Opera for Linux

Opera 4.0a for Linux Technology Preview 2 is now available! As noted by the version number, this is still an Alpha release. We at Opera have decided to refer to this version as a technology preview since the term Alpha states by its nature that it has not been released from our local offices. Since this is a technology preview, and not a beta, we are asking that you do not send us bug reports--there are still enough being generated internally to keep us busy for a while. In addition, we will not be providing technical support for this version yet. Any questions you have can be directed to our Opera for Linux newsgroup.

We have released this version so that our dedicated Opera users of the past that have made the transition to Linux can feel confident that we're doing the best we can to make sure that there will be a formal beta leading to a full release in the near future. Opera for Linux in its current state is not usable as a full browser; there are still quite a few features missing and many others still being debugged.

Opera For Linux 4.0a Technology Preview 2 Can:

• Render HTML 3.2 and 4.0 pages
• Execute quite a bit of EcmaScript 1.1 (Ecma-262 v.3)
• Render CSS 1 and 2 extensions
• FTP (50%)
• Cookies (60%)
• Http 1.1
• Jpeg
• Single frame gifs
• MDI
• Hotlist/Bookmarks
• Export and import bookmarks
• XML
• Proxy Settings

Opera For Linux 4.0a Can't:

• Communicate via TLS
• Display Animated GIFS
• Display TIFF images
• Preferences only 20% working
• Local Files
• No Plugin Support yet
• Transfer window
• HTTP Authorization
• Proper Font Handling
• Screen refresh
• SDI
• Asynchronous DNS

Changes since Technology Preview 1

• Better handling of HTML 4.0
• Better handling of CSS
• Improved Cache System
• Better font handling
• Image Scaling is almost perfect
• Better Ecma Script
• Better handling of resizing
• Added some minor problems with form control sizes
• Less screen refreshes
• Fixed many crashes
• Fixed table layout problems
• Some image download problems when mime type is unknown
• Initial implementation of SSL without exteneded key generation

Opera For Linux 4.0a Mini-FAQ

What are the system requirements to run this version of Opera for Linux?

The Standard C++ Library is required to run Opera for Linux. This library is a nightmare to statically link to a project. After some thought, we've decided that instead of linking it, we'd prefer to sprecify where it can be found. Most Linux distributions have it available. We've tested on clean installations of Corel 1.0, RedHat 6.1, Mandrake 6.0, Caldera 2.2, as well as several others. We're currently preparing to test with Debian and other versions we've obtained. You can get this library from most Linux vendors, or you can download and compile it from http://sourceware.cygnus.com

What X Servers is Opera know to work with

XFree86 3.3.5 (tested) or better, XIG or MetroX These are the X-Windows servers we test on. We have had great success in the past with XFree86 3.3.3.1, but we haven't tested earlier than that. We've tested with Accelerated X 5.0.2 from XIG and also with MetroX 4.3.4.

What C library versions does Opera for Linux run on now?

GLIBC 2.1 is currently the only version supported by the tech preview. This will be repaired in the near future. Machines are being prepared now for many different compile environments. GLIBC 2.0 will be supported in the next week. LibC5 is still not supported, though we're considering a full libc5 version in the near future as well.

Why is the file still so big?

Well, the reason for this is simple. We're statically linking most of the libraries. We've tried hard to keep the download below 2 megs, but we've managed when dynamically linking to cut the executable to under 2 megs. This causes an immediate drop in file size to 700kb for the download. When Qt 2.1 is a release product, we'll discontinue offerring only a staticlly linked version.

When will the this or that start working?

We've made some new additions to our development staff at Opera and feel that we'll have a huge amount of improvements in the following version. We're expecting to have implemented most of the menu items as well as providing right click menus on the browser. We're also planning to implement the rest of the download window and improve FTP support. SSL support is now in the works and should be available soon. It really wan't of much use before without having forms support working.

Why has Opera for Linux only been released for Linux 2.2 on x86?

