Firefox for piCore 11

[ashfame]

Hi,

I am attempting to run my application as kiosk mode as demonstrated in TC book. How do I get the firefox.tcz since its not available on the repo? Thanks!

Edit: I saw Juanito's post here http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,23981.0.html Would it be possible to use either of those to run the application in kiosk mode?

Also, why isn't firefox available? Cuz nobody compiled & packaged it for the target or something else?

[Juanito]

Firefox is available in the piCore-11.x armv7 repo - I didn’t put it in the armv6 repo as I didn’t have the means to test and I suspect it uses simd/neon instructions.

[ashfame]

Firefox is available in the piCore-11.x armv7 repo - I didn’t put it in the armv6 repo as I didn’t have the means to test and I suspect it uses simd/neon instructions.

I have no idea about the simd/neon instructions you are mentioning, but is testing specifically just running it to ensure it crashes or something? I can try that.

I found dillo doesn't have JS support, so it won't work for me. Epiphany I couldn't find it in repo either but that seems to be based on webkit so would support everything (not sure of the kiosk mode though).

[Rich]

Hi ashfame

... I have no idea about the simd/neon instructions you are mentioning, ...

Typically, when the question of whether specific instructions are utilized in a program, they refer to instructions designed/used
for a performance boost. So if you try it out, it shouldn't take long for them to show up if they were used. Start Firefox
from a terminal so you can see any error messages. In x86, that type of error would say  "illegal instruction".  I would
expect ARM to behave in a similar fashion.

[ashfame]

Hi ashfame

... I have no idea about the simd/neon instructions you are mentioning, ...

Typically, when the question of whether specific instructions are utilized in a program, they refer to instructions designed/used
for a performance boost. So if you try it out, it shouldn't take long for them to show up if they were used. Start Firefox
from a terminal so you can see any error messages. In x86, that type of error would say  "illegal instruction".  I would
expect ARM to behave in a similar fashion.

Hi Rich, oh instruction set, right, that makes sense.

But since my target is Raspberry Pi Zero which is arm6 and 32 bit, what do you suggest would be easier to get up a kiosk running with JS support?

I would try running firefox but I don't know how to obtain its tcz file

[Rich]

Hi ashfame
According to this:
http://tinycorelinux.net/11.x/armv7/tcz/firefox.tcz.info
it says:

RPi2, RPi3 and RPi4 only

I'm not familiar with their architecture numbering system, but is a  Pi Zero  at least a  RPI2 ?

Regardless, it doesn't stop you from trying it if you wish. Download these into you  tce  directory:
http://tinycorelinux.net/11.x/armv7/tcz/firefox.tcz
http://tinycorelinux.net/11.x/armv7/tcz/firefox.tcz.dep

Then:

Code: [Select]

tce-load -i firefox
An icon should appear in the wbar. Click it and see if Firefox starts.

[ashfame]

Hi ashfame
According to this:
http://tinycorelinux.net/11.x/armv7/tcz/firefox.tcz.info
it says:

RPi2, RPi3 and RPi4 only

I'm not familiar with their architecture numbering system, but is a  Pi Zero  at least a  RPI2 ?

Regardless, it doesn't stop you from trying it if you wish. Download these into you  tce  directory:
http://tinycorelinux.net/11.x/armv7/tcz/firefox.tcz
http://tinycorelinux.net/11.x/armv7/tcz/firefox.tcz.dep

Then:

Code: [Select]

tce-load -i firefox
An icon should appear in the wbar. Click it and see if Firefox starts.

Hi Rich,

Its different from RPI2. RPI2 is ARMv7 and RPI Zero is ARMv6 but I will give this a try and report back

[Rich]

Hi ashfame
If it doesn't start, look in  ~/.wmx.Applications.  You should see a file called  firefox.  Inside is the command you can use to start it
from the command line to see any error messages. If the command begins with  exec , omit that part.

[curaga]

Both Firefox and Webkit dropped armv6 support years ago. So you don't have many good options to run a modern browser on that. Old versions of those, or maybe some rpi-specific forks.

[ashfame]

Hi ashfame
If it doesn't start, look in  ~/.wmx.Applications.  You should see a file called  firefox.  Inside is the command you can use to start it
from the command line to see any error messages. If the command begins with  exec , omit that part.

Hi Rich, It didn't work. Got "Illegal instruction" message.

Both Firefox and Webkit dropped armv6 support years ago. So you don't have many good options to run a modern browser on that. Old versions of those, or maybe some rpi-specific forks.

Hi curaga,

Do you know what was the last version that was supported under armv6? Perhaps I can try that?
Do you know of any such rpi-specific forks? I will try to find something along those lines but if you can share something, that would be great

[curaga]

Sorry, I don't use rpi, I don't have those details.

[Juanito]

You could try compiling with https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/31.3.0esr/source/firefox-31.3.0esr.source.tar.bz2

[ashfame]

You could try compiling with https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/31.3.0esr/source/firefox-31.3.0esr.source.tar.bz2

Hi Juanito,

I am guessing that would require compiling on Raspberry Pi itself to not have to cross compile and attempting to do it on a Raspberry Pi Zero with no networking option isn't an acceptable device to compile it on.

I noticed that epiphany browser is also packaged for armv7 here http://tinycorelinux.net/11.x/armv7/tcz/ but not for armv6, can that be packaged and made available in the armv6 repo? Its my understanding that's still armv6 code as that's the browser which comes in official OS as well.

[Rich]

Hi ashfame

...  Its my understanding that's still armv6 code as that's the browser which comes in official OS as well.

If that's the case, you should be able to just download it from the ARMv7 repository.

[Rich]

Hi ashfame
According to:
http://tinycorelinux.net/11.x/armv7/tcz/epiphany.tcz.dep
you will also need to copy over  webkitgtk4.tcz.

That's as far down the dependency tree I checked. Copy those 2 extensions and their  .dep  files to your  tce/optional  directory. Then

Code: [Select]

tce-load -i epiphanyWatch for  not found  messages to see if any other dependencies are missing.