Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Does any one know if this is possible?

it should be, in theory is only pick up the source code of the firefox and
compile it for Palm OS.

This isn't extremely useful, but it's nice for supporting the FireFox
movement

Fenix 999

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

"Fenix 999" <fenix999@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:41937d72$0$6466$a729d347@news.telepac.pt...
> Does any one know if this is possible?
>
> it should be, in theory is only pick up the source code of the firefox and
> compile it for Palm OS.
>
> This isn't extremely useful, but it's nice for supporting the FireFox
> movement

True - but please let them sort out FF for Windows first. Some of the old
proxy and other problems have returned with 1.0. I'm kicking myself for
having burned my copy of 0.9.2

It is the future. But not quite yet....

--
Stuart

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 15:48:49 -0000, "Stuart" <info@brainsys.com>
wrote:

>
>"Fenix 999" <fenix999@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:41937d72$0$6466$a729d347@news.telepac.pt...
>> Does any one know if this is possible?
>>
>> it should be, in theory is only pick up the source code of the firefox and
>> compile it for Palm OS.
>>
>> This isn't extremely useful, but it's nice for supporting the FireFox
>> movement
>
>True - but please let them sort out FF for Windows first. Some of the old
>proxy and other problems have returned with 1.0. I'm kicking myself for
>having burned my copy of 0.9.2

Maybe someone in the FireFox Forums has 0.9.2 and can get a copy to
you? Wouldn't hurt to ask there.

>It is the future. But not quite yet....

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Sometime around Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:13:59 -0800 depending on the state
of the hamsters, krewl <krewl@invalid.com> permuted the language to
utter wisely:

>On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 15:48:49 -0000, "Stuart" <info@brainsys.com>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>"Fenix 999" <fenix999@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>news:41937d72$0$6466$a729d347@news.telepac.pt...
>>> Does any one know if this is possible?
>
>>True - but please let them sort out FF for Windows first. Some of the old
>>proxy and other problems have returned with 1.0. I'm kicking myself for
>>having burned my copy of 0.9.2
>
>Maybe someone in the FireFox Forums has 0.9.2 and can get a copy to
>you? Wouldn't hurt to ask there.
>
>>It is the future. But not quite yet....

Available for ftp download from:

ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

--
Words

Opera/Pegasus/Agent
for that non-M$ experience
www.permuted.org.uk

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Fenix 999 wrote:

> Does any one know if this is possible?
>
> it should be, in theory is only pick up the source code of the firefox and
> compile it for Palm OS.
>
> This isn't extremely useful, but it's nice for supporting the FireFox
> movement

It's certainly possible, but it's not quite that simple. Palms aren't
running Windows and aren't running any POSIX-compliant OS, so large
portions of code are going to have to be rewritten because of that. In
particular, at least as of PalmOS 3.x (the last time I did any significant
programming for Palms), the PalmOS network functions were different from
"standard" ones.

Further, FireFox is designed to run on a much larger screen, and PalmOS's
GUI setup is different from any of the other platforms FireFox runs on. So
the interface would have to be rewritten.

FireFox most likely uses a lot of other things that PalmOS doesn't have --
e.g., threading. All that would either have to be rewritten, or libraries
to support it written.

Mozilla's home page currently mentions that FireFox has been ported to
SkyOS, and SkyOS's web site indicates that took "a couple of weeks" of
effort. They don't mention how many programmers they had working on it.
It's hard to tell from the developer documentation that they have, but it
looks like SkyOS is probably a much easier target for a port than PalmOS
would be.

--
ZZzz |\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efindel@earthlink.net>
/,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Travis Casey wrote:

> Fenix 999 wrote:

>>Does any one know if this is possible?
>>
>>it should be, in theory is only pick up the source code of the firefox and
>>compile it for Palm OS.

> In
> particular, at least as of PalmOS 3.x (the last time I did any significant
> programming for Palms), the PalmOS network functions were different from
> "standard" ones.
>
> Further, FireFox is designed to run on a much larger screen, and PalmOS's
> GUI setup is different from any of the other platforms FireFox runs on. So
> the interface would have to be rewritten.
>
> FireFox most likely uses a lot of other things that PalmOS doesn't have --
> e.g., threading.

