[gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[M Daniel R M]

Hello list,

Sadly, I'm pretty much disappointed with both web browser installed on
my system: konqueror and firefox. 

Konqueror: very stable indeed, but it couldn't be at another way since
it's a key piece of the KDE environment... The problem comes when I want
to fill in forms (you know... web pages for registering, etc.). It stops
many times without giving us an alert message or some kind of
explanation, so you have to deduce that the problem is not from the
website, but the browser instead. 

I don't know whether problems come from java or whatever..., I've
checked my konqueror preferences and I'd bet they are all OK..


firefox: Here the problem is very very annoying, I've run firefox before
with many other Linux flavours and never..., never got to this status of
inability; once you've got about six tabs opened on the same frame
window, firefox gets close to hang, and you become unable to manage it
anymore, unless you have an infinite patience. Doing "top" from a CLI
shows a %CPU _over_ 100%, amazing!. At the end, you'll have to kill the
process from console. 

I don't know, either, why firefox gets to this status; preferences are
as usual, etc. Maybe the problem roots from the flags when compiling,
but I haven't received any message from the system, IIRC... Is there any
flag wrong on my system? 

This is my /etc/conf.d:

~ # more /etc/make.conf
# These settings were set by the catalyst build script that
automatically
# built this stage.
# Please consult /etc/make.conf.example for a more detailed example.


CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"


# WARNING: Changing your CHOST is not something that should be done
lightly.
# Please consult http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/change-chost.xml before
changing.


CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"


##############################################

# These are the USE flags that were used in addition to what is provided
by the
# profile used for building.


USE="symlink mmx sse sse2 sse3 alsa cdr dvdr qt3 qt4 kde -gnome acpi
wifi usb unicode objc bash-completion"


##########################################

MAKEOPTS="-j3"


############################



GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/gentoo/
http://gentoo.lagis.a
t/ ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/gentoo/
ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aac
hen.de/pub/Linux/gentoo
http://linux.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/download/gentoo-mirro
r/ ftp://linux.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/gentoo-mirror/
http://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/p
ub/mirrors/gentoo ftp://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/pub/mirrors/gentoo
ftp://ftp.join.un
i-muenster.de/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo
ftp://ftp.wh2.tu-dresden.de/pub/mir
rors/gentoo
ftp://ftp.join.uni-muenster.de/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo http:/
/mirrors.sec.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/gentoo/
http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de
/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/ ftp://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/
http://
gentoo.mneisen.org/ http://ftp.spline.inf.fu-berlin.de/mirrors/gentoo/
ftp://ftp
.spline.inf.fu-berlin.de/mirrors/gentoo/ http://ftp.udc.es/gentoo/
ftp://ftp.udc
.es/gentoo/ http://gentoo.virginmedia.com/
ftp://gentoo.virginmedia.com/sites/ge
ntoo "

SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

######################################################################


INPUT_DEVICES="evdev"

VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia vesa"

###################################################

FEATURES="ccache parallel-fetch userfetch"

CCACHESIZE="2G"

###########################################


LINGUAS="en es"


##################################


Please, I'd like to have your comments and to solve the problem once and
forever. 
Thanks in advance,

Daniel R. Magarzo

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[Ward Poelmans]

On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 18:40, M Daniel R M<4.magarzo@gmail.com> wrote:
> firefox: Here the problem is very very annoying, I've run firefox before
> with many other Linux flavours and never..., never got to this status of
> inability; once you've got about six tabs opened on the same frame
> window, firefox gets close to hang, and you become unable to manage it
> anymore, unless you have an infinite patience. Doing "top" from a CLI
> shows a %CPU _over_ 100%, amazing!. At the end, you'll have to kill the
> process from console.

Have you tried running firefox with all your extensions and plugins
disabled? Which version of firefox are you running and what use flags
do you use?

