UXP Browser Bundle Release: 240824 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. This directory tree contains source code and a Bash build script (buildme.sh) for the following six XUL-compatible and Rust-free pro- grams (b): Most useful: * AlbusLuna - Revived Classic Firefox * Ambassador - Revived Chatzilla * Basilisk - A newer-style UXP-based browser * Epyrus - A Classic Thunderbird fork (a) Less maintained, abandoned, or obsolete: * Blue Gorilla - Revived SeaMonkey (abandoned) * Icedove - Revived Icedove aka Classic Thunderbird (a) Epyrus is recommended over Icedove because, as of this writing, it is the most maintained. Icedove is nearly abandoned. (b) The note about Rust isn't intended to deprecate Rust as a lang- uage. But Rust can complicate offline builds of browsers to the point where it's pretty much impossible. These programs can be built for either 64-bit Linux or 32-bit Linux. To build for 32-bit Linux, boot a 64-bit kernel on a 32-bit distro and proceed from there. This is just so that you can access enough RAM for the build. The programs produced should work using a 32-bit kernel on the same 32-bit distro. For a change-log, see the file "CHANGES". #--------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Additional notes. 2.1. These programs are built on top of the UXP platform. The bundle source tree includes at least one version of the UXP source tree and may include multiple versions. 2.2. Different UXP programs can run concurrently except for the Thun- derbird forks. Presently, if the user tries to run two Thunderbird forks at the same time, only one will pop up. This is intentional. It permits different Thunderbird forks to share a single email profile without data corruption. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. To build this bundle, you'll need about 10.5GB or more free disk space in the filesystem associated with "/var/tmp". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. The source tarball for this package was created using a shell scri- pt with the following name: make-browser-bundle.sh The script is part of Laclin. It may be reviewed and used in Laclin but will not work in other distros. The script is *not* needed to build the browser bundle. The browser bundle should build under numerous distros. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. License notes. It's believed to be entirely legal and appropriate to host and distri- bute source code for each of these programs and to build binaries using them. If you decide to distribute binaries, for some of the programs, rules related to "official" branding may be a political issue and should be taken into account. To address this issue, future releases of the UXP Browser Bundle may remove such "official" branding as remains. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Credits. Credits related to each program will be added to this document and/or to the programs. In some cases, the credits are already present at the program level. To start, Icedove-UXP is from the Hyperbola Project. Blue Gorilla is a fork by another developer of Iceape-UXP from the same project. The UXP codebase that underlies all of the programs was created by a small group named Moonchild Productions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. "git" histories. For reasons related to disk space and download time, the "uxp-brow- sers" directory tree isn't presently available with "git" histor- ies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Minuses. There are some pluses and minuses to these programs. The minuses in- clude: * Built-in links for various things go to websites that don't exist yet or that are outdated or no longer applicable. * The programs come with preinstalled extensions that can't be removed using the extensions GUI. If you don't want them, you'll need to de- lete them from the program tree manually. * Classic XUL extensions are supported, but you'll need to manually patch stanzas in the associated "install.rdf" files. For more informa- tion, see Appendix A. * A few of the Albus Luna branding images are just text on white rec- tangles. The images in question need work. * The web browsers don't work with websites that use complicated Java- script features. * The web browsers are slower than browsers based on Chromium. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Pluses. The pluses to these packages include: * XUL extensions. For example, ScrapBook X, the real thing, works with the web browsers (and is preinstalled in some cases). * The Thunderbirds that are included are the only realistic Linux FOSS alternatives to Rust Thunderbird that we're aware of. Pre-Quantum actual Thunderbird, ESR releases, is approaching the point where it can't be built. Quantum Thunderbird requires Rust. The UXP Thunderbird forks are a decent alternative. As of 2024, if they're compared to Quantum Thunderbird, they're missing primarily Oauth2. Note: K-9 Mail is a pretty good email option, except for the regret- table new logo, but it seems to be just for mobile. * You can modify and redistribute Albus Luna. Albus Luna is very similar to the UXP group's flagship browser but the official branding has been replaced. Note: Notify the Albus Luna pack- ager of any remaining pieces of the old branding that need to be re- moved. The license rules that apply to the flagship browser prohibit distrib- ution of modified copies. However, Albus Luna is fine with it. Have fun. We'd appreciate it if you'd rename modified releases or perhaps add qualifiers such as "Avocado Edition". Note: The rules that apply to the rest of the programs are under re- view. * Some of these programs support ALSA. If we understand correctly, the latest iterations of the Mozilla programs have dropped support for this subsystem. * There's a single simple-to-run "build" script that builds everything and puts it all in one directory tree. * We think that the directory tree is portable though this needs to be confirmed. By "portable", we mean that it might be possible to move the directory tree around. It isn't completely portable in the Windows Portable Apps sense where user profiles are stored in the same tree. However, it might be possi- ble to add that feature. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. It should be possible to build this package in most modern Linux distros. Before you proceed, though, you'll need to install dependen- cies. We haven't assembled a full list of dependencies yet, but if you in- stall what Chromium, LibreOffice, and Thunderbird would need (omitting Rust), you should be in good shape. Partial list: gcc and g++ 9 or 10 - gcc's newer than 10 aren't tested gtk2 or gtk3 - Which to use can be selected pulseaudio or alsa - Or you can disable sound support "auto"-tools autoconf-2.13 brotli freetype2 and fontconfig python2 and python3 cairo and pixman pkg-config perl5 yasm Install development versions of dependencies where a difference ex- ists; i.e., versions that include header files and libraries. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Builds. Builds are fairly simple compared to Mozilla builds of the past [espe- cially taking into account the number of programs that are built]. After you install dependencies, unpack the source tarball. Review the comments at the top of the following file: buildme.sh Set environment variables as indicated in the comments to configure the build as you prefer. Execute the following command in the top-level source directory: bash -e ./buildme.sh On a high end box with SSD instead of HD, 32 GB of RAM, and 6x2 CPU or better, we've observed build times of about 0.50 to 0.75 hours per program. For 10 programs, that works out to about 5.0 to 7.5 hours for the set. On less powerful boxes, builds have taken perhaps twice as long. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. As a positive note, system "nss" and "nspr" don't seem to be re- quired. However, we found that we needed to patch an ".m4" file to make builds without system "nspr" work. The patch is still under re- view and isn't guaranteed to be correct. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 13. More about build configuration. The programs can be built in different ways. For example: (a) In a "lite" mode that uses Gtk2 and skips features such as "dbus" and sound (b) In a regular mode that uses Gtk3 and supports the extra fea- tures (c) Or in-between The different modes can be selected using environment variables as follows: export SKIP_DBUS=false # Use "dbus" - Default is to skip it export SKIP_LDAP=true # Skip "ldap" - Default is to use it export SKIP_SOUND=true # Skip "sound" - Default is to use it export USE_GTK2=true # Use Gtk2 - Default is to use Gtk3 # ... bash -e ./buildme.sh For details, see the commands at the top of "buildme.sh". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 14. By default, the build script installs these programs to the fol- lowing directories: $HOME/browsers/albusluna $HOME/browsers/ambassador $HOME/browsers/basilisk $HOME/browsers/bluegorilla $HOME/browsers/epyrus $HOME/browsers/icedove The common directory, i.e., "$HOME/browsers", can be changed using an environment variable as follows: export PREFIX=/opt/browsers # ... bash -e ./buildme.sh If necessary, the specified common directory will be created. Warning: Existing browser subdirectories will be deleted and then recreated. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 15. Each of the programs has a separate "bin" directory located in the program's own directory tree. For your convenience, an extra "bin" directory is created in the com- mon directory which contains symlinks to each of the programs. For ex- ample, the following configuration results in a "bin" directory with the full path "/opt/browsers/bin": export PREFIX=/opt/browsers # ... bash -e ./buildme.me In this example, add "/opt/browsers/bin" to PATH and you're good to go. If you don't want the extra "bin" directory, you can use an environ- ment variable named "ADDBINDIR" as follows to disable it: export PREFIX=/opt/browsers export ADDBINDIR=false # ... bash -e ./buildme.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 16. To specify the number of parallel jobs to run during a build, do something like this: export NUMJOBS=8 # ... bash -e ./buildme.me #--------------------------------------------------------------------- 17. Borealis and Interlink. The source code for two more programs is included, but these two pro- grams are no longer built: * Borealis - A Netscape-like browser * Interlink - Another Thunderbird fork Reasons: First, as background, these two programs are part of the same code- base. (a) There is an Addons Manager problem with Borealis that we don't have the time to fix. (b) Interlink is fairly redundant as it doesn't seem to add much to Epyrus and Icedove. (c) For technical reasons, it may be difficult or impractical to build Borealis with "devtools" support or Interlink with "calendar" sup- port. (d) Both programs are highly abandoned and are Matt Tobin programs as well. We'll omit the details of Tobin issues here, but, adding it all up, it makes sense to retire these two programs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix A. Sample "install.rdf" stanzas. To use classic XUL extensions with these programs, you'll need to pat- ch the associated "install.rdf" files to use the appropriate stanzas from this list. {9184b6fe-4a5c-484d-8b4b-efbfccbfb514} 0 99 {8de7fcbb-c55c-4fbe-bfc5-fc555c87dbc4} 0 99 {ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384} 0 99 {92650c4d-4b8e-4d2a-b7eb-24ecf4f6b63a} 0 99 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- End of file.