Xfce Forum

dtd

Member

Registered: 2011-12-08

Posts: 74

firefox 50 does not work with xfce on FreeBSD

From searching FreeBSD, this forum, and google I assume there is something unique about the way I build workstations. I was running xfce-4.12_1 and xorg-7.7_2 on FreeBSD 10.3. I read that thunar updates corrected some issues I was having (slow starts and some more esoteric stuff) so I did a package upgrade on thunar. Having been down this path several times I reviewed the components that might break mozilla stuff and did not see any. So some other components broke firefox et all. After trying to build from source and chasing the upgrade chain I had a broken enough where I just started over. E.g. upgraded FreeBSD and the ports tree and re-installed on a clean base. I installed xorg, xfce and firefox (in that order). Done that way firefox 50 does not run because it requires a newer version of sqlite3 that installing xfce did.

My question is has anyone else hit this? If so did updating sqlite3  and all that follows break stuff?

Mozilla thinks this is a feature not a problem. I do not have time currently to rebuild if (when I am pretty sure) stuffs gets broken. I assume this does not happen on linux and Windows and OS/X require Mozilla to build a package that is a bit more robust.

Next time I will install xorg, firefox (test with twm) and then xfce. That way I will not have much invested if xfce is not happy with that. For now chrome and claws-mail work quite nicely.

Thanks for any assistance. Oh and BTW the new thunar and other stuff make things much nicer and more than cover for no firefox. I think I actually like claws-mail better than thunderbird.

olivierd

Member

Registered: 2011-02-03

Posts: 15

Re: firefox 50 does not work with xfce on FreeBSD

I don't understand your problem. Thunar doesn't need SQlite3 (update of Firefox is very "aggressive" regarding dependencies).

Did you try binaries packages? If not, don't use quarterly branch, but rather the 'latest'.

About Thunar, an update is available on FreeBSD's BugZilla and regarding your problem with Xfce on FreeBSD there's a dedicated mailing list.

MountainDewManiac

Member

From: Where Mr. Bankruptcy is Prez

Registered: 2013-03-24

Posts: 1,115

Re: firefox 50 does not work with xfce on FreeBSD

I cannot help - but I also could not resist:

broke firefox

Mozilla thinks this is a feature not a problem.

No, not being able to run one's web browser is only considered to be a feature if one's web browser is Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

I think I actually like claws-mail better than thunderbird.

Way back when I used Microsoft's OS, the only email application that I liked was Pegasus Email (I believe that was its name). I also do not really care for Thunderbird. Therefore I'd like to thank you for the positive mention of an alternate choice. I will look at Claws-Mail. I do use a couple of webmail-based accounts, one for private (family) communications and the other, that I have had for ten or fifteen years, for everything else. If Claws-Mail is able to use those, I will definitely install it for a test drive.

Good luck with your issue!

Regards,
MDM

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Mountain Dew Maniac

How to Ask for Help <=== Click on this link

Jerry3904

Member

Registered: 2013-11-09

Posts: 863

Re: firefox 50 does not work with xfce on FreeBSD

There's a guy on our forum making long and detailed posts about Sylpheed which is under heavy development and is supposed to be far less buggy than Claws-mail.

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MX-23 (based on Debian Stable) with our flagship Xfce 4.18.

dtd

Member

Registered: 2011-12-08

Posts: 74

Re: firefox 50 does not work with xfce on FreeBSD

Thanks for all the posts. The firefox issue is a combination of Mozilla design philosophy (it seems to me) and how the FreeBSD package is put together. I did a from scratch install in order doing xorg, firefox, xfce. Installs without error and it all works. The FreeBSD package setup allows for a package to remove and replace, and to update packages. I believe this should have been build into the firefox package. The mozilla and/or FreeBSD package guys disagree. They win.

On the other issue, the thunar update broke a few things (my orginal gripe). One was firefox, not fatal I know now. The one I did not find was an error starting xdm 'failed to set mtrr: Invalid argument' and/or an error about 'machine id'. This I found out too late is corrected by running uuidgen. It may have been I could have updated my way out of the issue if I had known that.

Maybe if a workstation is built from source it would not hit some of these issues. I will never have computing power (or time) to make that remotely feasible. I think having xfce 100% installed from packages subjects me to issues that just do not happen in linux or perhaps with source built workstations.

There was a reason why I decided on claws-mail over  Sylpheed , I forgot why at this point. For me it works fine. I actually use pine mostly. I need something that allows me to easily read HTML email and/or easily see attachments customers send. If I hit bugs I will try Sylpheed.

This is not (as I first thought) an xfce issue but I was hoping to find other avenues to attack the issue. Got that and thanks

Last edited by dtd (2017-07-06 07:20:05)