Hmm, so it might actually be close to feasible to port Firefox over
to Palm OS 6, then, huh? Granted, the GUI toolkit stuff would have to
be done totally differently (or just written totally from scratch).
And there might be very serious issues with lack of dynamic memory.
But if there is enough RAM, it seems like it could actually be done.
It wouldn't even be all that ridiculous on a machine with a 320x480
display.

Not that I'm volunteering...

- Logan

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 23:52:21 +0000 (UTC), process <me@privacy.net>
wrote:

>Sometime around Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:13:59 -0800 depending on the state
>of the hamsters, krewl <krewl@invalid.com> permuted the language to
>utter wisely:
>
>>On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 15:48:49 -0000, "Stuart" <info@brainsys.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>"Fenix 999" <fenix999@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>>news:41937d72$0$6466$a729d347@news.telepac.pt...
>>>> Does any one know if this is possible?
>>
>>>True - but please let them sort out FF for Windows first. Some of the old
>>>proxy and other problems have returned with 1.0. I'm kicking myself for
>>>having burned my copy of 0.9.2
>>
>>Maybe someone in the FireFox Forums has 0.9.2 and can get a copy to
>>you? Wouldn't hurt to ask there.
>>
>>>It is the future. But not quite yet....
>
>Available for ftp download from:
>
>ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

Excellent...thanks for the link!

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

It would be great to start a project like that, don't you guys think that?

Help to Port Firefox to almost every major OS in the planet , I'm sure
that the guys in the Firefox team will support us, but I'm not a programmer
and I never was in a project like this so I will not be a great leader, but
, does someone else besides me want to Start this project?


"Logan Shaw" <lshaw-usenet@austin.rr.com> escreveu na mensagem
news:tpXkd.5430$pu3.2427@fe2.texas.rr.com...
> Travis Casey wrote:
>
> > Fenix 999 wrote:
>
> >>Does any one know if this is possible?
> >>
> >>it should be, in theory is only pick up the source code of the firefox
and
> >>compile it for Palm OS.
>
> > In
> > particular, at least as of PalmOS 3.x (the last time I did any
significant
> > programming for Palms), the PalmOS network functions were different from
> > "standard" ones.
> >
> > Further, FireFox is designed to run on a much larger screen, and
PalmOS's
> > GUI setup is different from any of the other platforms FireFox runs on.
So
> > the interface would have to be rewritten.
> >
> > FireFox most likely uses a lot of other things that PalmOS doesn't
have --
> > e.g., threading.
>
> Hmm, so it might actually be close to feasible to port Firefox over
> to Palm OS 6, then, huh? Granted, the GUI toolkit stuff would have to
> be done totally differently (or just written totally from scratch).
> And there might be very serious issues with lack of dynamic memory.
> But if there is enough RAM, it seems like it could actually be done.
> It wouldn't even be all that ridiculous on a machine with a 320x480
> display.
>
> Not that I'm volunteering...
>
> - Logan

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Fenix 999 wrote:

> It would be great to start a project like that, don't you guys think that?
>
> Help to Port Firefox to almost every major OS in the planet , I'm sure
> that the guys in the Firefox team will support us, but I'm not a programmer
> and I never was in a project like this so I will not be a great leader, but
> , does someone else besides me want to Start this project?

The first step in porting Firefox to Palm OS 6 would be to determine
its memory requirements. It may turn out to be impossible. I just
started up Firefox on Mac OS X, and it seems to be using 17.4MB of
private memory, which should be a good rough indication of how much
heap it is using. I don't think that even the new Palm OS 6 devices
will have that much dynamic heap available. So, one would need to
investigate whether there is a way to get Firefox to run without
using nearly so much memory.

- Logan

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

> It's certainly possible, but it's not quite that simple. Palms aren't
> running Windows and aren't running any POSIX-compliant OS, so large
> portions of code are going to have to be rewritten because of that.

Firefox wasn't developed on Windows.. it was ported to Windows.
Big difference. It is a fairly straightforward matter to port the code
over to m68k and even easier to port to ARM.

A better step would be to port Dillo to PalmOS, since it already
runs perfectly on ARM under Linux. The size of the entire functioning
binary is 200-300k, depending on what options you compile in, and its
AMAZINGLY fast (the fastest browser I've ever used).

