Results tagged “Opera” from CLICK

I broke out the Compaq Armada 7770dmt, a 1999-era laptop with a 233 MHz Pentium II MMX processor and 144 MB of RAM.

This unusual laptop (the power brick is inside the case, it has that little "eraser-like" pointer — which still works — on the keyboard, which is very nice as far as laptop keyboards go) has run more than a few OSes since I've owned it.

I had OpenBSD 4.2 on it for a long time and recently wiped the drive and installed Debian Lenny.

Lenny is running as well or better than Etch did on the Compaq. I have a very minimal Xfce setup — no office suite, the Geany editor in the GUI and two Web browsers: Iceweasel/Firefox for when I absolutely need it and Opera 10.01 for when I want to browse on this 10-year-old laptop with only a little frustration.

I can't recommend a 10-year-old computer for intensive work on today's Web, but you can still squeeze a bit out of it.

I just had one of those ominous Ubuntu crashes in which I can't ctrl-alt-backspace out of X or ctrl-alt-delete out of the OS entirely. I have to hard reset with the power switch.

I'm in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, and this only happens when I'm running my Cnet CWD-854 USB Wifi stick. I do have a backup Wifi card, the trusty Orinoco WaveLAN Silver (which runs on EVERYTHING), and just for the record the CWD-854 never died in OpenBSD.

But I'm not running OpenBSD ...

I was also running the newish Opera 10 Web browser, which thus far I think is "just OK" in Linux but "totally, completely game-changing" in Windows, where it blows both Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.5 way, way out of the water.

So just to see what's what (and it did take a couple of hours before the laptop died), I back using Firefox 3.0.14 in Ubuntu ... with the CWD-854. We'll see how that goes. Time to pull a print column deep out of you-know-where ...

Opera hasn't shipped an update of its fast (but not open-source) Web browser from its repository for quite some time, but today Opera 10 has been moved from beta to the main release of the browser, and if you're using Opera's repository (as opposed to one maintained by your distro), you might have the same problem I did in Debian or Ubuntu (in my case the 8.04 LTS version):

When trying to update the system, I get a GPG error, and apt (or Aptitude or Synaptic) won't update the list of packages from Opera's repository.

Opera has a helpful page on how to add its repository, or Canonical's for Ubuntu users, to your /etc/apt/sources.list file if you use a Debian-derived distribution such as Ubuntu, or Debian itself. I use both and have been through this twice recently.

Canonical does offer Opera in its "partner" repository -- not in the regular "non-free" repository. Debian doesn't maintain a similar "partner" repository (how "freedom-loving" would that be?).

So Debian users who wish to use the freedom-hating (but Linux-loving) Opera Web browser and wish to use a repository to install and update the program (as opposed to downloading a binary and installing it with dpkg) need to use Opera's own repository. This same method also works in Ubuntu. You don't have to use the Canonical "partner" repository. For one reason or another, I thought it might be better to get Opera straight from Opera Software, and that company does have a help page that gets you most of the way toward making it happen.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of critical errors on Opera's help page, so I'll go through both adding Opera's own repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list as well as properly using the command line (and invoking sudo at the right time) to set up the GPG key for that repository so the updates and code can flow properly to your Ubuntu box.

One caveat: If you're NOT using Ubuntu and are on a Debian box that allows you to su to root, you can avoid the use of sudo at one critical point in the GPG process.

However, I'm a big sudo fan, and I always install it in Debian and use it all the time, preferring never to su to root if I don't have to.

Here goes ...

Adding the Opera's own repository for its Web browser and installing it on your Debian or Ubuntu system

Before we begin: This tutorial works if you're using sudo to gain rootly privileges. If you have a Debian system, which allows the use of su instead, you can su to root and forget sudo entirely. But as I say above, I always install sudo in Debian, so this "recipe" works equally well on my Debian and Ubuntu boxes.

