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nik1982 n00b
Joined: 05 Sep 2004 Posts: 34
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 12:49 am Post subject: Swiftfox - faster Firefox :-) |
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Hi there,
how about trying Swiftfox? I noticed realy great speed improvements compared to Firefox.
http://getswiftfox.com/
Nik |
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mark_alec Bodhisattva
Joined: 11 Sep 2004 Posts: 6066 Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 1:46 am Post subject: |
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Moved from Networking & Security to Off the Wall. |
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PaulBredbury Watchman
Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 1:51 am Post subject: |
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Here's a working ebuild for swiftfox. Don't forget to tailor the CPU line for your hardware.
/usr/local/portage/www-client/swiftfox-bin/swiftfox-bin-2.0.0.2.ebuild
Code: | # Copyright 1999-2007 Gentoo Foundation
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: $
# Ebuild from http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-472065.html
inherit eutils
# *CHANGE* *THIS* for your hardware - http://getswiftfox.com/releases.htm
CPU="pentium3"
MY_PN="swiftfox"
MY_PV=${PV/_/}
DESCRIPTION="Optimized binary build of the Mozilla Firefox web browser"
HOMEPAGE="http://getswiftfox.com/"
SRC_URI="http://getswiftfox.com/builds/releases/${PV}/${MY_PN}-${MY_PV}-${CPU}.tar.bz2"
KEYWORDS="~x86"
SLOT="0"
LICENSE="MPL-1.1 NPL-1.1"
IUSE=""
RESTRICT="mirror strip"
RDEPEND="virtual/jre
>=www-client/mozilla-launcher-1.39
>=sys-devel/binutils-2.16.1
>=dev-libs/nss-3.10
>=dev-libs/nspr-4.6.1
~sys-devel/autoconf-2.13
!www-client/swiftfox"
DEPEND="${RDEPEND}
>=dev-java/java-config-0.2.0"
S=${WORKDIR}/${MY_PN}
dir=/opt/${MY_PN}
pkg_setup() {
elog "Using CPU: ${CPU}"
}
src_install() {
insinto "${dir}"
exeinto "${dir}"
doins -r * || die "doins -r failed"
rm -f "${D}/${dir}"/{${MY_PN}{,-bin},updater,run-mozilla.sh} || die
doexe {${MY_PN}{,-bin},updater,run-mozilla.sh} || die
local i
for i in "" "-bin" ; do
if [[ -e "firefox${i}" ]] ; then
if $(diff -q {swiftfox,firefox}${i}) ; then
# Files are identical, so symlink them.
einfo "Symlinking firefox${i} to swiftfox${i}"
# Link is necessary because setting Swiftfox as the default
# browser using Swiftfox's preferences, sets the command
# in Gnome's "Preferred Applications" to:
# /opt/swiftfox/firefox "%s"
dosym /opt/${MY_PN}/{${MY_PN},firefox}${i} || die
else
rm -f "${D}/${dir}/firefox${i}" || die
doexe "firefox${i}" || die
fi
fi
done
dodir /opt/bin
dosym /opt/${MY_PN}/firefox /opt/bin/${MY_PN} || die
newicon icons/icon48.png ${MY_PN}.xpm || die "newicon failed"
make_desktop_entry ${MY_PN} "Swiftfox" ${MY_PN}.xpm "Application;Network"
}
pkg_postinst() {
elog "Test Java at:"
elog " http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml"
elog "If it does not work after following the Gentoo Java upgrade guide:"
elog " http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java/java-upgrade.xml"
elog "Then run as your normal user e.g.:"
elog " mkdir -p ~/.mozilla/plugins"
elog " ln -sfn /usr/lib/nsbrowser/plugins/javaplugin.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/"
echo
} |
Edit: Bumped version to 2.0.0.2
Last edited by PaulBredbury on Tue Feb 27, 2007 10:57 am; edited 13 times in total |
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bunder Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 5934
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 4:16 am Post subject: |
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what makes this any better than firefox with the fasterfox extension? _________________
Neddyseagoon wrote: | The problem with leaving is that you can only do it once and it reduces your influence. |
banned from #gentoo since sept 2017 |
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PaulBredbury Watchman
Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 4:23 am Post subject: |
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Fasterfox has nothing to do with how the app was compiled. Here's some good info. |
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bunder Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 5934
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 4:29 am Post subject: |
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firefox is slow?