Ward

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[M Daniel R M]

On Sun, 2009-08-16 at 18:49 +0200, Ward Poelmans wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 18:40, M Daniel R M<4.magarzo@gmail.com> wrote:
> > firefox: Here the problem is very very annoying, I've run firefox before
> > with many other Linux flavours and never..., never got to this status of
> > inability; once you've got about six tabs opened on the same frame
> > window, firefox gets close to hang, and you become unable to manage it
> > anymore, unless you have an infinite patience. Doing "top" from a CLI
> > shows a %CPU _over_ 100%, amazing!. At the end, you'll have to kill the
> > process from console.
> 
> Have you tried running firefox with all your extensions and plugins
> disabled? Which version of firefox are you running and what use flags
> do you use?
> 
> Ward
> 
Yes, after your suggestion ;-) 

I had those extensions, until today: babelfish, boost for facebook,
foxlingo, suggestmeyes. 
They are not on my firefox web browser any more.
Then I tried once again, and the problem continued there, exactly the
same. Well, I didn't want to touch the next, but..
Now I just have two more extensions left, the most used for me: pdf
download, and clickweather. I just disabled them. 
Tried again several tabs and now... it's OK. Everything seems to be
running pretty stably. 


Mozilla Firefox Version: 3.0.11

USE flags I use are pasted here on my first mail, man.

Thank you very much, the problem seems to be located. Now I ask to
myself whether there is anything I could do in order to have enabled
those two extensions, working and without leave stability on firefox, or
maybe this is, at the moment, not possible.

Daniel Rguez. Magarzo

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[Jesús Guerrero]

On Mon, August 17, 2009 23:29, M Daniel R M wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-08-16 at 18:49 +0200, Ward Poelmans wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 18:40, M Daniel R M<4.magarzo@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> firefox: Here the problem is very very annoying, I've run firefox
>>> before with many other Linux flavours and never..., never got to this
>>> status of inability; once you've got about six tabs opened on the same
>>> frame window, firefox gets close to hang, and you become unable to
>>> manage it anymore, unless you have an infinite patience. Doing "top"
>>> from a CLI shows a %CPU _over_ 100%, amazing!. At the end, you'll have
>>> to kill the process from console.
>>
>> Have you tried running firefox with all your extensions and plugins
>> disabled? Which version of firefox are you running and what use flags do
>> you use?
>>
>> Ward
>>
>>
> Yes, after your suggestion ;-)
>
>
> I had those extensions, until today: babelfish, boost for facebook,
> foxlingo, suggestmeyes. They are not on my firefox web browser any more.
> Then I tried once again, and the problem continued there, exactly the
> same. Well, I didn't want to touch the next, but.. Now I just have two more
> extensions left, the most used for me: pdf download, and clickweather. I
> just disabled them. Tried again several tabs and now... it's OK.
> Everything seems to be
> running pretty stably.
>
>
> Mozilla Firefox Version: 3.0.11
>
>
> USE flags I use are pasted here on my first mail, man.
>
>
> Thank you very much, the problem seems to be located. Now I ask to
> myself whether there is anything I could do in order to have enabled those
> two extensions, working and without leave stability on firefox, or maybe
> this is, at the moment, not possible.

The best you can do is to report the problem to the creator(s) of
the said extension(s). Somewhere around the configuration of the
extension or in the mozilla extensions site you should be able to
find info about them or a contact mail or a link.

Alternatively, you can try to substitute them with any other extension
or program that can do the work.
-- 
Jesús Guerrero

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[Jesús Guerrero]

I am not into konqueror these days, so no idea about that.

As for firefox, most problems comes from corrupted profiles,
silly extensions, etc. So, first I would try using a clean
profile, the easiest way to do that is to create a new user
to test with. If the problem goes away then you know that
there's something wrong in your  profile, try disabling
every extension and plugin before doing anything else.



-- 
Jesús Guerrero

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[M Daniel R M]

On Sun, 2009-08-16 at 19:09 +0200, Jesús Guerrero wrote:
> I am not into konqueror these days, so no idea about that.
> 
> As for firefox, most problems comes from corrupted profiles,
> silly extensions, etc. So, first I would try using a clean
> profile, the easiest way to do that is to create a new user
> to test with. If the problem goes away then you know that
> there's something wrong in your  profile, try disabling
> every extension and plugin before doing anything else.
> 
> 
> 

Yes, as I said just before, extensions (but not silly..) were the
problem; not much convincing to me this "solution", but facts were
clear: after removing or disabling them, firefox run smoothly again. 