Now let's get to it:

First you need to add the proper repository to /etc/apt/sources.list. Open up a terminal window and at the $ prompt, use GEdit (or your favorite GUI or console editor) to add the following line to the bottom of /etc/apt/sources.list:

To open the file:

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

(type your password when prompted)

When you're in /etc/apt/sources.list, go to the bottom of the file and, to use Opera's repository, add this line in either Debian or Ubuntu (Opera maintains this repo for the various Debian branches, but the "lenny" version works great in Ubuntu):

deb http://deb.opera.com/opera lenny non-free

If you are in Ubuntu and wish to use Canonical's repository, add this line instead:

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner

That's for users of Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy). If you're using 8.10 (Intrepid) or 9.04 (Jaunty), use the appropriate adjective instead of "hardy" in your repo line.

Like I said, I tend to use Opera's repository, so I entered the "deb.opera.com" line into my sources.list.

Then save the file and close Gedit (or your favorite editor).

Now let's take care of the GPG keys. In the terminal, do the following lines:

$ gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-key F9A2F76A9D1A0061
$ gpg --fingerprint F9A2F76A9D1A0061
$ gpg --armor --export F9A2F76A9D1A0061 | sudo apt-key add -

See, it's that "hidden" sudo in the third line that Opera forgets on its help page.

(If you're in Debian and have used su to become root, you can forget the final sudo in the third line).

I already had Opera 9 on my box but couldn't update to Opera 10. My problem was a bad GPG key. After this change I was able to use Aptitude (my preferred choice over plain ol' apt) to update my box. You could just as easily use GNOME's Update Manager to swap out Opera 9 for Opera 10.

For me that was these easy lines:

$ sudo aptitude update
$ sudo aptitude upgrade

Or if you've never before installed Opera, either use the Synaptic Package Manager to add it, using the search function to find Opera.

But if you're still at the command line (or as I generally say, "in the console"), you can do it this way:

$ sudo aptitude install opera

Now you should have the Opera 10 Web browser in your menu and ready to run.

I used to need Opera for one of my extremely critical Web-based applications, but the developers of said app recently added Firefox to the list of allowed browsers (previously it was IE-only, which doesn't exactly help me in Linux and the BSDs, but did allow use of Opera). Now that Firefox is allowed, Opera has been "blacklisted" from the app.

But Opera is still a very nice browser. It's extremely fast. In marginal hardware, of which I've got quite a bit, it can make the difference between a usable system and the other kind.

The "easy" way to install Opera in Ubuntu the GUI way

Did you enjoy that? There's an easier way, I've learned from Ubuntu's repository page. Basically you can add the "partner" repository in Synaptic and then search for Opera in that same application and add it the "normal," graphical GNOMEish way. That's probably a better way to go, but since I did it the "hard" way, I figure you should be allowed to do it that way as well. But again, if you want to use Opera's own repository, the method above did work for me.

So if you use Ubuntu and want to shun the command line and do it all through the Synaptic Package Manager, do the following:

Open the Synaptic Package Manager (In the menu, it's System -- Administration -- Synaptic Package Manager)

In Synaptic's menu, go to: Settings -- Repositories

Click the second tab, the one that reads "Third-Party Software"

Check the box next to the line that reads: http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner

Now you should be able to update your sources (click the Reload button in Synaptic) and then search for and add Opera as an application.

OK, that's a bit easier than my command-line, Opera's-own-repository method above, but they both work in Ubuntu.

And if, like me, you run into a GPG key problem, you can just run the three GPG-related lines in the example above and get Opera updates flowing from the Norway-based Opera Software company into your Debian or Ubuntu box.

At some point I'll delve a little deeper into Opera 10 for a review, but at least now I have the app (and the opportunity to do so).

It's not hard to figure out why the Flash plugin for the Opera browser in OpenBSD works with YouTube (no small thing) and little else.

That's because the port for the Opera Flash plugin hasn't been updated since 2006 and installs version 7 of the Flash plugin.

Version 7.

There's a newer version of Flash (version 9) at this master site, but I'm unsure whether or not that will work in OpenBSD.

To dig deeper into the Opera Flash plugin port, look at the CVS log.

Unsuccessful experiment: To make a long story short, I did find Version 9 of Flash for Linux in the same place as the OpenBSD port finds Version 7. I downloaded the tar.gz file, unzipped it, untarred it, dropped it in a directory and pointed Opera to the new plugin.

When I tried to play a Flash video, the plugin crashed after the first few seconds.

