[CLUE-Talk] Review of Netcape 6 for Linux

[Jim Intriglia]

John,

What you wrote is good information and feedback re: the Netscape 6 product. 
I would like to include it in the article I wrote with your permission. (As 
per my usual practice, I credit anyone who helps me with these articles (as 
an editor, reviewer or content contributor) on the page the article appears 
as well as in the article itself. Do you have a web site that I can 
reference (link to) in the article, or is "John Kottal of CLUE" sufficient 
when acknowledging the source of the info (your benchmark comparision of NS 
V4.x vs Netscape 6).

To continue:

----Original Message Follows----
From: John Kottal <jlkottal at americanisp.net>
Reply-To: clue-talk at clue.denver.co.us
To: clue-talk at clue.denver.co.us
Subject: Re: [CLUE-Talk] Review of Netcape 6 for Linux
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 11:56:16 -0700

Jim Intriglia wrote:

 > I am putting the finishing touches on the first of a series of articles 
I'm writing on
 > the new and recently released of Netscape 6 Communicator/Navigator 
product for Linux.

>>
The experiences related in your article paralleled mine.

It took about six tries to download the entire program, even with a DSL 
connection. The download process kept stalling in the middle of the spelling 
module, and each time I tried again, it restarted from scratch. I finally 
tried about 6:00 AM and was able to complete the process. The entire 
download and installation took about 30 - 45 minutes, most of which was 
spent downloading the Java 2 files. site)
>>

My guess is that Netscape (or whoever is hosting that portion of the web has 
a problem along the lines of load balancing - the downloads were stalling to 
to traffic demand. Be nice to know for sure what the deal was with respect 
to this problem. Maybe I should send them a copy of the review.

>>
I did not like the installer program: not only must it be run from XWindows 
(so much for security),
>>

I am not aware of the potential for a secuirity violation that you elude to. 
If logged-in as root, with the PC properly secured, why would doing the 
install via XWindows be any less secure than from the command line?

>>
it installs to /usr/local, and this creates unnecessary problems with file 
permissions: either one does the download as root (so much for the Principle 
of Least Privilege) or one does it as a user, and then has to fiddle with 
file permissions. I would much rather download the entire thing and then 
install it later.
>>

I installed as root, and did not see any problems with its' default install 
folder of /usr/local - that's OK as far as the Unix Hierarchy spec. No 
permission problems encountered (I was able to boot Netscape logged in as a 
user in the same fashion as I did as root. My other experiences with 
software requiring me to install as root (which makes sense) also require me 
to screw around with permissions on some/all of the files, before users 
could boot the application, something I did not appreciate.

I think in retrospect the StarOffice V5.2 install had it right. Install as 
root, and then do a mini-install for users that you wish to grant access, 
with the installer taking care to set file permissions so that the sucker 
will boot.

Make sense or am I missing your point?

>>
My system is a Pentium 233 MMX with 128 MB RAM. Netscape 6 will run on it, 
but it is about 3 times slower than 4.75 to get up and running. 
Additionally, it is noticably slower while running, but not to the point of 
annoyment.
>>

I read things along this line in two other reviews. Kinda throws a bucket on 
all of the Gecko technology hype, which was supposed to increase speed over 
NS V4.x. Unless of course it's a memory deal. I'll need to check the spec 
sheet for minimum NS requirements on CPU spped and RAM.

>>
Netscape 6 seems to be designed to run only under GNOME and possibly under 
RedHat: it did not want to install under Slackware and KDE, giving error 
messages that there were libraries that (I think) were installed as part of 
GNOME missing (sorry, I can't remember
the names, something like GTK), and even after going back and installing 
GNOME, I was unable to get it working.
>>

Good information. If memory serves, I believe there is a not in the NS 
Readme, web page, or one of the other reviews along these lines. I'll check 
it out and add to the article with respect to this issue.

>>
The modern GUI is somewhat washed out on my screen compared to 4.75, but 
there is an
option to revert to the older interface if so desired.
>>

Wonder if that is the fault of the default theme/skin. May want to try 
changing to something else, so see if the appearance approves.

>>
I am not sure that I like this new version. I've used Netscape now since 
version 2.0
under Windows, and much, much prefer it over any other browser, including 
Opera and
Internet Explorer. I've tried Opera and Conquerer under Linux, and always 
gone back to
Netscape. But given my druthers, I may just go to KDE's Conquerer and stay 
with that, as
I much prefer KDE over GNOME.
>>

You are not alone - NS V6 in two other reviews I have read were not 
favorable. I think the choice of going with GNOME was made based on that 
joint annoucement by the big fellas (IBM, HP and SUN) along the liones of 
supporting GNOME as the default XWin environment for enterprise systems 
(shipped). Was that not Sun's announcement I believe?

Will not look at Opera until they do a real production release,
hopefully soon!


JimI.

John Kottal

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