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================================================================================
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = Firefox Read Me = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
================================================================================
Firefox is subject to the terms detailed in the license agreement
accompanying it.
This Read Me file contains information about system requirements and
installation instructions for the OS/2 build of Firefox.
For more info on Firefox, see http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/.
For more info on the OS/2 port see http://www.mozilla.org/ports/os2. To submit
bugs or other feedback check out Bugzilla at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org for
links to known bugs, bug-writing guidelines, and more. You can also get help
with Bugzilla by pointing your IRC client to #mozillazine at irc.mozilla.org,
OS/2 specific problems are discussed in #warpzilla and in the newsgroup
mozilla.dev.ports.os2 on news.mozilla.org.
================================================================================
Getting Firefox
================================================================================
Official Milestone builds of Firefox are published on the release page at
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/
OS/2 releases are not created by Mozilla.org staff and may appear on the page
http://www.mozilla.org/ports/os2 before the releases page. Be sure to read the
Firefox release notes linked on the releases page for information on known
problems and installation issues with Firefox.
================================================================================
System Requirements on OS/2
================================================================================
- This release requires updated C runtime DLLs (libc-0.5.1) from
http://www.innotek.de/products/gccos2/download/gccos2download_e.html
in order to run. By default the installation routine places them in \OS2\DLL
on your bootdrive, but you can put them in the same directory as Firefox's
executable, or somewhere else in your LIBPATH.
- Minimum hardware requirements
+ Pentium class processor
+ 64 MiB RAM plus 64 MiB free swap space
+ 35 MiB free harddisk space for installation
plus storage space for disk cache
- Recommended hardware for acceptable performance
+ 500 MHz processor
+ 256 MiB RAM plus 64 MiB free swap space
NOTE: Firefox's performance and stability increases the more physical
RAM is available. Especially for long sessions 512 MiB of memory is
recommended.
+ Graphics card and driver capable of displaying more than 256 colors
- Software requirements
+ Installation on a file system supporting long file names
(i.e. HPFS or JFS but not FAT)
+ OS/2 Warp 4 with Fixpack 15 or later
+ MPTS version 5.3
+ TCP/IP version 4.1
+ INETVER: SOCKETS.SYS=5.3007, AFOS2.SYS=5.3001, AFINET.SYS=5.3006
NOTE: Do not attempt to use MPTS & TCP/IP versions below these INETVER
levels. Although Firefox may seem to start and run normally with older
stacks, some features Firefox needs are not implemented correctly in
older MPTS versions, which may result in crashes and data loss.
+ Convenience Pack 2 or eComStation 1.0 or later meet these requirements
out of the box.
================================================================================
Installation Instructions
================================================================================
For all platforms, unpack into a clean (new) directory. Installing on top of
previously released builds may cause problems with Firefox.
Note: These instructions do not tell you how to build Firefox.
For info on building the Firefox source, see
http://www.mozilla.org/build/
OS/2 Installation Instructions
------------------------------
On OS/2, Firefox does not have an installation program. To install it,
download the .zip file and follow these steps:
1. Click the "Zip" link on the site you're downloading Firefox from
to download the ZIP package to your machine. This file is typically called
firefox-os2-*.zip where the "*" is replaced by the Firefox version.
2. Navigate to where you downloaded the file and unpack it using your
favorite unzip tool.
3. Keep in mind that the unzip process creates a directory "firefox"
below the location you point it to, i.e.
unzip firefox-os2-1.0.1.zip -d c:\firefox-1.0.1
will unpack Firefox into c:\firefox-1.0.1\firefox.
4. Make sure that you are _not_ unpacking over an old installation. This is
known to cause problems.
5. To start Firefox, navigate to the directory you extracted
Firefox to, make sure that the C library DLLs are copied to the
installation directory or installed in the LIBPATH, and then double-click
the Firefox.exe object.
Running multiple versions concurrently
--------------------------------------
Because various members of the Mozilla family (i.e. Mozilla, Firefox,
Thunderbird, IBM Web Browser) may use different, incompatible versions of the
same DLL, some extra steps may be required to run them concurrently.
One workaround is the LIBPATHSTRICT variable. To run Firefox one can create
a CMD script like the following example (where an installation of Firefox
exists in the directory d:\internet\firefox is assumed):
set LIBPATHSTRICT=T
rem The next line may be needed when a different Mozilla program is listed in LIBPATH
rem set BEGINLIBPATH=d:\internet\firefox
rem The next line is only needed to run two different versions of Firefox
rem set MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1
d:
cd d:\internet\firefox
firefox.exe %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
Similarly, one can create a program object to start Firefox using the
following settings:
Path and file name: *
Parameters: /c set LIBPATHSTRICT=T & .\firefox.exe "%*"
Working directory: d:\internet\firefox
(One might need to add MOZ_NO_REMOTE and/or BEGINLIBPATH as in the CMD script
above depending on the system configuration.)
Finally, the simplest method is to use the Run! utility by Rich Walsh that can
be found in the Hobbes Software Archive:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-search?key=Run!
Read its documentation for more information.
Separating profiles from installation directory
-----------------------------------------------
To separate the locations of the user profile(s) (containing the bookmarks and
all customizations) from the installation directory to keep your preferences in
the case of an update even when using ZIP packages, set the variable
MOZILLA_HOME to a directory of your choice. You can do this either in Config.sys
or in a script or using a program object as listed above. If you add
set MOZILLA_HOME=f:\Data
the Firefox user profile will be created in "f:\Data\Mozilla\Firefox".
If you are migrating from Mozilla, Firefox's import routine will only find
the existing Mozilla profile data if MOZILLA_HOME is correctly set to point to
it.
Other important environment variables
-------------------------------------
There are a few enviroment variables that can be used to control special
behavior of Firefox on OS/2:
- set NSPR_OS2_NO_HIRES_TIMER=1
This causes Firefox not to use OS/2's high resolution timer. Set this if
other applications using the high resolution timer (multimedia apps) act
strangely.
- set MOZILLA_USE_EXTENDED_FT2LIB=T
If you have the Innotek Font Engine installed this variable enables special
functions in Firefox to handle unicode characters.
- set MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1
Use this to run two instances of Firefox simultaneously (like e.g. debug
and optimized version).
Find more information on this topic and other tips on
http://www.os2bbs.com/os2news/Warpzilla.html
Known Problems of the OS/2 version
----------------------------------
Cross-platform problems are usually listed in the release notes of each
milestone release.
- Bug 167884, "100% CPU load when viewing site [tiling transparent PNG]":
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=167884
On OS/2, Mozilla's rendering engine is known to have very slow performance on
websites that use small, repeated images with transparency for their layout.
This affects rendering in Firefox as well.
Other known problems can be found by following the link "Current Open Warpzilla
Bugs" on the OS/2 Mozilla page <http://www.mozilla.org/ports/os2/>.