtk2 package does not contain that patch either, so I added a patched oxygen-gtk2 package to my repository at the same time when I added a palemoon package to my repository.

Alright, so I tried with ENABLE_DEBUG=yes, OPTIMIZE="-Os", and using the GTK theme override, and it still crashes reliably on http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/. Here is a link to the end of the terminal output and then a backtrace:

https://pastebin.com/udFJVSNv

I am just wondering if you ever tested yahoo out?

Site does not crash for me using the build from SBo but I also built it with gcc 4.9.4 so idk.

Interesting. I just built gcc 4.9.4, and later tonight I will use that to build Pale Moon and try again.

I tried accessing http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/ using my Pale Moon package, on Slackware64-current with Plasma 5. No issue at all. I see an ugly site with ads that span half the screen and I scrolled from top to bottom. I also clicked through on some of the links. Am I supposed to click anywhere in particular to trigger a crash?

I also visited https://www.yahoo.com/ and this site too, does not make my Pale Moon crash.

Oh no doubt, the ads are ugly and annoying. Hence why I normally block them.

No, with my SBo build it happens within seconds of navigating to that site, whether I scroll or not. I never even got the chance to click on anything. For the record, this is with a fresh ~/.moonchild productions and no add-ons installed.

I did not install particular add-ons or extensions, but Pale Moon finds the same plugins that Firefox also uses (flash player, icedtea-web, gecko mediaplayer).

Here is an update on my tests. The SBo from-source Pale Moon segfaults for me at both yahoo.com and hfboards.hockeysfuture.com. I tried with the default build options and also with ENABLE_DEBUG=yes and OPTIMIZE=-Os (together, not independently), and using the oxygen theme workaround. Using the same SlackBuild but building with gcc-4.9.4 instead of the system gcc-5.3.0, there is no segfault on either page. There is also no problem with the SBo package that repackages the official binaries, or with Alien Bob's Pale Moon package. These tests were all done on Slackware64-14.2 with multilib.

So take that for what you will. It would be nice if others could confirm my results with the SBo package built with the two different compilers.

Thank you for reporting that. Would you mind testing aleinBob's script using the option in his build script to build palemoon with "official optimization"?

Hm, seems to be broken.

It's building fine with OPTIMIZE=0 though.

Thank you. I am still convinced that building with gcc 4.9.4 in the case of palemoon is the "correct", or at least IMO desired, way to go about this.

One more data point, since I just built it anyway. Alien Bob's Pale Moon doesn't segfault either when rebuilt here with the default optimization. The SBo version did segfault with equivalent optimization (-Os), but I also built that with ENABLE_DEBUG=yes. It's also a different version of Pale Moon. But I'm a bit burned out on compiling Pale Moon since I've done it 5-10 times in the last two days, so I'm not going to rebuild the SBo version with OPTIMIZE="-Os" and ENABLE_DEBUG=no.

Final test: I compiled Pale Moon with clang/clang++ with the default flags. It works fine, no segfaults. That would be a simpler (and for me, preferred) option instead of using a legacy gcc.

I'll look into that as an option, thank you.

montagdude --

Very interesting !

I've always wanted to try clang in lieu of gcc ...

I don't see it on slackbuilds.org -- did you 'find' a SlackBuild somewhere ?

Thanks !

-- kjh

clang is including in a default install of Slackware.

Also I did not have much "luck" with clang over here.

Dooh !

I didn't look for it in /usr/bin/ and I see it on Slackware64 14.2 in /var/log/packages/llvm-3.8.0-x86_64-2 ...

Thanks, khronosschoty :)

-- kjh

With the build, or with the browser after building?

FYI, to build with clang/clang++, all you have to do is this:

Thanks, that works for me - the previously crashy yahoo & hfboards sites now load OK.

chris

Well shucks ...

I was so looking forward to trying PaleMoon in lieu of Firefox ...

P.S. I built and installed the PaleMoon.Slackbuild with CC=clang ; CXX=clang++ as described above

System: Slackware64 14.2 + Multilib + various SBo Packages ; running Slackware's KDE4 + Oxygen Theme

Ran PaleMoon from the Commandline, seems it to start fine but PaleMoon segfaults I when I click on any of the Menu Links at the top ( for example, Help ):
And this is the offending code in /tmp/SBo/Pale-Moon-27.3.0_Release/toolkit/xre/nsX11ErrorHandler.cpp
I did find that if I first open a new tab and go to a site ( say www.google.com ), I can click on the Menu Entries without a segfault.

However the Dropdown Menus are transparent where I can see whatever is behind them but the Menus are hard to read.

Could this be the oxygen issue reported above ?

Any ideas ?

Thanks.

-- kjh

Did you upgrade oxygen-gtk2 to my patched version (the patch that supposedly fixes crashes in Pale Moon because it tells the Oxygen theming engine that palemoon is a firefox-derivative)?

Thanks Alien Bob !

No I did not install oxygen-gtk2 ... I see that you added it on May 2 ...

I'll try that out and post a reply to the thread.

Thanks again.

--kjh

Outstanding !

I downloaded Alien Bob's Oxygen-Gtk2

Then I ran: upgradepkg oxygen-gtk2-1.4.6.1-x86_64-1alien.txz

And now PaleMoon works GREAT on Slackware64 14.2 on KDE with the Oxygen Theme.

Thank you for the hint, Alien Bob !

-- kjh

P.S. I visited and clicked around on montagdude's problem site: http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/ without any issues ... so far PaleMoon with Alien Bob's oxygen-gtk2-1.4.6.1-x86_64-1alien.txz Package is a keeper !

I am impressed with Pale Moon !

Pale Moon is very nice (:) It didn't take long at all to remember the 'old ways' of setting up Firefox :))

I was able to export bookmarks from FireFox and import them into PaleMoon.

And then, with the help of the Password-Exporter AddOn on either-side ...

I installed the current version in FireFox and then Password-Exporter Version 1.2.1.1-signed in PaleMoon, I was able to export && import nearly 300 Saved Passwords and Disabled Logins into PaleMoon from FireFox.

Bookmarks were easy -- Exported as HTML from FireFox and Imported the same into Pale Moon.

Posting this reply via Pale Moon ... will test for a while but so far I don't see any reason to run FireFox !

Thanks to all !!

-- kjh

P.S. I set up the same 17 tabs and logged into PaleMoon and Firefox on separate KDE DeskTops and PaleMoon is using fewer resources too !

Not a complete test but Firefox is sitting idle ( as idle as any browser can ever be ) but I am posting this P.S. in Pale Moon