the only sluggishness i see using it is the inital startup time, but that can be fixed by prelinking and ram drives... both of which i could care less to implement myself. _________________
Neddyseagoon wrote: | The problem with leaving is that you can only do it once and it reduces your influence. |
banned from #gentoo since sept 2017 |
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PaulBredbury Watchman
Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 4:34 am Post subject: |
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bunder wrote: | firefox is slow? |
Yes. Swiftfox feels faster to me. |
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zenlunatic Guru
Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Posts: 312
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 5:13 am Post subject: |
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wtf is a ram drive? |
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bunder Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 5934
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 5:16 am Post subject: |
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zenlunatic wrote: | wtf is a ram drive? |
mounting filesystems dynamically in ram... of course you wouldn't be able to write permanent changes to the directory, but its faster than reading it all from disk. _________________
Neddyseagoon wrote: | The problem with leaving is that you can only do it once and it reduces your influence. |
banned from #gentoo since sept 2017 |
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codergeek42 Bodhisattva
Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 5142 Location: Anaheim, CA (USA)
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:04 am Post subject: |
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So these are binaries built specifically for a certain processor...Would someone please explain to me how that's different than emerging firefox with proper CFLAGS set? _________________ ~~ Peter: Programmer, Mathematician, STEM & Free Software Advocate, Enlightened Agent, Transhumanist, Fedora contributor
Who am I? :: EFF & FSF |
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PaulBredbury Watchman
Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:18 am Post subject: |
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codergeek42 wrote: | Would someone please explain to me how that's different than emerging firefox with proper CFLAGS set? |
Well, of course it can be done in an ebuild.
The point is, these particular compiler and Firefox configurations result in a noticeably faster browser than the current mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.4 ebuild in Portage compiled with the current stable Gentoo compiler and safe CFLAGS. |
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Zepp Veteran
Joined: 15 Mar 2004 Posts: 1246 Location: Ontario, Canada
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:28 am Post subject: |
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codergeek42 wrote: | So these are binaries built specifically for a certain processor...Would someone please explain to me how that's different than emerging firefox with proper CFLAGS set? |
I was wondering the same thing... |
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nik1982 n00b
Joined: 05 Sep 2004 Posts: 34
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greasy_grasshopper Apprentice
Joined: 07 Apr 2005 Posts: 171
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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Zepp wrote: | codergeek42 wrote: | So these are binaries built specifically for a certain processor...Would someone please explain to me how that's different than emerging firefox with proper CFLAGS set? |
I was wondering the same thing... |
It seems from what I read, that the obvious difference is that it's an already compiled binary. You might get the the same results by compiling it yourself (which would take a lot of time). And people using binary distros can also benefit from it.
Overall it seems like an interesting idea, but I'm not convinced that I'll see any noticable improvement in speed.
EDIT: OK, I'm not sure if it's a binary or not. Can anyone confirm that it is? I'm at work and using Windows now. |
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PaulBredbury Watchman
Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, it's a binary. No, I'm not exactly sure myself why it's noticeably faster. However, I'm using it now, and I believe my own eyes. This is what they look like: |
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jmbsvicetto Moderator
Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 4734 Location: Angra do Heroísmo (PT)
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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Moved from Off the Wall to Unsupported Software.
Since PaulBredbury has contributed with an ebuild, I think it belongs here. _________________ Jorge.
Your twisted, but hopefully friendly daemon.
