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TenFourFox 38 builds…get ready!

eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
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Cameron Kaiser has announced that T4Fx 38 now builds. So, we've made it to the next ESR and have at least one more year of updates available.

Note however that it is within the realm of possibility that after 38 G3 builds will no longer be made. This is because of changes that Mozilla is making and Kaiser feels that in light of the fact that G3 builds are the least downloaded it isn't worth the effort.

We should have betas sometime by July he says.

http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2015/06/tenfourfox-38-is-go-plus-sourceforge.html
 
Thats too bad about the G3 builds. I've still got a bunch of G3 systems and I use TenFourFox on all of them with Tiger. I can understand the lack of downloads though, the G3 is really getting old and there aren't many that can handle modern Internet without major lag.
 
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Hrududu said:
Thats too bad about the G3 builds. I've still got a bunch of G3 systems and I use TenFourFox on all of them with Tiger. I can understand the lack of downloads though, the G3 is really getting old and there aren't many that can handle modern Internet without major lag.
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G3s aren't good for internet like you said so there is not really any point in having TFF for G3.
G3s are best for show and for music and media, and other basic stuff.
 
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poiihy said:
G3s aren't good for internet like you said so there is not really any point in having TFF for G3.
G3s are best for show and for music and media, and other basic stuff.
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I'm just curious, but do you have any G3 systems other than the beige desktop you gutted?

My 800mhz iBook is no slouch with TFF. My 500mhz Pismo, 600mhz iMac, and my B&Ws(both 350mhz and 400mhz) all do really well with it. I still primarily run them in OS 9, but used my Pismo in Tiger with TFF for a week or so at work and it did pretty much everything I asked of it. It was a lot slower than my G5 desktop at work, the various G4 Powerbooks I use regularly, and definitely slower than my MBPs, but was still not that bad.

I'll be sorry to see the G3 build gone. I use it a lot, although admittedly I've only downloaded it a few times and keep it on a flash drive. Perhaps I should change that :) . I bought a pair of iMacs yesterday, so will load Tiger on them and download TFF.

In any case, though, I tremendously appreciate Cameron's continued work on this project, and if G3 support comes at the cost of continued updates, I'll happily take the trade-off.
 
bunnspecial said:
I'll be sorry to see the G3 build gone. I use it a lot, although admittedly I've only downloaded it a few times and keep it on a flash drive. Perhaps I should change that :) . I bought a pair of iMacs yesterday, so will load Tiger on them and download TFF.

In any case, though, I tremendously appreciate Cameron's continued work on this project, and if G3 support comes at the cost of continued updates, I'll happily take the trade-off.
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Kaiser has supported us way longer than any other dev out there. Including Dropbox.

So, if G3 builds do get dropped this is one of those rare times where I totally believe and accept the argument that it's too much trouble for too small a percentage of the market. Kaiser does this on his own for free, he has no profit model to pursue and no one he has to answer to. Considering the increasing complexity of the crap Mozilla keeps throwing at him it's amazing he's gotten this far.

I won't be sorry to see that build gone, but I am sorry that Mozilla will eventually force it on him.

Everyone should keep in mind however, that just because development stops on one particular build, it does not mean you cannot use older builds. Now, I hear the objections. "It won't be secure," blah, blah, blah. Frankly, unless a G3 is your ONLY daily driver I have to question using a G3 based Mac for the kinds of things that require a secure and updated browser. Especially so, if you own a G4 or more than one. <---- These last three sentences are not directed at you bunns, just a general observation.
 
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A shame G3s are being dropped but we all owe Cameron for the support he has given older systems so we can still find them useful. He's done an astounding job. I hope the dropping of G4s is a long long way away though. :p
 
roadbloc said:
A shame G3s are being dropped but we all owe Cameron for the support he has given older systems so we can still find them useful. He's done an astounding job. I hope the dropping of G4s is a long long way away though. :p
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Well, I think if and when we get to that point it's not going to matter. I love PowerPC, but even five years from now the youngest Macs will be fourteen. That's a seriously long time for even the G5s. I'm not sure how well our PowerPC Macs will be performing then.
 
eyoungren said:
Well, I think if and when we get to that point it's not going to matter. I love PowerPC, but even five years from now the youngest Macs will be fourteen. That's a seriously long time for even the G5s. I'm not sure how well our PowerPC Macs will be performing then.
Click to expand...

One thing to consider is that with die shrink, CPU improvements have sort of leveled off in the last few years. There have been improvements, but they aren't as dramatic as they were 10 years ago.

I think Intel is now using a 14nm process on some CPUs. They're not that far off from "rock bottom" as they're getting close to having traces that are just a few atoms wide. That's not to say that they won't continue to improve, just that I think that Moore's law is sort of starting to fall apart for CPUs at least.

