Should future releases of Slackware include ESR versions of Firefox and Thunderbird ?
 

Hi,

I'm overall quite happy with Slackware, and I have a tiny suggestion to make here: why not replace the "general public" versions of Firefox and Thunderbird by their ESR counterparts ? In my humble opinion, this would "fit" the spirit of Slackware more, in the sense that the approach is more conservative, support for each release is about a year and a half, updates are simpler to manage (10.0.7 to 10.0.8, then to 10.0.9, and so on) while keeping all the add-ons compatible.

Here, I'm using FF and TB ESR since 13.37 and 14.0, built from slightly altered official SlackBuilds. Both work without any problems, and maintenance is a breeze.

So, I'm curious about your opinion. I've added a public poll to this post.

Cheers,

Niki

I guess it all boils down to how well the mozilla devs maintain the ESR. The general release may be subject to a bunch of new bugs, but it'll also get all the latest fixes too. How much effort will be put into backporting them to the ESR? My gut feeling is that I'm better off following the general releases, but I'm not a heavy plugin/extension user so the api breakages don't really have much of an impact on me.

I would have clicked "Don't know" if the option had been there. ;)

I vote for ESR. I've tried Firefox ESR for a few months and haven't found any issues. I'd say it is safer to use ESR than the regular releases, especially because mozilla likes to shove these general releases out the door as quickly as possible even with major bugs.

Personally, I like the rapid releases of Firefox. Also as GazL pointed out, I'm not sure how well bugfixes get backported to the ESR releases.

That's just my couple of pennies, though. Really, it's not a deal breaker for me either way. I've been gravitating towards Chrome lately anyway.

I'd like to see Chrome replace Firefox as the default browser. I use Chromium personally, but that's probably too bleeding-edge for Slackware's taste. Chrome would be perfect. But if it's a choice between Firefox's latest release and ESR, I'd definitely say ESR.

Slackware cannot legally distribute a Chrome binary package. There is a slackbuild for Chrome in /extra. I would like to see Chromium as the default browser, Firefox ESR in /extra and the standard Firefox dropped altogether.

Ok, so to put an end to fears and assumptions:

http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/01...pport-release/

Could you upload your slackbuild,for mozilla esr

• http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/1...zilla-firefox/
• http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/1...-firefox-l10n/
• http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/1...a-thunderbird/
• http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/1...nderbird-l10n/

The SlackBuilds for the l10n packages only build french and german language packs, but they can easily be edited for other languages.

I'm lagging behind one or two minor versions, but then again, just change the version number in the script for the latest and safest.

:hattip:

I'm fed up as well with the quick release cycle of both FF and TB lately. I've nothing against them releasing daily versions if they want - but keep them on minor version numbers. There has always been a very good reason why we had major and minor version numbers. This madness with changing major version numbers faster than socks (the wooly types - not the others :D ) and breaking all sorts of things in the process is just a senseless industry fad. I hope some reason is restored sooner rather than later. Open Source / Free Software didn't use to suffer so much from the smokes, mirrors, trickery and self servitude of marketing departments - and instead concentrated on the real needs of users. That, unfortunately, seems to be changing.

I am not quite fond of the security fixes, if you meant this. I simply don't like things be broken every now and then.

Had to switch to esr after upgrading to Slackware-14.0 because nothing could prevent Firefox 15 from crashing on my machine. (Of course I tried creating new profiles.)

I think it would be nice to include ESR SlackBuild-scripts in /extra. That way users have a choice.

I know the guys from SlackBuilds.org don't generally accept builds that replace existing Slackware packages in another version. I wonder if they would make an exception for these two.

Just ask ;)

I wouldn't mind seeing them in /extra.

Hopefully it helps to use the ESR versions. I've dropped using Firefox more than a year ago and now I'm searching for a replacement for Thunderbird.

Markus

I also believe that /extra is a good place for them.

Or maybe /pasture?

Though there could be an update during a Slackware version's life, which usually doesn't happen there IIRC.

Not sure what is Pat's policy about that.

I am personally in favour of Slackware using the ESR versions of Firefox and TBird, or at least including slackbuilds for them in /extra. One of the reasons I use Opera as my main browser is Firefox's annoying release schedule.

I am using opera too because of speed deal.
I vote yes.

I accidentally voted "yes", but than I saw Nicki's not asking about SBo but the release. I'm fine with the newest FF versions. But I would like for ESR versions to also be available in some way. Be it /extra or SBo.

