FreeBSD, Firefox 3.6, and Java…

By finndo On March 31, 2010 · 1 Comment

I had a real hard time figuring this out, as the FreeBSD handbook is once again out of date on this subject.  so I’ll list the steps I followed to get Firefox working and to get java to run on it (still not 100% on the working java thing, but I [...]

I had a real hard time figuring this out, as the FreeBSD handbook is once again out of date on this subject.  so I’ll list the steps I followed to get Firefox working and to get java to run on it (still not 100% on the working java thing, but I found plenty of things to try!)

 

Firefox 3.6

******************

easy as pie, follow these steps and hope you don’t have any problems (I did not)

  1. cd /usr/ports/www/firefox3
  2. sudo make install clean

done, worked like a charm, happy to oblige.

 

now… on to java (at this point still not working), quite a few more steps here and whatever file you find in your ports tree is not going to work, so just ignore it.

Java 1.6.0.07.02

******************

  1. cd /usr/ports/java/javavmwrapper
  2. sudo make install clean
  3. now open a web browser (I had to do this on another machine, then ftp it to my FreeBSD box, as seamonkey crashes everytime I start it and lynx downloaded the webpage the file is on and not the file, could be an issue between the keyboard and the chair however…) and travel the world wide web until you reach: http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/downloads/java.shtml
  4. find the correct version for your system and download it, I used:
    Diablo Latte JRE 1.6.0-7 FreeBSD 7.x/amd64 End-User 26M diablo-jre-freebsd7.amd64.1.6.0.07.02.tbz
  5. click the link, ok the agreement, then DL (lynx just DL’d the page when I told it to follow the link, not sure what I did wrong, but I went around the issue instead of resolving it).  (oh and a side note, if you frequently end up at websites to get text based information and do not want java and flash scripts and embedded object killing your inet speed, locking up your processes, or just don’t want to see or have others see the images that may appear on the screen, use lynx as your www browser, it works great… most of the time.)
  6. now you can put the java file where you want, I ended up placing mine in /usr/ports/distfiles/diablosimply because the diablo port that was already on my system told me to go DL it and put it in /usr/ports/distfiles. from here on I will reference that dir, keep that in mind if you put it somewhere else.
  7. if you are not already there, cd /usr/ports/distfiles/diablo
  8. make config-recursive install clean
  9. now you should get this as your output (the version numbers may change if you do this farther into the future when new versions of things are available):
    pkg_add: warning: package ‘diablo-jdk-1.6.0.07.02′ requires ‘xtrans-1.0.4′, but ‘xtrans-1.2.3′ is installed
    pkg_add: warning: package ‘diablo-jdk-1.6.0.07.02′ requires ‘xproto-7.0.10_1′, but ‘xproto-7.0.15′ is installed
    pkg_add: warning: package ‘diablo-jdk-1.6.0.07.02′ requires ‘xextproto-7.0.2′, but ‘xextproto-7.0.5′ is installed
  10. sudo pkgdb -F (resolved the dependency issue from step #9 immediately)
  11. sudo ln -s /usr/local/diablo-jre1.6.0/lib/amd64libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/local/lib/firefox3/plugins (makes a symbolic link between the plugin file and the Firefox directory for plugins, basically up to this point you have installed java for FreeBSD, now we are setting it up to work in Firefox.  A user on a forum has made the conclusion that konqueror does not require this step and can call java itself if it has been installed correctly.  note if you don’t go read that post, you do have to set the path to java in konqueror or setting a JAVA_HOME environmental variable.) 
  12.  sudo ln -s /usr/local/diablo-jre1.6.0/lib/amd64/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/symlinks/gecko18/libjavaplugin_oji.so
  13. sudo ln -s /usr/local/diablo-jre1.6.0/lib/amd64/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/symlinks/gecko19/libjavaplugin_oji.so
  14. sudo ln -s /usr/local/diablo-jre1.6.0/lib/amd64/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so
  15. ln -s /usr/local/diablo-jre1.6.0/lib/amd64/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so ~/.mozilla/firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so (sudo not needed because this is being put in your home directory)
    I found all these locations (in 11 – 15) by doing a “sudo find / -name libmozsvgdec.so” as this plugin does show up in Firefox, but java still does not.
  16. so I checked my links, and sure enough all of the links looked like this:
    lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     20 Mar 31 09:37 libjavaplugin_oji.so@ -> libjavaplugin_oji.so so I did
    a.  sudo rm libjavaplugin_oji.so 
    b. sudo ln -s /usr/local/diablo-jre1.6.0/lib/amd64/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so ./libjavaplugin_oji.so
    in each directory that had the bad link
  17. so, from a FreeBSD forum post I found this information: try running “sudo /usr/local/diablo-jre1.6.0/bin/jcontrol” which would not run via ssh, or the “F2″ command line in KDE4, could not open it from Dolphin, nor from a local console (ttyv2). both the local console and ssh terminal give the same error: Error occurred during initialization of VM
    Unable to load ZIP library: /usr/local/diablo-jre1.6.0/lib/amd64/libzip.so
    I have verified it is there and is owned by root.

