This project is finished.

To run Firefox 3 on Win98/Me, install KernelEx 0.3.4 (or later). As simple as is.

Tihiy, as I understand this is exactly the same patch as the previous one but this time it will be acceptable for our moderators.

using Win98SE (plus all updates to date today) with RP7 & Kex0.3.2a on MitacAvenia lp6613/chempc :500mhz;100mhzBus-128mbRAM;10gb hdd,+1gb&2gb flashusb drives............... ***Will Uberkern "UPSET" WindowsExplorer5.50.4134.100??? <NOTE:***KEX0.3.3b,c,d work wierdly with programs and internet surfin'...just locks up system "Totally-needs to re-boot after using each application or program-*yet no problems with older Kex0.3.2a????"> thanks...thydreamwalker (p.s.:will pray and sleep on tryin' this in mornin later today*

Athlon 3100+
98SE2ME
KernelEx033

Thanks for your hard work, Thihy!

Thought I'd report this even though it's largely negative...

Downloaded latest beta release of FF3. When i tried to install it, got it to unpack, but then it hangs. A few files installed and left in windows\temp. That's all.

Experimented with different paths in KEXVER.INI but it didn't make any difference. Still won't install.

alt+Ctrl+del showed "Setup not responding". Also showed Firefox Setup 3 but with no message.

Anyway, unfortunately couldn't get it installed...Any tips to possibly get past this hurdle, Thihy?

Will try later on an old pentium iii.

Quite strange you can't install or unpack it. Adding into [PerApp] of kexver.ini

is enough to install it. WinRAR >3.50 can unpack the installer.
Also note that minimum 0.3.3d is required!

Thanks for getting back.

I can unpack it, -- uberkern and kernelex. I was referring to the installer-unpacker of the Firefox Setup 3.0 Beta 5.exe program. I was presuming that it unpacks in c:\windows\temp which I think is correct.
Anyway, the firefox setup just hung...

BTW I'm using the latest 033e of kernelex. Anyway, i'll try later using the [perApp] setting you suggested and report back on what happened, hopefully with something positive to report!

Thanks once again for all you great efforts!

Pentium 3 (P866)
98SE2ME
KenelEx033e
Win98Lite

Fantastic!

Installed a treat. Added "Firefox Setup 3.0 Beta 5.exe=win2000" (without inverted commas) into [PerApp] of kexver.ini.

So this message comes via FF3! No problems as yet.

I think Thihy has done a tremendous job here and hopefully more people will be encouraged now to give it a try, and so spread the feedback for any needed improvements.

If you use Tihiy's tip, I'm prety sure that you'll install and run this version successfully (I've tested it yesterday for a couple of hours).

Yay! its back!

Been using it for the past 24 hours on and off. No real troubles. FF3 locked up just once but that could easily have been the browser. It is a beta after all.

Hopefully someone is still looking into the naming issue, if there is one that is. Separate from this forum I'm in touch with some of the FF3 development guys so if i come across any definite positive info I'll flag it up in a new thread here, admin permitting of course.

Course of action is very good .

You can see the feedback to date here, in this Newsgroup if you are interested:

mozilla.support.firefox on server 216.916.97.169 port 119.

Thanks. BTW These are really nice guys, been around in that forum for over 10 years now...Interesting to note how polite they are in addressing differences of opinion...

Cluberti, would you address the "stopped" Firefox 3 thread soon, please; one way or the other. At least everyone would then know where we stood. I sincerely hope common sense will prevail. This is, after all freeware and open source we're talking about. One wonders sometimes...

"An issue similar to this was just addressed in Navigator 9 where a user
wrapped NN 9 into a portable version. There is/was no legal issue
involved .. AND .. NN 9 isn't even open-source."

This is from the above stated Newsgroup by an officially recognised Netscape Champion.

Whilst the permanent blocking of the FF3 thread is one thing, this is another.

THERE IS NO LEGAL ISSUE INVOLVED.

Go visit the entire thread for yourself to check it out.

I guess if anyone is seriously interested in developing FF3 for win98SE this MSFN Forum is probably not the place?

But AFAICT there is no reason for it not to proceed.

I plan to. But you need to remember that it's NOT freeware, it's open source (free as in beer). There is a difference, it does have a license, and it should/must be followed (at least here on MSFN we try to follow EULAs regardless of from whom or of what type, closed source or GPL/BSD/open source).

If the FF people (an actual FF dev or a spokesperson) says you can make the binaries portable in this manner, then I don't think there will be any more noise from the mods here about it. Short of that, it's still in limbo. However, we've decided not to take any further actions with regards to this project, until there's word from the Firefox team directly on how they want to address it (if at all - again, this may be perfectly OK).

I'll read up when I get the chance later, as I want to see this newsgroup and perhaps ask some questions.

One of the problems I have is that Firefox 3 will exit every time I right click on the background of a page. It happens even when I right click just on a blank page. Does anyone have the same problem? And when I open FF3, I find it difficult to move the mouse round and round. After a few minutes it becomes normal again. I still have Firefox 2.0.0.14 on my computer. Is it the cause of the problem?

Edit: changing some words to make it clear.