I don't know how that sounds in english, I'm not a native english speaker. I wanted to say I would be glad/happy if it happens in some way, I don't demand anything. :)

I voted no. I prefer Firefox over Firefox ESR.

Seamonkey ?
 

Just out of curiosity I installed Seamonkey because I needed a second browser option for my Salix machine. My Firefox install has all the cookies installed from my financial institutions but I have been overcome with all the Firefox updates and the time Firefox takes to load completely. Seamonkey loads a lot faster and it is a comfortable change from Firefox. Chromium is too big of a deviation for me.

Since one of Slackware's strong points is stability, I'd rather see ESR as the regular included release FF and the hell-for-leather version (aka the "regular" version") in /extra or on SBo.

I'm happy with the software set that is included with Slackware. :)

I'm happy with what's included now. Moreover, I was experiencing crashes with Flash and they were fixed with the latest release. Despite this particular problem, my point is that Firefox in general has been very stable to me and receives security updates properly as problems are discovered, but when something non-security related fails, you want to be running the latest version or you won't get a fix.

Since almost anyone who knows enough to care about which version is included has the ability to change to/from either version(s), I don't think that it matters all that much which one comes with the distribution.

I do think that including the ESR versions in /extra would be needlessly confusing (to a small few) and an overall waste of time.

In my opinion (and I'd say in fact as well), the decision to include the versions of software that get included in the base distribution is one that belongs with the Benevolent Dictator for Life, and we have a particularly good one over Slackware; I'm sure that he has his reasons for things being the way that they are, and that's good enough for me. He certainly makes it easy enough for anyone to change things however they like.

Well, of course it is Pat V.'s decision, nobody ever questioned that. It's just a poll to see if people would find it helpful, and Pat V. will decide for himself what to do.

I know that Slackware is ruled by a BDFL, but that doesn't mean that the BDFL doesn't care about our opinions too :) ... he's "Benevolent" after all.

It doesn't matter much tho which version is chosen. I do prefer ESR because it breaks less often ... because it is updated less often ... only for security updates. I would say that this goes perfectly with the Slackware philosophy in my honest opinion. I leave it at that.

In order to ease discussion: I would be happy to vote here "No".

OK, I just submitted the ESR version of mozilla-firefox to SlackBuilds.org. Now let's wait and see.

Probably this is a bit off topic. Yesterday I visited my parents, both have a computer and both have problems with Firefox and Thunderbird. But they're not running Linux. On my Father's Win XP computer (AMD-Athlon and 1GB of RAM) Thunderbird needs up to half a minute to start. On my mother's Laptop (Win 7, 2GB of RAM) I had upgraded Firefox to 17.0 and when she opened Firefox it came with a message which she didn't understand and asked me if it was important. I told her to close the message but it took her quite some time to close it.

My opinion is that mozilla's development is on a poor way. Once I've used the mozilla software on Windows as an alternative (a very good alternative) to ie and outlook express and similar crap. These days are gone.

I'm on my way from Thunderbird to mutt and the day will come when I uninstall Firefox and Thunderbird from my Slackware-computers.

Markus

markush, I don't agree. We have FF 17 on a MSI atom netbook, WinXP. No significant performance issues. Sure, its not as fast as my Slackware AMD64 X2 4800+ (2.4GHz) with 4GB RAM, but then I don't expect it to be.

I have found that TB and FF are good "canaries in a coal mine:" if they slow down, then your Windows box has serious issues; anywhere from malware, crapware, leftover services, uneeded utilities in the taskbar, bloated registry. The registy is important. There is no such thing as a "clean" uninstall of apps in windows.

kingbeowulf, thanks for the advice, actually you're right. But I've already used a registry-cleaner on my father's Win XP box and my experience (I'm sysadmin in the "M$ world") is that Win XP is somewhat bloated nowadays and no longer as much supported by M$ as the newer systems (Win 7/8).

Markus

I'm not too happy with Firefox lately, it's sluggish and, whilst I didn't experience it, people are telling me it is crashing a lot on their PCs. Seems that Chrome's process-per-tab design was the better choice. Also, the discontinuation of the 64bit port is pure madness since due to Firefox's monolithic architecture 64bit was the one place where they should have taken the lead.

Well, in any case, I vote for ESR.

They only discontinued the Window$ 64-bit port. It is still madness.