Now this page has a very interesting piece of information dated feb 3rd 2010…

JAVA PLUGIN DOES NOT WORK IN FIREFOX 3.6 ON FREEBSD AT THIS TIME

this may have something to do with why the FreeBSD ports have Firefox, Firefox3, and Firefox 35. 

 

so, I’m off to see if 3.5 and 3.6 can co-exist… one last note before I head off, I read on one of these forums that if you do everything else before installing Firefox, then run sudo make config-recursive install cleanone of the option in the config with be to enable java or some such, so we will see what happends…

 

after running sudo make config-recursive command in the /usr/ports/www/firefox directory I figured out exactly why to use the -recursive part… it runs the config option on ALL dependencies also. (oh and fyi I saw nothing about java in any of them…)

 

A couple of sites I visited while writing this up…

FreeBSD wiki – great site, except most of the pages were dated 2007

Lioks‘ FreeBSD tutorials & tips for beginners

The FreeBSD freshports page, which also shows “that very interesting piece of information”

A message poston a Unix forum about getting Firefox to work on FreeBSD, it’s for FreeBSD 5.3 but was a slightly amusing post, so I am linking it here anyway.

And finally the search I used to find them

 

Ok boys and girls, off to uninstall my Firefox 3.6.2 and to install Firefox 3.5, see you next time!

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FreeBSD 8.0 and KDE, the next step

By finndo On March 30, 2010 · 1 Comment

Ok, so my FreeBSD box boots, I have the beastie to welcome me to my system, KDE launches when I type startx, my mouse and KB both work from the console and in [...]

Ok, so my FreeBSD box boots, I have the beastie to welcome me to my system, KDE launches when I type startx, my mouse and KB both work from the console and in KDE, and my system is nearly completely up to date.  All looking good so far, now I need to get some things working in KDE, I am not sure if I want to install the ATI drivers… it always leads me back to the dreaded “blank black screen”  so I may hold out on doing that, as the last time I installed them I had to do a reinstall of the system to get booted again.  Although I may not have to worry about that since I have KDE setup to load only when I tell it to.

 

The first thing I noticed is there is no GUI package management system, I do not mind running it from the console, in fact I may just prefer it; however I do not like not having the option to do so.  so here is a list of things I need to do to get everything where I want it… (not in any particular order)

 

  1. install VirtualBox (done but not running/needs configuration)
  2. install VMWare Workstation (I have a license for either 6.0 or 6.5 on ebay for linux x64 a while back for $5, I was the only one who bid.  I have the iso somewhere on one of my drives)
  3. mount all my ntfs drives and setup nfs support (all done before I started writing this except for 2 folders I want mounted in specific places)
  4. test my remote and local network ssh login (should be setup already, except forwarding the port on the router)
  5. get Google Chrome working
  6. test audio and video playback (can I watch hulu?)
  7. get my VM‘s to launch and successfully run programs (should be easy after installing the correct apps and configuring them, worried about the ATI drivers)
  8. install firefox (my backup browser for when web pages don’t work in chrome)
  9. test remote access to FreeBSD for my mounted ntfs drives (I have a friend in Korea that is willing to help)
  10. begin converting  my ntfs drives to a better FS
  11. convert my drives from MBR to GPT to utilize GUID‘s
  12. find a port/package manager GUI interface for KDE
  13. eliminate all traces of Gnome from my computer (several packages I have installed have dependencies that have Gnome in the name, need to find out if they are necessary and nuke em if not!!)
  14. build my first kernel
  15. get wine installed and working (in case I have something that will refuses to run in a VM)
  16. either install some older DOS games (<—two different links there) or find something newer out there install and get them working (VM or wine, just for fun and to say “oh yeah I love that game, I still it installed on my system…”)
  17. get Xorg port forwarding to work with cygwin.
  18. setup a respectable backup system (currently my backup drive turned into emergency storage when I had a few HDD’s all fail within weeks of each other last year, now I have new drives and enough storage space, I even copied the data off the external backup, but have not yet done a backup of FreeBSD.  Might make this item number one!!)
  19. get java working (part of getting hulu to run)
  20. get flash working (part of getting hulu to run)