BTW, sorry but I didn't understood what you meant when saying about
"profile", (I'm not much got into tech issues, sorry :-)

Daniel R. Magarzo

[gentoo-user] Re: problems with the web browsers

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 08/16/2009 07:40 PM, M Daniel R M wrote:
> firefox: Here the problem is very very annoying, I've run firefox before
> with many other Linux flavours and never..., never got to this status of
> inability; once you've got about six tabs opened on the same frame
> window, firefox gets close to hang, and you become unable to manage it
> anymore, unless you have an infinite patience. Doing "top" from a CLI
> shows a %CPU _over_ 100%, amazing!. At the end, you'll have to kill the
> process from console.
>
> I don't know, either, why firefox gets to this status; preferences are
> as usual, etc. Maybe the problem roots from the flags when compiling,
> but I haven't received any message from the system, IIRC... Is there any
> flag wrong on my system?

I remember Firefox was biting me with this too at some time.  The 
solution for me was to go to Edit->Preferences, and in the "Security" 
tab uncheck the "Block reported attack sites" and "Block reported web 
forgeries" checkboxes.  The issue was that those features use sqlite to 
update internal databases of thousands of "malware" sites, and updates 
to these lists were bringing my CPU to its knees.

So try that and see if it helps.


> CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe"
> CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

Btw, if you're on a Core2 and a recent GCC, you might want to change 
that to "-march=core2" or "-march=native".

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: problems with the web browsers

[Philip Webb]

090816 Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 08/16/2009 07:40 PM, M Daniel R M wrote:
>> I've run firefox before with many other Linux flavours
>> and never got to this status of inability;
>> once you've got about six tabs opened on the same frame window,
>> firefox gets close to hang, and you become unable to manage it anymore,
>> Doing "top" from a CLI shows a %CPU _over_ 100%, amazing!
>> At the end, you'll have to kill the process from console.
> I remember Firefox was biting me with this too at some time.
> The solution was to Edit->Preferences and in the "Security" tab
> uncheck "Block reported attack sites" and "Block reported web forgeries".
> those features use sqlite to update internal databases
> of thousands of "malware" sites which was bringing my CPU to its knees.

I have both those boxes checked & rarely have a problem:
try toggling preferences which look CPU-intensive & see what happens.
Occasionally, I do have a problem with a particular WWW page,
when I have to kill Firefox via 'htop', but it's rare (probably JS).
The 3.0 version was running very slowly on my 2003 machine (AMD Athlon),
but 3.5.2 is as fast there as here on my 2007 machine (Core 2 Duo).

>> CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe"
>> CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
> if you're on a Core2 and a recent GCC,
> you might want to change that to "-march=core2" or "-march=native".

I use Gcc 4.3.2-r3 & have CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -mtune=native -pipe".

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: problems with the web browsers

[M Daniel R M]

On Sun, 2009-08-16 at 20:16 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 08/16/2009 07:40 PM, M Daniel R M wrote:
> > firefox: Here the problem is very very annoying, I've run firefox before
> > with many other Linux flavours and never..., never got to this status of
> > inability; once you've got about six tabs opened on the same frame
> > window, firefox gets close to hang, and you become unable to manage it
> > anymore, unless you have an infinite patience. Doing "top" from a CLI
> > shows a %CPU _over_ 100%, amazing!. At the end, you'll have to kill the
> > process from console.
> >
> > I don't know, either, why firefox gets to this status; preferences are
> > as usual, etc. Maybe the problem roots from the flags when compiling,
> > but I haven't received any message from the system, IIRC... Is there any
> > flag wrong on my system?
> 
> I remember Firefox was biting me with this too at some time.  The 
> solution for me was to go to Edit->Preferences, and in the "Security" 
> tab uncheck the "Block reported attack sites" and "Block reported web 
> forgeries" checkboxes.  The issue was that those features use sqlite to 
> update internal databases of thousands of "malware" sites, and updates 
> to these lists were bringing my CPU to its knees.
> 
> So try that and see if it helps.
> 

Originally they both were checked. Then, unchecked and re-cheched again,
it seems that there were no difference here. Disabling add-ons on
firefox seems to have been the "provisional" solution.

