Re: Query: what's best low-profile WWW gui-UA for Debian?
-- Soren Andersen <somian@adelphia.net> wrote
(on Tuesday, 22 April 2003, 02:55 PM -0400):
> I have set up a system based on a Cyrix P120+ cpu and 96 MB RAM, not
> huge gobs of free hdd space either.
I've got a similar setup -- a P120 cpu, 16MB ram, 650MB HD...
> I have (just yesterday...) got X11R6
> (XFree86) installed. Using the stable XFree86 v4 release. I have got
> some X client apps set up, like Knews and so on.
If you want low-profile, you might try slrn in a term window for a news
client. ;-)
> I am trying to keep some of the bloat away, both in terms of installed
> disk space consumption and RAM use. Anyway, my X configuration thus is
> what i think to be "minimalistic" to a degree, i.e. no desktop manager,
> just icewm overseeing things. I like ice.
Last I used ice was a few years ago. I've got blackbox on most of my
boxes now -- very low profile, very fast.
> I have thus far been using lynx for visiting HTML data. I'd like to move
> to a graphical browser. I seek input, insight, well-formed informed
> opinions about which graphical WWW ua package to install or build (I am
> not afraid of my cc ...). Which should it be? Who requires the least
> additional prerequisite packages above and beyond xlibs, I guess, and
> maybe the Athena widget set, maybe ... can Mozilla be built in a modest
> configuration or is it a hog? Opera (I know, non-free software ...)?
> Netscape?
>
> I like pretty pictures, full PNG support is the one thing I won't
> compromise on if I can possibly avoid it.
What I ended up going with was w3m with image support. It renders tables
nicely, and also displays images when in either a framebuffer or in X.
It's not fantastic, but it gets the job done. I *believe* it uses imlib
for imaging, so it should be png capable. I can't remember (I don't do
much browsing off that laptop -- and when I do, now, I usually do it
with the laptop connecting to an application server).
I tried Phoenix (now Firebird?), but found that even as the fast,
low-profile browser it's supposed to be, it was too much for my system.
Since you have more memory, however, this might not be as much of an
issue.
--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
matthew@weierophinney.net
http://matthew.weierophinney.net
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