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Modern browser ports for old operating systems?

CZroe

CZroe

Lifer
Very often I see people with older "useless" PCs that would be perfectly fine for web browsing and email, provided that it could be secured with an up-to-date and fully-patched Internet software suite. Unfortunately, that isn't always possible.

Now, one of the strong points of OpenSource is that it usually gets ported to platforms with minimal interest but, for the sake of cross-platform dev simplicity, FireFox uses some interface standard designed for easy development across only the most modern operating systems, hence, no Win9x or pre-OSX support.

Now, this doesn't mean that some coders can't take it upon themselves to make a port and maintain it themselves, so I'd like to know: Has anyone? I can certainly see the need.

What prompted this: They just threw out a perfectly-working fruity-colored iMac where my brother works because they couldn't even get an up-to-date browser on it. 🙂 Oh and, FWIW, updating the OS usually isn't an option. I mean, even a WinME 1.3GHz s423 Intel Pentium 4 Williamette with 128MB RDRAM in an i850 board isn't too happy with Windows XP and upgrading RDRAM isn't ideal. 128MB is MORE than enough for Win98SE and is OK for web browsing with WinME. Granted, that same system would be fine if it happened to have more memory, but what about all the PIII Katmai + 440BX, PIII Coppermine +i810 & PIII Tualatin + i815 (from the same era) based systems? Even if they had enough SDRAM (also expensive to upgrade these days) to make XP tolerable, only the fastest of them would be ideal.
 
It is possible. Often it just involves modifying the source code slightly, or changing compiler options.
I don't know of anyone specifically doing that for older systems.
I would instead probably suggest you install a version of linux that supports the current browsers under limited ram/resources.
http://puppylinux.org/




I wanted to see how much resources puppy really needed so I installed it to a virtual machine. I set the limits at 80MB for ram, 8GB for HD, 8MB for video. I am really impressed . It runs well, has lots of applications and all a good user interface. I am posting this now from within puppy linux. Nice OS for older hardware. Video set at 1024x768x16.

 
Originally posted by: Modelworks
It is possible. Often it just involves modifying the source code slightly, or changing compiler options.
I don't know of anyone specifically doing that for older systems.
I would instead probably suggest you install a version of linux that supports the current browsers under limited ram/resources.
http://puppylinux.org/




I wanted to see how much resources puppy really needed so I installed it to a virtual machine. I set the limits at 80MB for ram, 8GB for HD, 8MB for video. I am really impressed . It runs well, has lots of applications and all a good user interface. I am posting this now from within puppy linux. Nice OS for older hardware. Video set at 1024x768x16.
Click to expand...

Puppy's great. It's really a marvel at what gets done with limited resources and space. You also get the benefit of not requiring resource consuming security apps. If you're really stuck on staying with Windows, give Opera a try. Opera9 supports down to Win95, I'm not sure about the newly released Opera10. Here's the support schedule for OSX. I don't know much about Macs, so you can read that yourself...

http://www.opera.com/support/kb/view/793/
 
Originally posted by: lxskllr
Puppy's great. It's really a marvel at what gets done with limited resources and space[...]
Click to expand...
Originally posted by: Modelworks
I would instead probably suggest you install a version of linux that supports the current browsers under limited ram/resources.

http://puppylinux.org/
Click to expand...
No kidding!!! 😀

We tried MANY different OSs on an ancient Fujitsu LifeBook lappy - you know - all the usual recommended wimp-dick Linux distros - Win2K - XP, blah, blah, blah...

This lappy has 64 MB RAM and a 5 GB HD. It came with WinME. Yuck!!!

Every 'modern' OS was uselessly slow -- except for Puppy Linux. And, Puppy worked wonders!

So, that would be my recommendation (too)... 😉
 
Firefox is probably the most portable of all the browsers (maybe opera?) in terms of the OS support.