> 
> > CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe"
> > CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
> 
> Btw, if you're on a Core2 and a recent GCC, you might want to change 
> that to "-march=core2" or "-march=native".
> 
> 

 Yes, I'm on a Core2, a laptop (Thinkpad T61), here you are a cat over
cpuinfo:

proc # cat cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 23
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     T8100  @ 2.10GHz
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 2101.000
cache size      : 3072 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe
syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good pni dtes64
monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 lahf_lm ida
tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips        : 4189.76
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 23
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     T8100  @ 2.10GHz
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 2100.000
cache size      : 3072 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 1
cpu cores       : 2
apicid          : 1
initial apicid  : 1
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe
syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good pni dtes64
monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 lahf_lm ida
tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips        : 4189.28
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
--------------------------


Here you are the GCC version:

proc # gcc --version
gcc (Gentoo 4.3.2-r3 p1.6, pie-10.1.5) 4.3.2
Copyright (C) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is
NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
-----------------


I already knew about that possibility indeed; Actually, I got to have it
some time ago (months) here, on this unit, when I made my first install
of Gentoo (bad end then :-))
Now, I've just leaved it as is 'cause of laziness, just laziness, man.
Apart from that, I'm not much sure there would be any significant
difference..., would be it?

Thanks a lot.

Daniel 

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 16 August 2009 18:40:12 M Daniel R M wrote:
> Konqueror: very stable indeed, but it couldn't be at another way since
> it's a key piece of the KDE environment... The problem comes when I want
> to fill in forms (you know... web pages for registering, etc.). It stops
> many times without giving us an alert message or some kind of
> explanation, so you have to deduce that the problem is not from the
> website, but the browser instead.
>
> I don't know whether problems come from java or whatever..., I've
> checked my konqueror preferences and I'd bet they are all OK..

javascript support in konqueror sucks.

For everything else it's actually OK. One of these days it will use webkit as 
the backend and then things might improve. Until then, I'm afraid you are SOL.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[Mick]

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On Sunday 16 August 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sunday 16 August 2009 18:40:12 M Daniel R M wrote:
> > Konqueror: very stable indeed, but it couldn't be at another way since
> > it's a key piece of the KDE environment... The problem comes when I want
> > to fill in forms (you know... web pages for registering, etc.). It stops
> > many times without giving us an alert message or some kind of
> > explanation, so you have to deduce that the problem is not from the
> > website, but the browser instead.
> >
> > I don't know whether problems come from java or whatever..., I've
> > checked my konqueror preferences and I'd bet they are all OK..
>
> javascript support in konqueror sucks.
>
> For everything else it's actually OK. One of these days it will use webkit
> as the backend and then things might improve. Until then, I'm afraid you
> are SOL.

Perhaps [O/T] but is webkit a fork of khtml, or was khtml stopped any 
development and webkit took over?

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[Stroller]

On 16 Aug 2009, at 22:36, Mick wrote:
>> ...
>> javascript support in konqueror sucks.
>>
>> For everything else it's actually OK. One of these days it will use  
>> webkit
>> as the backend and then things might improve. Until then, I'm  
>> afraid you
>> are SOL.
>
> Perhaps [O/T] but is webkit a fork of khtml, or was khtml stopped any
> development and webkit took over?


Webkit is a fork of KHTML (and KJS, KDE's JavaScript engine) but I get  
the impression that it has benefited from Apple's legion of paid &  
full time engineers.

The initial development by Apple was done stealthily, and they made  
significant changes (some of which were quite MacOS specific) so it  
was not possible to reintegrate their modifications. KHTML & Webkit  
retain separate codebases, then.

SquirrelFish seems interesting & relevant to this conversation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit
(also see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KHTML>)

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with the web browsers

[M Daniel R M]

On Sun, 2009-08-16 at 20:01 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sunday 16 August 2009 18:40:12 M Daniel R M wrote:
> > Konqueror: very stable indeed, but it couldn't be at another way since
> > it's a key piece of the KDE environment... The problem comes when I want
> > to fill in forms (you know... web pages for registering, etc.). It stops
> > many times without giving us an alert message or some kind of
> > explanation, so you have to deduce that the problem is not from the
> > website, but the browser instead.
> >
> > I don't know whether problems come from java or whatever..., I've
> > checked my konqueror preferences and I'd bet they are all OK..
> 
> javascript support in konqueror sucks.
> 

I always thought that here it isn't my fault (that is, incomplete
installs and so on..)

> For everything else it's actually OK. One of these days it will use webkit as 
> the backend and then things might improve. Until then, I'm afraid you are SOL.
> 

ASAP, please!

I think konqueror lacks of such abilities, and they are practically
essential nowadays, but apart from that..., other capabilities are fine
IMHO (speed, stability, ...). Ops! In addition, I realize now that
sometimes konqueror renders (shows) some webpages badly (you know,
things placed in the frame where they shouldn't, etc.) 

Regards,

Daniel R. Magarzo