Re: Browsers on NetBSD sparc

Hello,

> I'm new to NetBSD, it seems to be the only open source OS running 
> decently on my system (SS20, Dual HyperSparc).  Didn't know it uses a 
> sparc specific X.

It uses Xsun or Xsun24, you can install XFree86, it should support
whatever graphics adapter you're using ( probably unaccelerated though )
but getting it to work is not quite trivial. I did it for my SPARCbook,
mainly to write a driver for the graphics chip but because one of the
RAM modules has problems I won't be able to do anything about that any
time soon.

> >>Not being able to run a 'decent' browser on sparc kinda sucks :/
> > 
> > Mozilla should build and work without these hacks, although I never
> > tried because the only 32bit sparc I have here is a 110MHz
> > microSPARC with 64MB RAM - not enough for a beast like Mozilla - it
> > would crawl, swap like hell and even if the box had 256MB or so it
> > would still not be fast. Compiling would take days.
> 
> Compiling indeed takes days ;)  It compiles and installs perfectly, 
> however, when it starts, I get a segmentation fault.  That's what 
> started this whole discussion.

Hmm, can you trace it in gdb? That's not for the faint-hearted though. 
( look at the script you run to start mozilla - should be in
/usr/pkg/bin/mozilla. It will set a bunch of environment variables and
then run mozilla-bin. You'd have to set up the variables and then run
mozilla-bin in gdb - this should at least tell you where exactly it
barfs )

> > If you have loads of RAM and fast Hyper- or TurboSPARC CPU(s) it may
> > be worth a try though.
> 
> I'm trying, it doesn't work though :)

Let's see if it's something easy. It's supposed to work though. In doubt
you can (probably) run the Solaris binary ;)

have fun
Michael