Edit again: I tried installing FF3 on another drive other than the one having FF2 (Thanks Analada for the hint). The mouse works fine but the right click problem still exists. This is the error message:
Click to view attachment
I think I won't use FF3 on Win 98. Anyway, it's not my favourite browser.

From the mozilla.support.firefox Newsgroup:

"An issue similar to this was just addressed in Navigator 9 where a user
wrapped NN 9 into a portable version. There is/was no legal issue
involved .. AND .. NN 9 isn't even open-source."

-- Jay Garcia Netscape Champion UFAQ - http://www.UFAQ.org

Also from another person:

"if it's just wrapping a binary from Mozilla, I don't think there's any
problem with calling the browser itself Firefox. Naming the wrapper
may be a stickier issue. I'm not a lawyer, so I won't hazard an
opinion. You might want to read some of the documents linked from
<http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/index.html>. There's
also an e-mail address for trademark questions at the bottom of the
page."

Please see the whole thread at at the Newsgroup server 216.196.97.169 port 119 under "Firefox 3 on win98SE platform".

The naming /might/ be an issue. One experienced guy on that forum made the comment:

"...They [the Mozilla Foundation] may view this as a new Mozilla based product that should have an independent name."

On the other hand the Mozilla Foundation might not. Has anyone asked them? Anyway if it's just a question of naming the wrapper it can probably easily be resolved. As a matter of fact TiHiy always /did/ call the wrapper by another name, i.e. not Firefox; so there probably never was an issue.

Finally, to be perfectly candid with you, I hope that I'm not being a little too innocent here. And that behind all this (perhaps) understandable hesitancy on your part there is not a certain commercial entity which might not wish to see this solution advanced, and thus extend the effective usefulness of an "old" OS (?)

In the Seamonkey 2.x alpha nightly builds I'm beta testing, XUL.DLL file is also used there.

UberKern 0.2
- Fixed text output (multi-line text could be weird);
- Fixed non-existent glyph matching (some symbols were not displayed);
- Dummed UpdateLayeredWindow (scrolling arrow was not displayed);
- Fixed GetRandomRgn (trunk builds gfx was completely broken - note: they have other problems).

Great! Thank you very much, Tihiy, for the update!

Many thanks TiHiy !

UberKern 0.3
- This version implements ToUnicode function which is needed to handle hotkeys in trunk Minefield builds as well as may be needed to correctly handle keyboard input with dead-keys (accent or diacritic).
As soon as i fixed this issue, other issues raise: now pictures are broken in latest-trunk.
There is also problem reported with sudden constant disk usage: if you monitor programs with FileMon, you'll notice lot of I/O on sqlite files.
The known workaround is to delete them i'm not sure why this bug is triggered.

Solution: you can turn off malware protection in about:config (dowloading URLs from Google) to work this bug around. For YOUR OWN RISK!!!

Win 98
Pentium III
Firefox 3 Beta 5

After a long drawn out installation so that it works, I installed Firefox 3 successfully. I started it up. Worked correctly on my profile. Closed it, add -no-remote -p to the shortcut. Went in, created a new profile FF3, and it worked. Closed FF2 and FF3 once more, and tried to reopen FF3, but it failed without giving a reason (though it said crash reporter couldn't open). Reopened FF2 and tried again. Failed once more.

Any possible help?

Yeah, crash. If you want to use Firefox2 and Firefox3 with different profiles (named FF2 and FF3 for example) you can run Firefox3' firefox.exe with parameter -p FF3 and Firefox2' firefox.exe with parameter -p FF2. This way it does not crash for me.

Meanwhile, i test trunk builds every day and must say they work as expected with 0.3.

...I do have profile manager on both.

Though, taking off the -no-remote -p works.

Readding the -p, it works.

You has a bug with the -no-remote flag...

I does? I DON'T modify Mozilla code and have _NO_ control over it! I have no idea about flags or what FF3 does with them.

And no, you wrong. It will crash with just -p as well. -no-remote is flag meaning "let me open browser multiple instance with different profiles". I've answered you how to run (work around) it. If you want to have a profiles window pop up every time, sorry, it seems to be not possible now.

Gave your new UberKern beta a try with FF3-b5. And ... seems ok

Anything you'd like me to try in particular? Maybe PM if yes.

Many thanks again, for all your efforts!

I got Inkscape to run, but all the menus, tooltips, dialog buttons, tab titles, combo boxes and lists had no text in them. Even spinners appeared empty. Window titles did appear fine, though.

Incidentally, is it supposed to say "Maybe OK"?

i want to say thanks a lot "Tihiy" great work.

i am not using FF3 yet, but i know now the posibility to use it on win 98 is given.


just thought what is going to be after the last FF 2.xx version, now i know there is hope for win 98.



just great

Umm... "Ping"?
Sorry to be annoying, but how often is this updated?

I (really really really ad infinitum) like the potential in this, but am forced to patiently wait for the next version...

Patiently waiting...

Pong!

I would like to see a version which supports InkScape, sure.

But! The version i've tried fails to start at all. Which - where - what should i InkScape?

Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is out:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-rc.html

First post instructions apply to it as well. You may need to rename install program to short name.
RC1 generally works faster and better than Beta 5.
UberKern 0.3 is compatible with it. You still may need to disable malware checking if you experience disk trashing.

Note: you can't do partial auto-updating since patch binary is modified.

If possible, UberKern project is going to be terminated. Code will be ported to KernelEx. I'll post here when its fate is decided.
Good luck!

Out of curiosity, which GTK+ apps are working now? Do the newer GIMPs fall on the list?

Tihiy, what is the eventual reason/s for cancelling this project? Xeno86 doesn't update his KernelEx regulary.

Maybe because he doesn't have time to work on it and needs to focus on more important things.

Perhaps because by porting it to KernelEx there would be no need to patch GTK+ Cairo binaries everytime an update comes along, or because this way other software that uses the same unsupported functions would work correctly on Win98.

UberKern does not 'patch' code! It is an API wrapper only. Tihiy's comments:

The point if it being a wrapper is no longer the point. Once integrated into KernelEx, there will no longer be any need to wrap such programs.

One such noticable bits is how FF3 required 'GetLastInput()' pre-patching which is one of the currently Missing API's through KernelEx that a few programs require. Such programs would be unlikely to also have a wrapper for it therefor allowing integration into KernelEx to satisfy such an API need.

Should it be integrated - it will help advance the development of KernelEx even further and might even take advantage of KernelEx's added support for Export Forwarding.

Hmm... Inkscape 0.45.1 starts up fine, but most of the controls don't display any text.


Well, obviously it would be nice to have UberKern's compatibility already built into KernelEx, but only if that's actually going to happen, and be properly maintained.
Have you contacted Xeno86 on this matter? Has he agreed to merge UberKern code into KernelEx? Will you now be actively working on KernelEx?

I would certainly appreciate if you at least figure out this Inkscape thing before closing the project.

Is it possible to get Gnumeric running with UberKern???

http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/

My understanding was the it was GTK+ that prevented it from working with Win98.

I see libcairo-2.dll is included.

Hmmm .....




Tested about a week ago with v1.7.x and v1.9.x ... yes, they both will work but the toolbar icon gives solid red background on my tests ...

Last to work out-of-the-box with no problems is v1.6.3 ...

Rgds

I was too fast to say RC1 works okay - hotkeys and altgr-keyboard layouts may not work because of last-minute FF changes.

I've mostly finished porting UberKern to C (bye bye PB), so... therefore i declare original UberKern / patcher obsolete.
As soon as i'll finish APIs, test, convert them and contact Xeno86 you can expect Firefox 3 running on your desk with new KernelEx.
RC1 fix will be there.

I'll try to explore the possibilities to run other new GTK+ programs. UberKern may revive as a patcher for InkScape or Gnumeric or sth else.

Me and Xeno86 are exploring the possibilities of creating new KernelEx architecture.
If it goes well, you won't ever have to patch a program again and somehow violate some strange mind's license.

This is a really great news, Tihiy (except that minor problems with FF RC1).
I'm very glad to hear that you're working together.
I'm pretty sure that cooperation of such talented people like you and Xeno will be great for our community!

I tried Uberkern and what's really strange is that Firefox 3 doesn't display any letters whatsoever...

Therefore it looks a little bit strange (and is useless):
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/1570/unbenanntlx8.jpg

I try on Czech windows 98 SE - with UberKern / FF RC1 (CS - czech build): install properly, first run properly. New error: close FF3 and i try run ( and after restart Windows too) no properly start. With create new profil - run properly. Close this FF with new profil and with new start FF3 same problem - run only with create new profil.... Why?

I'm curious if it is just me, I could be wrong however but with FF3 any opening of an OPEN dialog box (uploading, saving an image, etc) results in FireFox crashing. Also, viewing some pages that use transparency hides all text (which is plainly seen on many MySpace pages).

Any possible idea what could be causing this; such as whether it's FF3, UberKern, or other reason specific?.



That's strange, are you sure you are running Uberkern with the lastest version of KernelEx?

I can't reproduce that! Any particular pages causing those issues?

I've finished integration to KernelEx. Xeno86 will make newer version when he'll have time.


Firefox3 and Flash 10

Hmmm .....

UberWOW !

Tihiy's done it again ....

Rgds

Tihiy, you're f***ing amazing ( I hope you find that as the compliement)!!
We can wait for the newer version of the KernelEx because the Firefox 3.0 will be released most probably in June (I don't know in which half).

Btw, even I'm a bit old-fashioned to the GUI look, I must that say that this screenshot looks really nice (through your improvements).

KernelEx 0.3.4 is released! Congratulations!

Additional fixes that were included alongside:
- First time crash / multiple profile crash;
- Inability to input national characters of some codepages (Cyrillic, for example).
There's a problem with FF3 which causes control keys / caps lock state mess-up on layout change or in another situations.
It's to be addressed in FF3 / KernelEx.

You'll need to reinstall FF3 over to neutralize UberKern.

As for NoNameNeeded "nothing visible" problem, that's suddenly very serious problem and seem to be related with display driver ( ) or some updates. Try to update display driver. If it does not help, post your config here to find the problem.