NetSurf

[gwalther]

NetSurf is a small CLI and gtk web browser.  It got a good review here:

http://soosck.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/netsurf-graphical-web-browser-command-line-css/

Could it be made available as  a TC extension? 

[maro]

Hmm, if the idea is to get a small web browser I guess it should be attempted to build the non-GTK2 version of it. I take it from the referenced page that this is possible, but maybe not well documented.

[Jason W]

I will give this a shot and see if I can't post an initial version.

[gwalther]

Thanks Jason and Maro for trying.

Just to try it, I  managed to get ...netsurf-gtk (version 2.1) working by converting a .deb package to tcz
Required libraries were a big hassel.
I am trying it out...seems fast and light but with limitations...I could log on to TC forum using it.

Have not tried to get CLI version working yet.

[Jason W]

I have CLI version, will upload shortly.  SSL support is lacking, but there are patches out there.  I will see if I can get a patch to work to provide rudimentary SSL support.

[Jason W]

CLI version uploaded.  Framebuffer does not work, but I will look more into it.  But it runs in X.

[maro]

...  But it runs in X.

provided that the 'SDL.tcz' extension is also installed.

Maybe worth putting that into the .info file, or making it an additional dependency.

Furthermore there seems to be something else missing, as on my initial test (using a QEMU VM as well as "real" hardware) not a single character shows up on screen. Some images are coming through, so it might be an issue with fonts.

BTW, I'm not sure that we need all those static libraries (e.g. 'libwapcaplet.tcz', 'libparserutils.tcz', 'libnsgif.tcz', 'libnsbmp.tcz', 'hubbub.tcz', 'libnsfb.tcz', 'libcss.tcz') as dedicated extensions in the TCZ 3.x repository. I would have thought they are more or less just required to compile 'netsurf' itself, but have next to no value as a stand-alone extension. But I could be wrong ...

EDIT: Plus I forgot to mention that I personally see it working purely on framebuffer to be a 'nice to have' feature. I hope that does not mean it would loose it's capability to work under a X server (possibly requiring SDL). All this on the assumption that one will be eventually able to actually read a few letters as well ...

[Jason W]

Yeah, I forgot to list SDL.tcz in the dep file, will do that.  But I am not sure that SDL is really required, I will check on that.

The characters show up on my full install, but as you have observed they do not show up with a 'base norestore' boot.  I will pinpoint the missing dependency, it right now eludes me, and it is not the dejavu fonts or the ttf-bitstream vera, but I will find it.  I used ldd to determine the deps in a rush, and it came back to bite me.

The development extensions will help me or anyone else to quickly rebuild netsurf, so that is their main and only purpose, a time saver.

The framebuffer would be nice, and I am interested in realizing it.  Perhaps a 'netsurf-common' extension for common files, and a netsurf.tcz and netsurf-gtk.tcz for the build targets. I think that the framebuffer and the X version require about the same deps, while the gtk target obviously requires more.

[Jason W]

I will fix the character issue in the morning, it is getting late.

[Jason W]

OK, it was glibc_gconv.tcz that was needed.

Updated dep file.

[curaga]

You really need some more sleep

[Jason W]

Yeah, sleep is one barrier that can stop us as also.   

The gtk port will not build on either TC or Arch linux with or without Arch's patches.  But there is a binary available in their package set, and there is a bug existing for that failure to build.    Haven't looked how Debian did theirs.

Being that netsurf is still pretty experimental and sketchy, I won't spend much more time right now on it, gtk or framebuffer, and the X version is there for testing purposes.  I will perhaps revisit it in later releases.  If anyone has better results, of course feel free to submit them. 

[maro]

Thanks Jason for your effort.

Within 24h it has become clearer (at least to myself) that 'netsurf' is maybe not that great hope for a small browser. Considering all dependencies it's now needing ca. 7 MBytes to download (of which 3 MB are just for 'glibc_gconv.tcz'), and it does not really work that well for me. So Opera (v9.64) seems still to be the best compromise for a small "fully working" browser.

Maybe in the interest of someone else having a go it would be worthwhile if you'd put your build steps into a script somewhere. I've only spotted the source archive files in the '.../tinycorelinux/3.x/tcz/src' sub-directories so far, but might have overlooked something.

[gwalther]

I hoped that netsurf would be a light quick "better then dillo2" limited browser for my target machine...a old, resource limited, laptop running tc3.x.  I tried two versions..the 3x extension...netsurf.tcz and netsurf-gtk that I converted from a .deb package.

Netsurf.tcz ran on my target machine, but not well...choppy, slow and would not render a lot of pages at all.....not as good as dillo2

Netsurf-gtk ran quite well on my desktop tc2.x machine running Xorg.  It rendered pages quite well, and I could log into TC Forum..overall better then dillo2....however I could not get netsurf-gtk to run on my target machine.....(unresolved symbol ...libgdk-xll-2.0...) perhaps because I was running xvesa and not xorg.....

Oh well..thanks to all for your efforts...a learning effort for me.

[Jason W]

My personal preference for a small browser is links.tcz, though not quite fully graphical it can run graphically in the framebuffer when gpm is activated, and it is rock solid.  3.81mb download including dependencies.

I was hoping netsurf would have been a little more stable and mature, it's dependencies hosted on their site built without a single warning but not so for the browser itself.  And trying to use framebuffer mode simply results in a segfault.  Was worth a try, and I will look further one day into the gtk build one day, but as pointed out it already occupies 7mb,  gtk would put it into the download size realm of the fuller featured browsers.

Oh, I did overlook the build script for each source, but they were all a simple case of:

cd $src
make PREFIX=/usr/local
make install PREFIX=/usr/local DESTDIR=/tmp/$srcname/pkg

I will make scripts for it and upload to each src directory.