I didn't expect it to work and wasn't surprised when it didn't. I pointed Opera back to the old Flash plugin and went about my business.

I decided to get deeper into Puppy 4.1.2 on my Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptop.

I'm always looking for platforms on which I can do all my Daily News-related work, which means I need the Java runtime and Flash video.

Well, there is a Java package for Puppy. I'm surprised Java isn't part of the base install, but it appears not. I installed the package, and I even brought in the Opera Web browser to augment Seamonkey.

Both browsers are performing well, but for some reason Flash doesn't work in either. I distinctly remember Flash working in all of the Puppy 2 and 3 releases I've used previously, and now I'm left wondering what happened.

Also, Java did NOT work in either browser, so easy use of the LogMeIn remote-desktop service is not something happening in Puppy. I'm getting to the point where I'll need to bit the proverbial bullet and install Java from source in OpenBSD on this laptop so I can get that functionality. I can live without Flash (and the Flash I do have in i386 OpenBSD via Opera is marginal at best; it works in YouTube but not in Brightcove). I can sort of live without Java.

But it's better for the work that I do to have both of these things working well.

Also, I was surprised to see not Pidgin or Gaim as the IM client in Puppy but something I'd never heard of. Pidgin is available as a package, so that's not such a problem.

The end result is that while Puppy 4.1.2. runs quite well at first blush, I need to look closer at why I was so unsuccessful at getting Flash and Java to work. It should be easier than this.

And while Flash remains somewhat of a problem in OpenBSD (I probably need to be running an up-to-date Linux such as Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Slackware, Zenwalk ... take your pick) I'll probably stick with it for the time being as my primary OS.

Time's short, so I'll hit the high points:

• The fix for all the problems I was having in Opera 9.51 (the Linux version) in OpenBSD was easy. All I had to do was change from asynchronous DNS lookup to synchronous. I even reinstalled Flash for Opera. Regarding the fix, l'll elaborate later.

• Now that I can run Opera, I've been using this circa-2002-03 Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptop (1.3 GHz Celeron) for just about all of my daily work. The laptop's running great, with excellent performance from OpenBSD 4.4 itself and its default Fvwm window manager.

• I wanted to change from IMAP to POP for one of my main e-mail accounts. I had been using Thunderbird in Windows with IMAP. That worked pretty well, but in OpenBSD, I wanted to use POP and have all the mail on the hard drive.

  Either Thunderbird itself, or the entire POP protocol, won't go into nested folders on an IMAP server and grab everything. At least it didn't in my case. So I tried to bring all those IMAP folders onto the local drive en masse. That didn't work so well. I suspect the server won't stay connected long enough to move many hundreds of messages at a time.

  I'm sure I lost quite a few messages, but I also have many hundred that I'll try to move from one Thunderbird installation to the other.

  Knowing what I know now, it would have been better to get EVERYTHING in order on the first Thunderbird installation and then move the entire "profile" over to the second PC. As it stands now, I'll have to figure out how to tap those exact folders/directories and move them over individually. The Thunderbird menus aren't much help with this. Thunderbird needs a robust backup utility built into it.

• In 768 MB of RAM, I'm running tons of apps at once. I can run Opera, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, the GIMP, Pidgin and Firefox and still not swap to disk. I don't think that's so unusual, but usual or not, it's pretty nice. In my world, 768 MB is a lot of RAM, and I'm glad to find out that it's more than enough to do my work.

• Before I figured out how to fix Opera, I rolled out an identical Toshiba laptop with Ubuntu 8.04. That installation went perfectly fine. No problems at all. That laptop has 256 MB of RAM at the moment, and during the 300+ package update after the initial install, there was a whole lot of swapping. Have you noticed in Debian and Ubuntu that the package management uses as many resources as you can throw at them? The machine was unusable during the long update (for which I ran the Update Manager in GNOME).

  You don't have to roll in 300 packages every day, month ... or just about ever, so that's an unusual circumstance.

  I'll keep the Ubuntu laptop at the ready in case I need it for video editing (a task I'm not sure can be done in OpenBSD; if anybody can point me to a package or port, I'd be grateful).

  But for now, the OpenBSD Toshiba is cranking along very nicely. Who knew you could squeeze so much computing goodness out of 1.3 GHz of processing power.