 

Sorry about not getting this up sooner, I thought I posted it before I went out of town last week, but I found it today sitting here the drafts section still needing some work…

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Thoughts on Linux…

By finndo On February 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment

start off with some non-techie stuff first…

I head back to see my surgeon next Monday,  where he will tell me that in another week or two I should start putting some weight on my leg (toe touch, or partial weight bearing?) when at my PT.  I am also hoping he [...]

start off with some non-techie stuff first…

I head back to see my surgeon next Monday,  where he will tell me that in another week or two I should start putting some weight on my leg (toe touch, or partial weight bearing?) when at my PT.  I am also hoping he will tell me it is okay to get my incision wet, as it has been making it very difficult to take showers!

ok, on to the good stuff.

So, I am not at home and do not have my desktop machine available for use for the last week, I have been going through withdrawal…  but having to work on someone else’s machine, and my wife’s laptop (I think I mentioned before, I gave her mine, and sold her old one) has taught me one important lesson, why I prefer Linux.

My number one reason for preferring Linux over Windows is system maintenance.  What do I mean? well, I mean keeping everything up to date, this latest round of Adobe patching should make this make sense to everyone.  I don’t use Acrobat on my Linux machines for this reason.  However; back to the point, when I need to check for updates on my Linux machine I open Yakuake with a quick hit of F12 and type “sudo yum update” and it comes back and tells me every single thing installed on my system that has an update available, period, end of statement.  On windows, I have to launch 5-8 different apps, find their “check for updates” button/link and wait for the results (I have learned by doing this that OpenOffice.org does not notify you of a new version being released, only if there are updates for your version.  example, I have 3.1 installed, and 3.2 is now available.  clicking the check for updates menu option tells my “There are no available updates for this version” (maybe not word for word, but that is just about what it says).  I run windows update, Acrobat Update, Java update, Picasa update, Chrome update, Firefox update, and on and on… (yes I know there is an Adobe Updater, but I don’t know how to initiate it in Windows, and never cared enough to look it up, but now that I have mentioned it I sure I found instructions and have put a link to them here).

Simple and easy to manage, most distros even let you run their package manager and it has a button to click to check for updates for your system, making it easier and more time consuming all at once to do the same thing.  (Yakuake is always running and it takes me about 1.5 seconds to type that line into the terminal, it takes a lot longer to load the package manager from the application menu and then click the check for updates button, but you don’t have to type that way!)

The actual GUI interface for Windows an Linux and even MAC are so similar these days, that I don’t care which I am using as far as that is concerned.  I have come to the understanding that there will always be applications/games for an OS, other than the one I am using, that I want to use/play (take iPhone for example, they have the best Air Traffic Controller game I have played, and I’ve hunted those down and played quite a number of them, but I don’t own anything made by Apple, and probably won’t ever, unless the 2nd gen iPad totally rocks… but I will be getting an Android Tablet this year (possibly the Notion Ink Adam, or the HTC Google Chrome OS tablet), so I still probably won’t get an iPad).  My concern at this point, as I spend more and more time as a Unix Admin is maintenance.  The system I use at home needs to be practically maint free, as most Linux and Unix machines are, they will run for years without being touched by an admin, the best I know of are an AIX Server and a OpenVMS server, the AIX server has been running since 1991 and has never been patched, updated, reconfigured, or messed with in any way.  It is setup to contact a NIM server for logins, so no new users have ever been added to it, it has never crashed, never lost power, never been rebooted.  That to me is the greatest achievement of humankind (in technology anyways, and some of these companies need to take a look at the AIX OS and learn something from it!!!).  The other machine, the OpenVMS machine has been running since before 1994, but has not been patched, never been upgraded, never been rebooted, since 1994.  now I know next to nothing about OpenVMS, and have not personally logged into the machine itself, but a friend and co-worker of mine used to be the sole admin for the OpenVMS machines at that company and although that one is the only one like this, it is still running today without interference from humans.  I am sure some other machines are out there doing the same, but these are two that I know.  The longest Windows Server I have heard of running without rebooting or crashing was about 2.5 – 3 years, after which the hardware components in the server failed and the machine was replaced.  Some people have told me about Windows servers being up for 4 years and then being restarted by some new guy, but I have no validation of it and they could not give me a more exact time frame.

not sure if I made a compelling argument or not, but I need some medication and to go prop my leg up, so I am done here.  Also expecting UPS sooner or later for an over night supersave shipment… and it takes me 5 mins to get downstairs…  :)

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