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Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: Ivan Bútora
Date: October 21, 2006 02:41AM

K-Meleon is a light, fast and standards compliant browser ideal for older machines. As the developers are surely aware, as of now, Gecko 1.9 will NOT run on Windows 9x, mainly due to the implementation of Cairo and missing APIs in Windows 9x.

For reference:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=330276
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=401271

As per the comments of Robert Callahan (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=330276#c36), it is quite possible to have Gecko-based applications work on Window 98 in the future, by implementing some APIs. It is now October 2006, and thus far, I have not seen any initiative in this regard. I would personally be more than happy to contribute, except I do not have any knowledge of C++ programming.

I am wondering if perhaps among the K-Meleon community and the K-meleon developers, there could be someone willing to spend time and write some code that would enable Win9x support. Mozilla has even expressed that it would officially "approve" of such a project, in a similar way as it is now done with SeaMonkey. I think it's most important to get something going initially. Afterwards, if a couple of people are working on it, others will take notice and will join the effort.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: rmn
Date: October 21, 2006 06:36AM

This has been covered extensively in a previous thread. I think the summary is that we'll first wait and see what happens in the Mozilla side.

FWIW, I doubt a lot of (unpaid) people would want to continue developing for a dead platform.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: Ivan Bútora
Date: October 21, 2006 12:53PM

Thanks, I didn't notice that there was already a thread about this.

I don't think anything will "happen" on the Mozilla side, I think it's only up to "someone" to start some sort of a project which others can join in.

Do you think it is so much work? As far as I know, Unicode can be more or less implemented via the Microsoft Layer for Unicode (many applications already do this, for example recently VLC Media Player has become a Unicode application, but seems to work on Win 9x with no problems with unicows.dll). That would leave some Cairo APIs. Based on what I have read thus far, at this point in time there are only a few APIs in Cairo that do not work on Windows 98.

If a project got started and required financial help, perhaps to hire someone, I (and my guess is that also a lot of other users out there) would be willing to donate some $.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: BenoitRen
Date: October 21, 2006 02:39PM

Yeah, I had to install unicows a long time ago to be able to use eMule for a while. It seemed to add Unicode support, so I wondered why it's a problem.

I would like to contribute as well, but I only know plain C. I'm not sure if I'm experienced enough to write something like that either.

I'm pretty confident that nothing will happen on the Mozilla side. They just want to shove more recent systems up our asses.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: rmn
Date: October 21, 2006 03:05PM

> Do you think it is so much work?

Actually, I have no idea. (As mentioned in that thread,) biesi did mention things that may need work:

Quote

So, there are a few things that I know of:
- SetWorldTransform does not exist in Win98
- Uniscribe does exist AFAIK
- All the *W APIs are not available

I guess I'll shut up and let someone who knows what that means measure the difficulty.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: ndebord
Date: November 02, 2006 03:28PM

BenoitRen,

Unicow? for W98se?? I'm not familiar with that development. Could you tell me more?

Tks

N

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: BenoitRen
Date: November 02, 2006 06:39PM

I can't tell you much more than I already wrote. It's a library that allows Unicode applications to work on Win9x.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: Dorian
Date: November 02, 2006 08:36PM

The unicows license is not compatible with the GPL

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: BenoitRen
Date: November 03, 2006 01:31PM

And that means...?

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: rmn
Date: November 03, 2006 07:02PM

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Dorian
The unicows license is not compatible with the GPL

Well, there's Mozilla's Opencow, but that only solves one problem.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: guenter
Date: November 03, 2006 08:53PM

can ppl to support 98 etc.change to Mozilla licence? that is AFAIK more open.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: alf_vertonet
Date: December 30, 2006 05:29AM

Should one install KB918899 Update for Internet Explorer 6 SP1 from wupg98 website .

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: noel-pg2
Date: May 03, 2007 03:06AM

Quote
alf_vertonet
Should one install KB918899 Update for Internet Explorer 6 SP1 from wupg98 website .

no more, alf_vertonet. consider getting the latest unofficial IE6 SP1 update from MDGx's IE page which replaces the KB918899 update. here's the link to MDGx's IE page:
http://www.mdgx.com/ietoy.htm

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: Will_
Date: May 12, 2007 06:16PM

Quote
rmn
> Do you think it is so much work?

Actually, I have no idea. (As mentioned in that thread,) biesi did mention things that may need work:

Quote

So, there are a few things that I know of:
- SetWorldTransform does not exist in Win98
- Uniscribe does exist AFAIK
- All the *W APIs are not available

I guess I'll shut up and let someone who knows what that means measure the difficulty.

There's KernelUpdateProject(KUP) which implements non 9x apis, mostly *W apis. But I think there's no way to implement SetWorldTransform.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: noel-pg2
Date: January 07, 2008 09:30PM

Quote
BenoitRen
And that means...?

restrictions on redistributing Unicows, Benoitren. Microsoft put that in the license agreement. GPL licenses have no restrictions on redistribution but the EULA in MS Unicows has some restrictions. hence, the incompatibilities with GPL.

Quote

I can't tell you much more than I already wrote. It's a library that allows Unicode applications to work on Win9x.

only adds LIMITED unicode support to Win9x.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: noel-pg2
Date: January 07, 2008 09:33PM

Quote

I'm pretty confident that nothing will happen on the Mozilla side. They just want to shove more recent systems up our asses.

TOTALLY UNTRUE and IMMATURE! VERY stupid comment.

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Will_

There's KernelUpdateProject(KUP) which implements non 9x apis, mostly *W apis. But I think there's no way to implement SetWorldTransform.

KUP is now KernelEx. get the latest version there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2008 09:36PM by noel-pg2.

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: crabboy
Date: February 04, 2008 01:14AM

So, forgive me if this has been answered. What is the latest version of Kmeleon to run on 98SE? I have XP on my primary machine, and am an enthusiastic user of KM, but own a copy of 98SE and am considering installing it on an older computer. I have saved installation files of KM dating back to 0.9 (maybe farther back on my old laptop).

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Re: Future K-Meleon versions for Windows 98
Posted by: guenter
Date: February 04, 2008 05:01AM

k-meleonW9x.exe with CCF pre that was based on future 1.5. dll & exe. but the point is that mozilla will change to a toolkit that is only to had for XP or later.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2008 05:07AM by guenter.

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