At the moment, the development team is using Linux 2.2 systems on x86. We're actively persuing ports to the following operating systems:

• Linux 2.0, 2.2 and 2.4 on:
  • Intel x86
  • PowerPC G3, G4
  • Alpha AXP
  • MIPS 32bit
  • Sparc
  • Hopefully StrongARM
• SGI IRIX 6.5 or better 32 bit
• Sun Solaris for x86 and Sparc
• FreeBSD 3.4 x86
• OpenBSD 2.6 x86
• NetBSD 1.4
  • Intel x86
  • Sparc
  • Alpha

Although we've mentioned many of the Un*x platforms we hope to support, this doesn't mean we'll get to all of them in the 4.0 release. In most cases, we simply need to recompile for each platform and create a native package for release. In the process of porting, we've been finding that many of the UNIX operating systems are quite hard to port to from Linux. The greatest problems we've been having is the lack of a stable compiler environment.

Many may have noticed that we've removed SCO Unixware from the list. The reasoning for this is that UW 7 is terribly hard to create a stable compile environment with a near ISO compliant compiler. We're hoping this changes in the future, but the currently available snapshots of GCC for SCO are too old and the commercially available tools are too hard to debug for.

We've attempted to start releasing a FreeBSD version as of this release, however, we're experiencing complications with the compile environment as well. GCC is working wonderfully, however the ld is generating some interesting errors related to templates which aren't quite understandable. We'll hopefully have a functional version at the next release. For now, we understand that Opera for Linux works well under Linux emulation on the BSD platforms.

A slap in the face occurred when we compiled for non-intel processors. Although we managed to compile, apparently there have been some endian issues somewhere in the system. We'll take care of these soon.

Do I have to install Qt 2.1 on any machine I choose to run Opera on?

We've put a great deal of thought into this problem. We've decided that initially we'll release only statically linked binaries to limit the need for Qt 2.1 to be installed. Also, for distribution purposes, this will allow the end user to save a great deal of time downloading. We will likely also make available a dynamically linked version of Opera 4.0 for Linux once Qt 2.1 has reached "released" status.

Will Opera integrate with my desktop?

In version 4.0, integration into the environments such as KDE, Gnome, CDE, and others will not be a priority. For example, since KDE 1.1.2 is currently the standard release of KDE and it does not allow programmatically setting MIME types in the environment, we will not have the ability to do this unless we choose to also release a fully patched version of KDE to support this. When 2.0 becomes stable, we will likely add an installation option which allows Opera to act as the primary web browser for KDE.

Why does Opera Tech Preview seem to freeze as much as it does?

Actually, the sad but true answer to this question is that GLIBC 2.1 has a serious problem closing certain file and socket handles. We have seen nothing short of unexplainable anomalies related to the close() function in GLIBC 2.1. Currently because of this, we're considering releasing a statically linked libc5 version until this has been brought under control in GLIBC.

Why do pages tend to take so long to download?

Recently we have had a serious problem arise in our communication classes that causes asyncronous DNS lookups to crash the system constantly. At the last minute, the solution we reached is to remove async DNS lookups from the system. This fixed the problem temporarily, but as of the moment, the DNS lookup absorbs massive amounts of time in processing and sometimes even causes the program to freeze up.

Why doesn't the page automatically refresh itself to display images properly?

Within the last two weeks before release, the method of redrawing the window was changed. This caused images to display the last decoded chunk of data without a hard refresh. Currently we're looking into our image code to see what methods could be used to optimize display refreshes as well as cut memory consumption. At this time, image handling is the largest memory hog in Opera and this has to change before we release. Our footprint during runtime is usually around 7 megs, we're hoping for a maximum RAM footprint of 4.

I have a hot list window, why don't I have a hotlist?

You can download the hot list for Windows from our support web site, unzip it, then copy and rename it to ~/.opera/opera.adr. This will then add items to your hotlist. The hotlist is currently only partially complete and our user interface developers are working hard on making it work as well as possible.

Does Opera for Linux have command line options?

Yes, but for the moment the only one we'll mention is -page which is used to set the page which Opera displays on start up. For example:

Why does Opera tend to leave opera.ini files scaterred all over my hard drive?

Oops!! This will be fixed in the next release.

When will I see another but BETTER release?

Opera for Linux is currently scheduled for Tech Preview updates every 3 to 5 weeks. Now that we have one preview version available, we are working as hard as possible to make everyone say "WOW!!!!!!!!!!!" on the next release. We can't wait to see what you think of the next one.

This feature or that feature doesn't work! Why not?

Many of the features actually are implemented; however, since we're actively working on major enhancements and improvements to the user interface, we haven't linked the UI to the code. Many of these features are currently turned on and off through code and command line switches. Next release should have most everything in place.

Last Updated 25 January 2000