But you should probably 'upgrade' to a newer OS anyway. OS9 and Win9x are nigh useless, just throw some variant of linux on that. (puppy is a good idea, or damn small linux, but ubuntu will work well on more recent systems, anything with more than 256MB of ram)
 
Thanks for all the suggestions! Linux isn't often an option because these are usually hand-me-down computers for kids that are loaded with Windows software that the kids use (usually older software appropriate for the hardware specs). Often times the kids are into something like paid RuneScape or ToonTown Online or whatever Windows-only web game they can suffer through. That said, I'm surprised that even Ubuntu has gotten so beefy that it's only recommended for 256MB+ systems... I guess it's more of a product of the software it contains getting more bloated (Firefox, for example, is optimized for more memory, faster CPUs, etc than browsers 9+ years ago).
 
Not really intending to argue, but most web content is O/S agnostic. If that's the biggest hurdle, some kind of Linux should work. Anything under 2kpro is a security risk, and really just plain bad to use. It's getting to the point where A/V, and antimalware packages aren't supporting these O/Ss, and that's where you need them most.
 
That said, I'm surprised that even Ubuntu has gotten so beefy that it's only recommended for 256MB+ systems...
Click to expand...

It's not Ubuntu, it's Gnome. More functionality requires more code running thus more memory. You can install Ubuntu and then use something more lightweight like e16, FVWM, etc if you want.
 
Originally posted by: CZroe
Thanks for all the suggestions! Linux isn't often an option because these are usually hand-me-down computers for kids that are loaded with Windows software that the kids use (usually older software appropriate for the hardware specs). Often times the kids are into something like paid RuneScape or ToonTown Online or whatever Windows-only web game they can suffer through. That said, I'm surprised that even Ubuntu has gotten so beefy that it's only recommended for 256MB+ systems... I guess it's more of a product of the software it contains getting more bloated (Firefox, for example, is optimized for more memory, faster CPUs, etc than browsers 9+ years ago).
Click to expand...

Are you sure the web games are Windows only?
Wine might work for them too.
You could also check out coLinux, andLinux, or ulteo. They're all based on cooperative linux kernels that run within windows so they can run and use the updated web browsers.

Alternatively, Windows 2000 would be a huge step up, and it should be easy to find copies.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
That said, I'm surprised that even Ubuntu has gotten so beefy that it's only recommended for 256MB+ systems...
Click to expand...

It's not Ubuntu, it's Gnome. More functionality requires more code running thus more memory. You can install Ubuntu and then use something more lightweight like e16, FVWM, etc if you want.
Click to expand...

It still relies on a ton of gnome services.

To be honest, modern Linux is pretty bloated. Gnome is only just under Windows XP in resource requirements, and even the most stripped down versions of (modern) Linux still require resources on par or above Windows 2000.

BTW, the systems look powerful enough (have enough ram) to run puppylinux. They could probably even run virualizted damn small linux.

There's also ReactOS, a reverse engineered version of Windows 2000 that's making good progress and should be pretty secure.
 
It still relies on a ton of gnome services.
Click to expand...

I guess our definition of "ton" is different because the only extra things I really see on my system are hal, dbus, gnome-settings-daemon (which I use because most of my apps are GTK), gconf and gvfs stuff.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
It still relies on a ton of gnome services.
Click to expand...

I guess our definition of "ton" is different because the only extra things I really see on my system are hal, dbus, gnome-settings-daemon (which I use because most of my apps are GTK), gconf and gvfs stuff.
Click to expand...

Ok, Ubuntu relies on gnome services, and many of its variants (xubuntu for sure) also do that are a lot more resource heavy than possible alternatives.

Xubuntu is a pretty crappy XFCE distro, but I'd say the same about Kubuntu and KDE.
 
Ok, Ubuntu relies on gnome services, and many of its variants (xubuntu for sure) also do that are a lot more resource heavy than possible alternatives.
Click to expand...

Ubuntu doesn't "rely" on those services any more than Debian or Fedora does. They're just in the default desktop install because the default desktop is Gnome.
 
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