[ale] Please help Drew fix his browser problem

[Barry Hawkins]

On Fri, May 20, 2005 at 12:20:58AM -0500, ChangingLINKS.com spake thus:
[...] 
> STABILITY 
> PROBLEM:*************************************************************************************************************************
> I am using Firefox 0.9.1. The problem is that the browser crashes often. For 
> example, when I go to http://www.kitco.com/market and then try going to 
> another site, the browser crashes. It also crashes when I browse around 
> fark.com. These are not the only two sites that have a problem. It seems like 
> any site that has flash, java, lots of content, or has bad code will crash 
> it. Based on the error message (shown below) someone told me to upgrade the X 
> server. Here, you can see the original error, me updating X, and then a new 
> error.
> 
> Even after running apt-get install xserver-xfree86 kde (to update ALL of the X 
> server and KDE) I get the second "gecko" error below

Drew,
    I generally use aptitude to install Debian packages, and I run the unstable 
(sid) distribution on powerpc.  Using aptitude lets you make choices about how 
some of the ambiguous dependencies should be handled, so that you can deal with 
any 'automagic' decisions that you know will cause issues.  Here are a couple of 
questions that might help us track down some stuff:

1.) What is the content of your /etc/apt/sources.list?

2.) If you go into aptitude and look at the dependency information for firefox, 
do any of them show up as broken or having multiple versions?

3.) If you find the x-window-system metapackage in aptitude, can it or any of 
its components be upgraded?  Do any conflicts or 'broken' packages show up?

[...] 
> *******************************************************************************************************************
> CUT AND PASTE PROBLEM: IF you update the browser, please make sure that "cut 
> and paste" still works the same way it does now. Right now, I can highlight 
> the text, and then use the center wheel button to paste the highlighted text 
> into a form field in the browser. One time, when I updated to Firefox 1.0, 
> this cut and paste feature no longer worked.
[...]
If you were previously getting X-style select and paste, that may have been 
a function of the underlying libraries that were present.  I run Firefox on 
Gnome, and the cut and paste functionality has been of the CUA variety for 
some time for me.  I don't think you will be able to influence that in much 
of a healthy way.

> *******************************************************************************************************************
> AUTOMATIC WEBSITE LOADING PROBLEM: Sometimes I highlight some text TRY TO use 
> the wheel to paste it in a browser form but, I MISS THE FORM. When that 
> happens, Firefox automatically loads the new web page as though I wanted to 
> surf to the URL that I was pasting. Please disable that feature. I never want 
> to browse to another page by pasting a URL into an existing web page.
[...]
This is the same behavior experienced by myself and several others on the 
list.  In fact, there was a thread on it a while back, but my attempt to search 
our archives didn't pan out.
 
> I have tried upgrading xfree86, KDE and firefox (and combinations of those 
> solutions). The only "Debian" system that I could observe (Debian systems 
> SEEM hard to come by) has a STABLE setup. It is Knoppix.
> 
> My latest idea is to try to examine Knoppix and then try to install the same 
> versions of each package on my Debian system in hopes of duplicating the 
> stability that Knoppix has. My guess is that is not the best solution.
[...]

    That's all I can think of at the moment.  Maybe some of the informational 
items above will help us hone in on something more specific.

Regards,
-- 
Barry Hawkins
All Things Computed
site: www.alltc.com
weblog: www.yepthatsme.com

Registered Linux User #368650