'Portable' Palemoon - v28.6.0

[6502coder]

I added Mike's portable PaleMoon PET to a frugal install of SailorE's Slacko583, along with Mike's GTK3 PET, updated to the current PaleMoon 28.4.1, and find that the performance is surprisingly good on my ancient 1.GHz Celeron M laptop. I had about given up trying to find an up-to-date browser that would run decently on YouTube on this hardware. Nice job, Mike!

[Mike Walsh]

I added Mike's portable PaleMoon PET to a frugal install of SailorE's Slacko583, along with Mike's GTK3 PET, updated to the current PaleMoon 28.4.1, and find that the performance is surprisingly good on my ancient 1.GHz Celeron M laptop. I had about given up trying to find an up-to-date browser that would run decently on YouTube on this hardware. Nice job, Mike!

You're very welcome, mate. Fred deserves a wee bit of credit too, though, for coming up with the 'portable-FF Quantum' that inspired me in the first place.

Enjoy!


Mike.

[nic007]

I have a question with regards to these portable versions. As I Inderstand it, it is self-contained running from a folder wherever you place it. Do these versions run in preference to the base sfs (as in layer of system operation) with regards to newer glibc's, etc? Pets load "on top" of the base sfs and sfs addons at "lower level" in comparison to the base sfs.

[watchdog]

I know that you can't perform a glibc upgrade with an sfs: you have to install a working deb or pet file. The new glibc must be at top level. So I think that these portable versions run at top level with preference to the base sfs.

[nic007]

I know that you can't perform a glibc upgrade with an sfs: you have to install a working deb or pet file. The new glibc must be at top level. So I think that these portable versions run at top level with preference to the base sfs.

Yes but it will be interesting to know how it achieves that.

[nic007]

Just as a matter of interest - Most browsers can be downloaded as self-contained tarballs from the official sites. These are actually portable versions already because all you need to do is to extract the tarball anywhere you like and run the application from its executable in the extracted folder.

[Mike Walsh]

Just as a matter of interest - Most browsers can be downloaded as self-contained tarballs from the official sites. These are actually portable versions already because all you need to do is to extract the tarball anywhere you like and run the application from its executable in the extracted folder.

Mm-hm. Yes, I couldn't agree more. They do come in essentially 'portable' format already. But, as I've alluded to on many occasions, you're carefully overlooking the fact that if you use the browser, as is, on multiple machines, then on each & every machine it creates a new, fresh profile in each Pup's root directory.

As you yourself have said, you can indeed link a common profile between multiple Pups, especially on the same machine. That works fine; I've been doing that myself for a long time. And yes, you could copy that profile from machine to machine. That, too, would work.

I just think that the way these 'portables' run, the way Fred did them, are more convenient, that's all.....because you have your profile, all set up and ready to use, wherever you want to use it (without needing to copy over, or sym-link, or create fresh new profiles, etc, etc.)

Perhaps we are trying to 're-invent the wheel'..? I don't know. Each to their own, of course.


Mike.

[nic007]

Just as a matter of interest - Most browsers can be downloaded as self-contained tarballs from the official sites. These are actually portable versions already because all you need to do is to extract the tarball anywhere you like and run the application from its executable in the extracted folder.

Mm-hm. Yes, I couldn't agree more. They do come in essentially 'portable' format already. But, as I've alluded to on many occasions, you're carefully overlooking the fact that if you use the browser, as is, on multiple machines, then on each & every machine it creates a new, fresh profile in each Pup's root directory.

As you yourself have said, you can indeed link a common profile between multiple Pups, especially on the same machine. That works fine; I've been doing that myself for a long time. And yes, you could copy that profile from machine to machine. That, too, would work.

I just think that the way these 'portables' run, the way Fred did them, are more convenient, that's all.....because you have your profile, all set up and ready to use, wherever you want to use it (without needing to copy over, or sym-link, or create fresh new profiles, etc, etc.)

Perhaps we are trying to 're-invent the wheel'..? I don't know. Each to their own, of course.


Mike.

Mike. I'm not having a go at your portable versions, I just want to know more. For instance my previous question here which has not been answered yet (about the preference system "layer" of loading a portable version) and also - where are the palemoon files loaded ie. Profile , cache,etc, in root or where?

[Mike Walsh]

@ Nic:-

Mm. Huh. I'm really not the person to ask about the ins & outs of how precisely something works in Puppy.....specially not with regard to the various layers (which I honestly don't understand).

My approach to doing stuff like this in Puppy is that if I can get something to work- and can consistently reproduce that behaviour - then that's good enough for me. I'm then happy to share.

If I had to guess where the browser items are loaded from, I'd hazard a guess that it's pup_ro2; that seems to be the layer where most items appear to run from in Puppy. I'll say this, mate; your curiosity runs deeper than mine..!

I'm really not that concerned about the how or the why of things working, so long as they do! As long as they run, that'll do me...


Mike.

[nic007]

@ Nic:-

Mm. Huh. I'm really not the person to ask about the ins & outs of how precisely something works in Puppy.....specially not with regard to the various layers (which I honestly don't understand).

My approach to doing stuff like this in Puppy is that if I can get something to work- and can consistently reproduce that behaviour - then that's good enough for me. I'm then happy to share.

If I had to guess where the browser items are loaded from, I'd hazard a guess that it's pup_ro2; that seems to be the layer where most items appear to run from in Puppy. I'll say this, mate; your curiosity runs deeper than mine..!

I'm really not that concerned about the how or the why of things working, so long as they do! As long as they run, that'll do me...


Mike.

All I want to know is if it takes preference to the base sfs, like installing a .pet would do or an adrv/ydrv. This is obviously important with regards to newer glibc's. My guess is that it doesn't and is being treated the same way in the layered system like an sfs-addon? BTW as information - With a frugal install the base sfs is loaded at /initrd/pup_ro2. If you are using a HDD, your savefile will be at /initrd/pup_rw. If running from external USB your savefile will be loaded at /initrd/pup_ro1 and your saves for the session at /initrd/pup_rw

[tuxtoo]

Just a heads up here; the links to the 32 & 64 bit versions of Palemoon Portable in the first post are not working.

[Mike Walsh]

Just a heads up here; the links to the 32 & 64 bit versions of Palemoon Portable in the first post are not working.

@ tuxtoo:-

Good catch, mate; thanks for that. My bad; I updated the packages a few weeks ago, and forgot all about the front page links..!

All fixed now - the links will give you Palemoon 28.6.0, and will quickly update to the current 28.7.1 via the built-in updater.

Cheers for that!

-----------

BTW:- Thanks for the upgrade on the Wellminded search engine. I've been using the 'custom' Google search that's been floating around the forums for a while now.....I think I first found it buried somewhere back in the middle of the Palemoon thread; watchdog referenced it, I bookmarked it, and I've used it ever since.

Your Wellminded one works every bit as well, I'm happy to say. Thank you..!


Mike.

[tuxtoo]

Cheers Mike, downloading now.

[zagreb999]

regards

firefox 50 and above
has right vertical
bar, which can be moved
with single click...
how can add the same
in palemoon?

[ras]

Hi Mike

This portability is very useful, and I will try adding the plmn script to different versions of mozilla based browsers. Are there many other tweaks to the packages that needed to be done to have the browsers write their configs in the install folder?

Just for the record, I already keep my down loads, bookmarks, and extensions outside my savefiles and link them back into the browser configuration file in /root of each different puppy I use. The portability feature will make life easier, as I can maintain my browser more simply.

thanks for your work with palemoon, and a tip of the hat to fredx181, of course :)