Here's the deal. I've been using one of my two nearly identical Toshiba 1100-S101 laptops for a growing share of my day-to-day work, and not just at home.

The degradation of my Windows XP-running Dell box over the course of the day (OK, it's not that great in the morning after a fresh boot, either) has driven me to use my older, slower laptops, which under non-Windows OSes actually do things better and faster.

I basically resurrected both Toshibas from death in the form of recycling, which is what would have happened to them had I not pulled them from the haul-me-away pile. Both had XP installed. Until this point, I didn't have any personal machines running XP, and if you don't count the Windows 2000-running Pentium II box I rarely turn on, these are really my only Windows-running PCs I use besides my main work box — the one that barely works.

Think of that last paragraph as somewhat of an explanation for why I'm dual-booting both laptops, the first into OpenBSD 4.4 and the second, as of this afternoon, into Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. I really have little use for Windows, but in the course of whatever it is that I do in these blog entries and my print column, I just might need a Windows machine. Or not. Since I can't reinstall Windows XP whenever I wish due to not having an install CD, I'm leaving those now-shrunken NTFS partitions intact until I decide a) I really need the disk space or b) figure out how to get the hard drives out of the Toshibas and put them aside in the unlikely event that I absolutely need to run XP some time in the far future.

I took Ric Storms' suggestion to remove the Opera Flash plugin from my OpenBSD 4.4 installation to see if that will keep the Opera Web browser from crashing either itself or the whole of X and leaving between two and four errant processes running in its wake.

All I'm doing now is blogging, so that doesn't mimic my real day-to-day use, during which I use and abuse Opera, Firefox, Geany, the GIMP, OpenOffice (yep, I'm running OpenOffice on a limited basis to edit spreadsheets and text documents).

As I've written recently, it's the poor performance of my office-supplied Windows XP box — which is all but impossible to use by the middle of any given day, with the whole thing slowed to a constantly swapping crawl — that has driven me to switch as many of my computing task as possible in the office to my OpenBSD-running Toshiba laptop.

Right now, if I can get into and out of Opera cleanly, with no crashes and no errant processes, I'll be extremely happy.

That's because this more-than-six-year-old laptop runs great with 1.3 GHz of CPU under OpenBSD and runs both real and virtual rings around my 3 GHz Dell box running XP.

While I'll miss the ability to see Flash videos in Opera, there seems to be quite a bit of Flash that Opera in OpenBSD is not able to show, so that functionality isn't 100 percent by any means.

Sure I need to edit video and turn it into Flash, but since I'm even further in OpenBSD than I am in Linux from having adequate video-editing capability, but for the most part I can get my work done without Flash.

But as things stand right now, I can't get that work done without the Opera browser. And if I get it back in OpenBSD (without it or its plugins bringing X down), my work — and my mood — will improve.

Later: Opera sans Flash plugin hasn't yet crashed X, but it did hang things up for maybe 10 seconds at one point. I had a few tabs open and was switching between them rather furiously. If I can quit the app now and leave no trace in top, that will be quite the positive development.

Even later than that: Even without the Flash plugin, Opera crashed about four times in an hour, leaving a half-dozen processes running on the box. So it's not the Flash plugin; it's just Opera. Everything else in OpenBSD 4.4 runs exceedingly well; I can't remember an app ever crashing in this OS. Except for Opera. In order to get my work situation in order, I decided to roll out a Linux laptop.

I've sung the praises of the Opera Web browser many a time. It's a great deal lighter than Firefox, it renders most Web pages well, and most importantly for me, it enables me to use a critical Web-based application that is designed to only work with Internet Explorer, which I try to run as little as possible (and which isn't an option in OpenBSD).

In OpenBSD, Opera is run with the Linux compatibility layer, so it's basically a Linux binary when it comes into the system from ports.

And up until now, I've had no problems with it.

But lately, Opera has been either crashing itself or crashing X.

I can see in top in an xterm window that processes with the name operapluginw (or some other letter after "plugin") can eat 90 percent of CPU and bring the whole laptop to its knees.

Most of the time I can kill the processes in a terminal and then restart Opera right away. Sometimes I can restart the Fvwm window manager from the menu. Other times I have to kill X with ctrl-alt-backspace.

