Debian Firefox Unbearably Slow

[dbdjre0143]

As part of my plan to set up my 1 GHz iBook G4 as an OwnCloud server, I performed an install of Debian 8 Jessie with the LXDE desktop environment. Everything went pretty smooth and I'm impressed with how snappy the machine feels, until I try to open Firefox or IceWeasel. In either case, the machine drops to a complete crawl, and I'm not talking about trying to load a complex page or something, I'm talking about the default homepage with ONLY a search box! Is there some setting or trick I'm missing to make this browser realistically usable in any way?

Note: I have realistic expectations, as I used this Mac for quite awhile with TFF on Tiger before I got my DLSD. It was slow on heavy sites, but I could at least use Google without growing a beard. 😛

 

[swamprock]

Firefox ESR for Debian (and even Ubuntu MATE) is buggy, slow, and crashtastic. A group of guys still supporting PPC64 ported the last ESR and added it to sid ports, and I tested it on my new (to me; more later) dual core 2.0ghz G5, and it was a slow, buggy mess. The version on the jessie repositories isn't any better. Use apt to install Midori 0.5.11 for a better (albeit not perfect) browsing experience.

 

[dbdjre0143]

@swamprock Awesome call! Midori is much better! I won't be doing much browsing at all on this machine, but its nice to not have to transfer files using a flash drive when I need to download something. 🙂

 

[z970]

I've had the same problem on Debian 8.11 in the MATE environment. I've had to revert to QupZilla as a fallback.

Does anyone know how to remove the CD from the repository lists? I have to have the disc in to install software, and I'd rather it pull from the servers instead.

Also, has anyone found any way to get Linux to sleep a G5 yet? That's essentially the only problem in the way of Debian being a great replacement for OS X.

And seriously, does anybody else have trouble changing their profile picture? No matter what I do, it won't budge. I dare you people to try it yourselves.

 

[swamprock]

Does anyone know how to remove the CD from the repository lists? I have to have the disc in to install software, and I'd rather it pull from the servers instead.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Comment out the CD line(s), ctrl X, yes, return, done.

 

[pl1984]

And seriously, does anybody else have trouble changing their profile picture? No matter what I do, it won't budge. I dare you people to try it yourselves.

It doesn't appear to be working for me.

MR seems to be a little wonky as of late. I often leave it open on my computer and it becomes unresponsive. It never used to do that.

 

[z970]

It doesn't appear to be working for me.

MR seems to be a little wonky as of late. I often leave it open on my computer and it becomes unresponsive. It never used to do that.

I knew it was a site-wide bug!

I'll try getting in contact with the staff, see if they're aware.

 

[z970]

Turns out, no need.

As evident, profile pictures are working correctly again.