AMD64 / x86 / Sparc Gentoo
Help answer || emwrap.sh
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nxsty Veteran
Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 1556 Location: .se
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 6:47 pm Post subject: |
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Some of those CFLAGS are bad for firefox. If it's faster it's probably because gentoo enables cairo by default and swiftfox don't. |
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Gergan Penkov Veteran
Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 1464 Location: das kleinste Kuhdorf Deutschlands :)
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Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 3:16 am Post subject: |
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it is faster, because of
1. using static build probably against older gtk+,
2. does not enable pango, which causes major headaches for many people - on gentoo this could be disabled only at run-time, but could not be omitted in the build, as mozilla has not patched this issue for a very long time although they knew that it slows seriously down the browser for some of the users (and in fact the original source could not be built at all without patches with newer gtk+ versions and the most used patch is to link against pango, which in turn makes the browser slower for some)
3. does not enable cairo (which was required for the enable-official-branding on gentoo)
and uses insane cxx-flags _________________ "I knew when an angel whispered into my ear,
You gotta get him away, yeah
Hey little bitch!
Be glad you finally walked away or you may have not lived another day."
Godsmack |
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whitesouls Guru
Joined: 19 Nov 2004 Posts: 358 Location: In Front of My Laptop
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Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 6:32 pm Post subject: |
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Me too. I tried a cold boot of swiftfox on my dual proc pentium3 and my eyes went like this _________________ whitesouls
Please insert the [SOLVED] tag if your problem is solved in your respective thread. |
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akb Guru
Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 314 Location: Wolfenbüttel/Germany
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Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 2:49 am Post subject: |
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Gergan Penkov wrote: | it is faster, because of
1. using static build probably against older gtk+,
2. does not enable pango, which causes major headaches for many people - on gentoo this could be disabled only at run-time, but could not be omitted in the build, as mozilla has not patched this issue for a very long time although they knew that it slows seriously down the browser for some of the users (and in fact the original source could not be built at all without patches with newer gtk+ versions and the most used patch is to link against pango, which in turn makes the browser slower for some)
3. does not enable cairo (which was required for the enable-official-branding on gentoo)
and uses insane cxx-flags |
any way to easily avoid all this when building it from source (ebuild preferred)? |
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Gergan Penkov Veteran
Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 1464 Location: das kleinste Kuhdorf Deutschlands :)
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Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 3:12 am Post subject: |
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Probably downgrading the dependancies (to gtk-2.6 and pango - to version before gnome-2.10) and building it static disabling the pango and and the cairo with the used c/cpp flags, after that upgrading if you want
I personally use epiphany on xulrunner it is times faster than the firefox bloat _________________ "I knew when an angel whispered into my ear,
You gotta get him away, yeah
Hey little bitch!
Be glad you finally walked away or you may have not lived another day."
Godsmack |
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bob_111 Apprentice
Joined: 12 Oct 2004 Posts: 155
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Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 11:50 am Post subject: |
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I think this is good because even on a source bassed distro like gentoo we can be a little slacker and dload a "Optomised" binary!. And its qute handy for us dialupians |
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krigav Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 10 Nov 2005 Posts: 121
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Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, swiftfox is fast.
But when I execute my self compiled (C[XX]FLAGS="-march=i686 -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe") firefox 1.5 with pango disabled there isn't a speed difference for me.
Quote: | MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1 firefox |
_________________ There are no dumb questions, just dumb answers. So please help users that are new to linux/gentoo by answering unanswered questions. |
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circus-killer n00b
Joined: 05 Jun 2006 Posts: 67 Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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honestly, i dont see the speed difference being all that drastic. maybe im wrong. just seems to me like here are the people that want that 0.00002% speed increase. if firefox is slow....UPGRADE TO A PENTIUM II.
seriously guys, you're worried over the speed of your browser. if firefox is slow, you need a new machine. _________________ Get the f*ck outta here if you ain't down with the clown!
(\ /)
(O.o)
(> <)
This is Bunny. Copy Bunny into your signature to help him on his way to world domination |
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PaulBredbury Watchman
Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:32 pm Post subject: |
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circus-killer wrote: | honestly, i dont see the speed difference being all that drastic. |
Well, I do. It's noticeable, so the difference is not some tiny percentage, and I like speed increases which have no apparent drawback. It's been rock-solid for me for the past few days.
And this is with a reasonable PC: AMD Athlon XP 2.8 x86, 2.5gb RAM. |
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