I don't know if the problem is with this specific build of Opera (version 9.51, build 2061), the many packages that allow OpenBSD to run Linux binaries in i386 (including fedora_base and fedora_motif), or something inherent to this hunk of hardware, a 2002-era Toshiba 1100-S101 laptop. It could even be something specific to the software-as-a-service type application I'm primarily accessing with the Opera browser.

Right now the problem is manageable, and I will be testing Opera again in Linux (preferably Debian) very soon.

Due to the inherently quirky nature of our particular development environment, many of my co-workers have been using Opera heavily. The problem I'm reporting here is in OpenBSD only. I haven't seen it in Windows (or previously in Linux). Again, it could be something with the Linux compatibility portion of OpenBSD (this is the only Linux app I'm running), or Opera itself.

In all likelihood, I'll continue running Opera in OpenBSD and see if the problem clears up in the next version of the OS.

And I didn't mention it until now, but my other "main" browsers on this OpenBSD laptop is Firefox 2. In OpenBSD 4.4 for i386, there are packages for both Firefox 2 and 3, but I chose FF 2 for no other reason than that it was still available, and in Unix-like environments I haven't really seen the need to go from FF 2 to 3 if I don't have to.

And Firefox 2 has been extremely solid in OpenBSD 4.4. If I could use it for everything (or could figure out what's ailing Opera), I'd be very happy indeed.

Frustration with my Windows XP box at the office has prompted me to do more and more work at the office on this Toshiba laptop, which happens to have OpenBSD as its primary OS. (I didn't remove Windows XP from the laptop, but I don't use it, either.)

I've never previously used/abused this hardware and OS to the same extent, and in a sense it's a test of the Toshiba, OpenBSD and the applications.

As I recently reported, the whole thing has the potential to run great. If I really needed constant access to Flash video and other such nastiness as Microsoft .NET (which unfortunately I sometimes do), I'd be in a bit of trouble using this platform. I don't even really need Java all that much, but I could install it from ports if things change.

Before I close out this rambly entry, let me remind the reader that one of the things that prompted me to run OpenBSD on this laptop was the balky CD/DVD drive that hates 9 out of 10 CDs I burn for it (and yes, those CDs work fine on other PCs). Even OpenBSD's install CD wouldn't work, so I was able to use the floppy image to boot the system and install over the network.

After setting up the mail-client portion of Opera, I haven't had much occasion to use it, since I am quite comfortable and happy with Thunderbird in Windows.

The Opera browser is fast in relation to other browsers, and its mail client is fast, too.

I have it set up with IMAP so I can access my mail from any number of places (unless you use one computer all the time ... forever, POP is barbaric). It's a fairly simple client, but it works great, and if you spend a lot of time in front of the Opera browser, it keeps your e-mail just that much closer to you.

I know that application startup time isn't everything. But it's definitely something.

Here are the numbers for Puppy 2.13 and OpenBSD 4.2 on the $15 Laptop (Compaq Armada 7770dmt, 233 MHz Pentium II MMX, 144 MB RAM):

OpenBSD
Firefox 2.0.0.6: 120 seconds
Opera 9.22: 37 seconds

Puppy Linux 2.13
Seamonkey (Mozilla-based): 30 seconds
Opera 9.02: 34 seconds

Analysis: Firefox/Mozilla is a fairly heavy application, but the Seamonkey version of Mozilla does quite well in Puppy, where it beats Opera slightly when it comes to start time.

But in OpenBSD, Opera is a standout for some reason, starting in about a third of the time that Firefox takes to start. Opera works with Movable Type much better in OpenBSD, with no stalled-script messages.

Question: Is there any way to run Mozilla browser code faster than Firefox? I need to test Firefox in Puppy (and, if I had the space, Seamonkey in OpenBSD) to fill out the data.

Conclusion: Application startup and response time is extremely critical with older machines. Since most of my computing time is spent in Web browsers, I welcome the speed and functionality of Opera in OpenBSD; it has pretty much given this OS a proverbial "new lease on life."

Remember the eight-part "Finding an OS for the $15 Laptop"? After considering everything from Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux, through Wolvix, OpenBSD and Debian, I elected to keep OpenBSD on the hard drive and use Puppy as a live CD, with the eventual migration of the system from OpenBSD 4.2 to 4.3 and Puppy 2.13 to 3.01.

