MozillaQuest Magazine -Mozilla Milestone 0.8 Browser-Suite RPM Builds Released

The Mozilla browser-suite Milestone 0.8 edition now is available in RPM form for the Red Hat 6 and 7 Linux distributions on i386, Alpha, and SPARC machines. The RPM editions of Mozilla 0.8 are leaner and meaner than the standard Linux builds available from the Mozilla Organization. These RPMs might work with other Linux distributions also, but they were built with Red Hat Linux in mind.

At 6.4-MB, the Mozilla 0.8 basic RPM is smaller and faster to download than the standard 10.8-MB version. The RPM version is easier to install than the standard version and better integrated into the Linux operating system installation.

The RPM edition is a system install. So you merely install it once as root rather than install it in each individual user account as you do with the standard Mozilla Organization Linux build. After you have installed the RPM edition into the root account, the first time each user runs Mozilla, the Mozilla 0.8 RPM edition sets up an individual profile for that user.

The Mozilla 0.8 RPM is a special project of Red Hat's Chris Blizzard. Chris is a Red Hat Software Engineer assigned to the Mozilla Project. However, you will find Chris' Mozilla 0.8 RPM files on his Red Hat people page on the Red Hat HTTP server, rather than on the Mozilla Organization FTP server

Part of what makes Chris Blizarrd's basic RPM version leaner and meaner is that it does not include the ChatZilla IRC (chat) client nor the e-mail/news client that come with the official Mozilla Organization builds. It does include the Composer module.

Not including the ChatZilla and e-mail modules in this basic RPM version is a definite plus for you readers that just want a good Web browser without lots of extras. On the other hand, it is in the minus column for you readers who want to use Mozilla for e-mail, news, and IRC chat in addition to Web browsing and Web page composing.

The mail/news module comes out of the compiling process as a separate package. So, Chris's RPM download directories also include the separate mail/news packages for you if you want to add the mail/news clients to your Mozilla 0.8 RPM installation.

However, the ChatZilla compile time directive was not enabled for the builds. So there is no ChatZilla package in the RPM download directories.

Nevertheless, it certainly is hats off to Red Hat's Chris Blizzard for providing the Linux community with these special RPM builds of Mozilla 0.8. Keep up the good work Chris!

The particular selection of which features and modules are included in these Mozilla 0.8 RPM builds is a good example of the extensive customizability of the Mozilla browser suite.

You can download the Mozilla source code and make your own custom builds too if you like. Please see our article, The Lizard Marches On: Mozilla Milestone 0.8 Browser-Suite Released, for more information and download links for that. Or you can download Mozilla 0.8 source code RPMs from Chris Blizzard's download site.

The Mozilla Organization officially released the Milestone Mozilla 0.8 edition of its Mozilla browser-suite on 15 February 2001. The Mozilla Milestone 0.8 browser-suite is cross-platform and official Mozilla Organization builds are available for the Linux, Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, and several UNIX platforms.

For more information about the regular, Mozilla Organization Milestone 0.8 builds and for download links for those builds, please see our article The Lizard Marches On: Mozilla Milestone 0.8 Browser-Suite Released.

"The milestones are intended to be periodic check points for progress on the project, stability of builds, porting status, and are entry points for additional mozilla (sic) contributors to provide testing and engineering help on the project." (Project Sea Monkey )

Nevertheless, pre-Mozilla-1.0 development builds now are pretty much features-complete, stable, and usable. Mozilla development work now is focused on bug squashing, improved stability, and better performance. Browser-wise, we find current Mozilla Milestone releases good enough for regular use.

For example, we have been using the 9 January 2001 Mozilla Milestone 0.7 release as a primary browser. It is very stable and usable for us insofar as Web surfing is concerned. So far the Mozilla 0.8 builds look good too. Check back for more information soon.

In the meantime, if you want to test drive the brand new Mozilla 0.8 builds now, we recommend that you install Mozilla 0.8 in it own directory, that you do not get rid of your current browser(s), and that you do not set Mozilla 0.8 as your default browser -- yet.

Here are the download links for Mozilla 0.8 RPM packages. You must have root privileges to use these RPMs.

RH 6 Builds

http://people.redhat.com/blizzard/software/RH6/

RH 7 Builds

http://people.redhat.com/blizzard/software/RH7/

Just drill down through the directory trees until you get to the RPM files for your machine and Red Hat Linux version. When you look in the file directories you will find files with several name types. The basic Mozilla 0.8 package is mozilla-0.8-2.i386.rpm. You must download and install this one.

If you want e-mail and/or news they are in the mozilla-mail-0_8-2_i386.rpm package. The security stuff (PSM) is in the mozilla-psm-0_8-2_i386.rpm package. If you want the development headers you will need the mozilla-devel-0_8-2_i386.rpm package.

Please keep in mind that these are developer builds. So expect some bugs, annoyances, and problems. Please do not forget to report bugs, problems, or suggestions for enhancements to Bugzilla.

Good luck.

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