Here you can see how good the marketing for the "Windows Tuning and Cleaning" software companies work out.
The number of entries in the registry is simply irrelevant. The German computer magazine c't has made the test and has randomly written 10,000s of entries to the registry. The performance impact after that action was zero percent. Registry cleaners, as most of the other tuning programs, are nothing more than a fraud to get your money and not necessary at all.

I use a free tool. The problem of most applications which promise to make Windows faster is that the are only wrappers for functions which are already included in Windows, for example TuneUp-Utilities.

Regestrycleaners in Windows make sense if one has uninstalled a lot of software, then it helps to keep the registry clean from unused links, dlls and others. I think it is true what kingbeowulf wrote there is no clean uninstall, it is not Slackware ;)

Markus

Of course there is a clean uninstall. but other as with Linux packages it is up to the software developer and not to the package manager to do that task. unfortunately, most Windows developers seem not to count in the possibility that there may be people that uninstall their software.

But this getting off-topic, let's go back to that.
My opinion on that: I rarely use Firefox, so I couldn't care less which version is installed by default, but I think that the ESR versions would fit better to Slackware's stable image. But I think having a package or even only a SlackBuild in /extra will be sufficient if you really want to use ESR.

I've heard that Firefox crashes constantly for years, but it hasn't crashed once for me in the last 2-3 years...and my Firefox profile is certainly not vanilla (I have 19 extensions installed and my profile has been hanging around for years, through all of the Firefox upgrades, without any problems). I often wonder what other people are doing that I am not...

I think making FF ESR available is great, but I would rather see the latest FF releases included by default with Slackware. They are the most supported, and most people using Firefox would expect to have the latest version available. Those who have specific reasons for wanting to use the ESR releases should be able to grab it for themselves. This would allow newbies to have the latest version of Firefox, which they would probably expect to have, and more advanced users would be able to install ESR if they want.

My druthers are "No".

I saw the post on the SBo list that an ESR SlackBuild was submitted, and I think that's a good way to make the option to choose available.

.

You can speed up Thunderbird quite a bit at startup if you regularly empty the Trash mail folder and move the Inbox contents to a archival storage folder rather than leaving them all in the Inbox. TB loads the indexes if not the contents of the main folders (In/Sent/Trash) into memory at startup.

"I would like " fits what you describe since it does not imply a demand but instead a like/wish. "I would like" is considered couth, while "I want" is considered immature and unprofessional. (Imagine a little kid stomping his foot and declaring, "I want...".)

As a side note, a professional way of demanding (for example, a boss to an employee), would be to say "I request", or to be austere, "I would like to request"

:)

I am happy with slackware as is.

The pros and cons seem fairly balanced for one release or the other... so doing nothing is likely the best thing to do.

I voted no; but I believe it doesn't matter now. People who know a bit about browsers have started looking for alternatives. Firefox ESR and newer versions simply don't cut the mustard the way they used to. FF has become a bloated OS of it's own with so much of resource requirement.
I'm on FF 8.0.1 right now which may be outdated but for some reason it is the last version which is not dying on me with multiple tabs open for long time.
In short, 'don't know don't care'.
Regards.

I stopped running T Bird long ago; I am very happy with claws-mail from SBo. Claws-mail is feature rich with a much lower memory footprint than T Bird. I'm still running Firefox, but I also use Chrome and Opera.

Currently I'm using Opera M2 for mail, it innovated on some features, which were then copied by Thunderbird. Claws Mail is also a great tool, but I'm missing the multi-platform option. It's also a bit behind in IMAP support, IMAP IDLE doesn't work.

Frankly, I find Firefox's version roulette to be rather silly.

Then, again, Opera has been my go-to browser since Opera v. 3.x for Windows. It has earned my loyalty.

I would be adamantly against any Google product being the default for anything whatsover. Google is like that girlfriend who hasn't cheated on me (yet), but, whenever I'm with her, I feel vaguely used.

Don't fool yourself; she's already got something going on the side.

We discussed about it and at the end we decided to add it

http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14...a-firefox-esr/

As anticipated, I modified it a little: I'll cut and paste the README here and I'll try to make more evident the most important information ;)
If you are a sbopkg user, assuming you have synced with the repo (and that you have a slackware full install), I suggest you to try a (substitute the "6" with your cpu cores)
or just download the needed thingies and
(SlackBuild Usage HOWTO - SlackBuild.org's FAQ)