Netscape Navitwonky

[Tesla Coil <tescoil@rtpro.net>]

On Wed, 23 Dec 1998 Mike Packard wrote
in the thread Re: Jeff is famous!

> a somewhat related note, does anyone else have problems with Linux
> Netscape crashing all the time and in general being a bitch to use?  It's
> been that way for several versions.  It's actually brought down my whole
> system several times now.  Ick.

Never had it crash my whole system, but I can definitely relate to this.

Running Communicator 4.5, I've found that connecting to certain URLs,
the browser displays astonishing responsiveness in vanishing from the
screen.  Interestingly, it always does this the nice way, taking the lock
file out in the process, such that one doesn't need personally rm it before
restarting the program.  An easy hypothesis that these pages use some
scripting feature that the browser doesn't like; haven't given it the study
with other browsers to say what this might be.   Maybe it's the content,
the web browser version of Henry Kuttner's Twonky, letting you read
only the material it deems appropriate...

Occasional lock-ups demanding no less than a kill signal 9, not enough
observation to isolate any particular user provocations on that.

Exiting an X session without first quitting Netscape may result in an
incomplete shutdown of X, such that one finds no command prompt--
switch over to another terminal, logon, top, Netscape is still running, kill
signal 15, logout, back to original terminal, there's the command prompt.

Lately I've noticed that the browser won't accept keyboard input when
email composer is open, even if the latter is minimized.  Difficult for me
to imagine this has always been the case, simply escaping attention.  It's
long been a practice of mine to check web references while writing email,
a recent phenomenon that I can't enter search terms or URLs, and must
find my way around by way of mouse clicks or shut down the composer.

Incidentally, the technique described in the LUCI-discuss thread "The
Way the Cookies Crumble" no longer works with 4.5.  On each startup,
Netscape will nuke a symlink cookie file and replace it with a real one.
This irritates me more as a matter of principle than of practice--redesign
against the failure of previous versions to override what would only occur
as the system administrator's conscious decision.  Similarly, the startup
resurrection of the "Personal Toolbar Folder" in bookmarks after you've
removed it.  Again, very Twonky-like.

Open source development is said to done wonders on the latest version.
4.5 came with my distro; put some hope in the upgrade, just haven't gotten
around to the download.  I have unshakable faith, of course, your reports
don't arrive from using the upgrade...

uh...do they arrive from using the upgrade? :(










--
To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@luci.org with
"unsubscribe luci-discuss" in the body.