If I thought that a hard-drive install of Debian on this 1999 Compaq Armada 7770dmt would give me a huge speed advantage over OpenBSD, I'd go in that direction right away. With 233 MHz of CPU and 144 MB of RAM, performance really counts.

But I really like running OpenBSD, and until (or "unless") I can get ACPI management of the CPU fan on the newer $0 Laptop (Gateway Solo 1450), I'd like to keep this most-secure of Unix-like operating systems on the Compaq, which from a hardware-configuration standpoint has responded better to OpenBSD than to any version of Linux.

The realities of using OpenBSD on this old machine have had me booting Puppy more and more. The reason is that Firefox in OpenBSD can't handle posting to Movable Type. Scripts are constantly timing out, and the experience is more than a little frustrating.

The Dillo browser runs great in OpenBSD. It doesn't have tabs, like some versions of Dillo do. And it was compiled without support for cookies. (Dillo does support cookies in OpenBSD, and you can modify your ~/.dillo/cookiesrc file to implement them on an overall or site-by-site basis, another way that OpenBSD locks things down from a security and privacy standpoint). So But even with cookies turned on, as an interface to something as complicated as Movable Type, Dillo won't work.

Since then, I've discovered the free (but not open-source) browser Opera, which is a good deal faster than Firefox (or anything else based on Mozilla) and in Windows a great deal faster than Internet Explorer.

Could Opera help me in OpenBSD?

First I had to clear some space. This 3 GB hard drive has 1 GB set aside for the /usr partition in OpenBSD.

When I initially set up the system, I added two huge educational packages — Childsplay and GCompris — for my daughter. That pretty much maxed out the /usr partition.

To reclaim some space I started removing packages with pkg_delete. It took me quite a bit of time before I even had enough space to download the OpenBSD ports tree and unpack it.

The first couple of times I tried, I ran out of space in /usr. But eventually I was able to untar the ports tree and install the Opera browser, which, being non-FOSS, is not available as a precompiled binary package for OpenBSD but only as a port. (Actually, the "port" grabs the Linux binary package and installs that in OpenBSD; you need OpenBSD's fedora_base package to make Linux binary compatibility work, and you then need to modify /etc/sysctl.conf to have Linux binary compatibility automatically started at boot time. I will do a tutorial on this at some point soon, but is there really an OpenBSD user out there who knows less than I do? I'll believe it when I see it.).

Ethical aside: The way OpenBSD works is that the user is given the ultimate freedom. Rather than limiting the system to only free, open-source packages under amenable licenses, the developers of OpenBSD allow the user to decide, on an app-by-app basis, what they are comfortable installing and using on their machine.

The precompiled packages on OpenBSD's servers and mirrors are composed of, as far as I know, all free, open-source software. There are many things less than FOSS (but still free) available via ports, which are a different animal entirely.

A "port" in the world of OpenBSD is just a script (or "recipe") that fetches the appropriate code from the application's source (and NOT from any OpenBSD-controlled server) and compiles it, creating a binary package that is then installed on your system.

Back to Opera: Once I cleared out enough space for the ports tree, I installed Opera (OK, I had to clear out more and more from /usr before I had enough space for Opera to build).

And now I'm running Opera and writing an entry in Movable Type. The screen doesn't exactly keep up with my typing, but I don't have any scripts stalling, and I can produce an entry with little trouble.

Opera's sheer usability on this system has me using it more and more. For a nearly 10-year-old system with this little CPU and RAM, it's pretty much the killer app.

In response to my item on the Opera Web browser, I received this e-mail from Thomas Ford, communications manager for the company that produces the browser:

Hi Steven,

I read your post about Opera and just wanted to drop a short note to say thanks. We really appreciate the kind words.

You did mention that you use the Web Developer add-on for Firefox. You should also check out our Web dev tool, Opera Dragonfly. It's just in a second alpha, but you'll see where we're going. To access it, just go to Tools > Advanced > Developer tools. This will launch Dragonfly. You can follow development over at http://my.opera.com/dragonfly

Let me know if you have any other questions or comments. If you don't have an iPhone, you ought to try Opera Mini (if you have a Java-enabled phone) or Opera Mobile (if you have a Windows Mobile smartphone), but that may be a conversation for another time. Thanks again!