The larger problem isn't porting Firefox, its porting the
underlying toolkits that Firefox uses.

> Further, FireFox is designed to run on a much larger screen, and
> PalmOS's GUI setup is different from any of the other platforms FireFox
> runs on. So the interface would have to be rewritten.

No, actually it wouldn't. Webpages would need to be rewritten to
work on smaller screens. Many webpages (including 100% of the ones we
develop) would need to be redesigned to work on smaller screens. The
problem isn't the browser, its the page it is rendering. Have you tried
the Firefox small-screen extension yet?

> FireFox most likely uses a lot of other things that PalmOS doesn't have
> -- e.g., threading. All that would either have to be rewritten, or
> libraries to support it written.

PalmOS has ALWAYS had threading. I tire of this myth. Palm is
restricted from using it, BY LICENSE. They are restricted to expose only
one thread to the OS, but the underlying kernel DOES support threading.
Palm just never ponied up to negotiate a new license to add it.

> It's hard to tell from the developer documentation that they have, but
> it looks like SkyOS is probably a much easier target for a port than
> PalmOS would be.

Why would you jump to that conclusion?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:44:46 +0000, Fenix 999 wrote:

> It would be great to start a project like that, don't you guys think that?

Feel free to get started on that.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

David A. Desrosiers wrote:

>> It's certainly possible, but it's not quite that simple. Palms aren't
>> running Windows and aren't running any POSIX-compliant OS, so large
>> portions of code are going to have to be rewritten because of that.
>
> Firefox wasn't developed on Windows.. it was ported to Windows.
> Big difference. It is a fairly straightforward matter to port the code
> over to m68k and even easier to port to ARM.

I didn't say it was developed on Windows. I mentioned Windows and
POSIX-compliant OSes because I knew that ports already existed for them.
PalmOS's set of system calls is different from either of those. Changing
the processor should be a simple matter of recompiling, unless portions of
FireFox are written in assembly. What requires actual porting is
differences in system calls and libraries.

> A better step would be to port Dillo to PalmOS, since it already
> runs perfectly on ARM under Linux. The size of the entire functioning
> binary is 200-300k, depending on what options you compile in, and its
> AMAZINGLY fast (the fastest browser I've ever used).

Cool. :-) From what I've read, though, PalmOS doesn't support native ARM
applications -- all applications run through the m68k emulation, and only
the OS itself is native ARM. My understanding is that PalmOS 6 is supposed
to introduce native support for ARM. But, as I noted before, I haven't
done any Palm programming in a few years now.

> The larger problem isn't porting Firefox, its porting the
> underlying toolkits that Firefox uses.
>
>> Further, FireFox is designed to run on a much larger screen, and
>> PalmOS's GUI setup is different from any of the other platforms FireFox
>> runs on. So the interface would have to be rewritten.
>
> No, actually it wouldn't. Webpages would need to be rewritten to
> work on smaller screens. Many webpages (including 100% of the ones we
> develop) would need to be redesigned to work on smaller screens. The
> problem isn't the browser, its the page it is rendering. Have you tried
> the Firefox small-screen extension yet?

Didn't even know it existed. So that part's already been written.

>> FireFox most likely uses a lot of other things that PalmOS doesn't have
>> -- e.g., threading. All that would either have to be rewritten, or
>> libraries to support it written.
>
> PalmOS has ALWAYS had threading. I tire of this myth. Palm is
> restricted from using it, BY LICENSE. They are restricted to expose only
> one thread to the OS, but the underlying kernel DOES support threading.
> Palm just never ponied up to negotiate a new license to add it.

PalmOS *uses* threading, but it does not *have* it in any sense that's
useful to someone writing an application for it. Since we're talking about
an application rather than rewriting the OS, I stand by my statement.

>> It's hard to tell from the developer documentation that they have, but
>> it looks like SkyOS is probably a much easier target for a port than
>> PalmOS would be.
>
> Why would you jump to that conclusion?

Because the GIMP, GTK, and large amounts of other software targeted for
Unixes has already been ported to SkyOS, according to their pages. I would
guess that it has a POSIX-compatible interface, at the least, and probably
has other support for porting Unix apps to it. Of course, I could be
wrong, which is why I said "looks like" rather than "is".

--
ZZzz |\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efindel@earthlink.net>
/,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)