Best regards,

That's something I'll have to look at. The problem with developing on the Web with Opera is the same problem that Firefox kinda-sorta faces, but not really. That problem is the persistent fact that the majority of the world sees the Web through the eyes of Internet Explorer, and you've got to make sure your sites look good and work well on IE before considering Firefox. When it comes to sheer numbers of Web users, Opera doesn't factor in.

But since Opera seems to be aiming to be a standards-compliant browser, that is very much in its favor as a development platform. If making things work in Opera meant they would be sure to work in IE and Firefox, that would be a point very much in Opera's favor.

I'll be exploring Opera further in the days and weeks ahead. Among the features I'll be looking at:

Last week, I went on about how much I like the Opera Web browser. I've used it in Windows, Mac and Linux thus far, and it made quite a bit of difference especially on the $15 Laptop, which has only 233 MHz of CPU and 144 MB of RAM at its disposal.

I installed Opera in Puppy 2.13 via the project's repository. It was an easy install, and Opera gave me quite a bit of additional speed compared with Puppy's default browser, the Mozilla-based Seamonkey. And since Opera is a full-featured browser, it can do a lot more than the very light Dillo, meaning I can use Opera to post to this blog with Movable Type, work on the Web interface for Dailynews.com (where I've found one thing it can't do, but only one), and to do all of my general browsing.

Again, I'm not entirely happy about using a non-open-source application, but the relative swiftness of Opera, coupled with its functionality, has kept me using it.

I know that the Opera Web browser is not a free, open-source application — which I almost always prefer — but the browser itself is a free download for Windows, Mac and in precompiled packages for many flavors of Linux as well as FreeBSD.

Question: Why another Web browser? While Windows and Mac users overwhelmingly use Internet Explorer and Firefox, with a smattering using Apple's Safari, there's plenty of room for other entries in the browser space.

I don't know about you, but I'm in a Web browser about 80 percent to 90 percent of the time, both for the traditional task of looking at Web pages but increasingly to use Web-based software.

And for something so important, choice is key.

Users of Linux and other Unix-like operating systems are used to having lots of browsers to choose from, among them Firefox (and its non-copyrighted Iceweasel offshoot in Debian), Epiphany (the GNOME browser created from Mozilla's Gecko engine), Konqueror (the KDE browser/file manager from which Apple took code to create Safari), Seamonkey (the Mozilla-created Web suite that's modeled after the now-dead Netscape Communicator, offering browsing, e-mail and Web design in one application), Dillo (a very lightweight browser), Netsurf (also lightweight), a few more that I'm probably forgetting, plus text-only browsers that include Elinks, Links, Lynx and W3m.

I'd never used Opera before, mostly because of its closed-source status, although I have been "forced" to use Internet Explorer -- also closed source (hey, it's Microsoft -- what do any of us expect?), and besides, IE runs only in Windows and not in Linux (without difficulty, meaning use of WINE or a virtual machine) or Apple's OS X.

And our main Web application insists on IE not for all, but for the most "advanced" operation.

Imagine my surprise a few weeks back when I saw staff artist and Flash guru Jon Gerung using the Opera browser for the very task that usually demands IE.

Since then, I've downloaded Opera and have begun using it to work on Dailynews.com -- and for everything else, too.

There are a few instances where the CSS drops out, one situation where a link won't open, but for 99 percent of my work on this task, Opera does it as good as IE, often times better -- and always much, much faster.

That's the best thing about the Opera Web browser -- it's very fast. And that matters a great deal when doing Web-intensive work. You want to wait as little as possible for the software to do its thing so you can ... do your thing.

The company that makes Opera -- called Opera Software -- provides versions for many platforms. It's a pity you can't get the source and compile it yourself for Linux/Unix, but the speed and functionality of Opera is too good for me to pass up at the moment.

I'll still use Firefox -- probably a lot -- since it's the go-to browser for just about everybody out there, and I need to use the Web Developer add-on, but there's no denying that Opera is simply one of the best applications I've seen lately.