GPUs are where the real development has been the past few years, and improved graphics may well be the undoing of our PPC machines. Depending on what metric you're using, the Intel 3000 GPU integrated in my i5 MBP is about on par with a lot of mid range AGP cards like 9600s-and I think there have been at least two newer generations of Intel integrated graphics since this c. 2011 CPU.
 
bunnspecial said:
I'm just curious, but do you have any G3 systems other than the beige desktop you gutted?

My 800mhz iBook is no slouch with TFF. My 500mhz Pismo, 600mhz iMac, and my B&Ws(both 350mhz and 400mhz) all do really well with it. I still primarily run them in OS 9, but used my Pismo in Tiger with TFF for a week or so at work and it did pretty much everything I asked of it. It was a lot slower than my G5 desktop at work, the various G4 Powerbooks I use regularly, and definitely slower than my MBPs, but was still not that bad.

I'll be sorry to see the G3 build gone. I use it a lot, although admittedly I've only downloaded it a few times and keep it on a flash drive. Perhaps I should change that :) . I bought a pair of iMacs yesterday, so will load Tiger on them and download TFF.

In any case, though, I tremendously appreciate Cameron's continued work on this project, and if G3 support comes at the cost of continued updates, I'll happily take the trade-off.
Click to expand...

Interesting comment. The imac in my signature works like a charm, but would struggle bad even in TenFourFox when i downloaded it. I found Camino worked the best. Ill agree its more a lower end G3, being only 400Mhz, but then again, my Beige G3 on classilla seemed to work way better. Yes it will be sad to drop G3 support, however G3 machines are approaching 20 years (some models) and im surprised they manage to hold on this long.
 
bunnspecial said:
One thing to consider is that with die shrink, CPU improvements have sort of leveled off in the last few years. There have been improvements, but they aren't as dramatic as they were 10 years ago.

I think Intel is now using a 14nm process on some CPUs. They're not that far off from "rock bottom" as they're getting close to having traces that are just a few atoms wide. That's not to say that they won't continue to improve, just that I think that Moore's law is sort of starting to fall apart for CPUs at least.

GPUs are where the real development has been the past few years, and improved graphics may well be the undoing of our PPC machines. Depending on what metric you're using, the Intel 3000 GPU integrated in my i5 MBP is about on par with a lot of mid range AGP cards like 9600s-and I think there have been at least two newer generations of Intel integrated graphics since this c. 2011 CPU.
Click to expand...

I agree, Moore's law is slowing down significantly. At this point, I think battery improvements are the most important step. We keep seeing low voltage CPUs put into laptops for a reason. Better batteries would let manufacturers stuff higher wattage CPUs and GPUs in devices without hurting battery life or increasing the size of the device.
 
eyoungren said:
Well, I think if and when we get to that point it's not going to matter. I love PowerPC, but even five years from now the youngest Macs will be fourteen. That's a seriously long time for even the G5s. I'm not sure how well our PowerPC Macs will be performing then.
Click to expand...

Now that "computers on a dongle" are available and assuming their connectivity is applicable, I think they will be the last option for PPCs to be online - either through a software interpreter or more likely, a simple remote desktop connection. Whichever way, the dongle will have all the hardware oomph to tackle the internet whilst being as in-obtrusive as a wireless bud (when the size comes down).
 
556fmjoe said:
I agree, Moore's law is slowing down significantly. At this point, I think battery improvements are the most important step. We keep seeing low voltage CPUs put into laptops for a reason. Better batteries would let manufacturers stuff higher wattage CPUs and GPUs in devices without hurting battery life or increasing the size of the device.
Click to expand...

Better battery life would be an improvement, but at least with Apple it's somewhat at odds with their never-ending obsession with thinness. The new Macbook does have impressive battery life, though, although it does so at a serious performance hit vs. even the MBA. It's enough computer for probably 80% or 90% of computer users, but still makes some big compromises.

BTW, is that a Sig in your avatar?
 
bunnspecial said:
Better battery life would be an improvement, but at least with Apple it's somewhat at odds with their never-ending obsession with thinness. The new Macbook does have impressive battery life, though, although it does so at a serious performance hit vs. even the MBA. It's enough computer for probably 80% or 90% of computer users, but still makes some big compromises.

BTW, is that a Sig in your avatar?
Click to expand...

Nope, it's an AR-15 safety selector set to "fire".
 
bunnspecial said:
One thing to consider is that with die shrink, CPU improvements have sort of leveled off in the last few years. There have been improvements, but they aren't as dramatic as they were 10 years ago.

I think Intel is now using a 14nm process on some CPUs. They're not that far off from "rock bottom" as they're getting close to having traces that are just a few atoms wide. That's not to say that they won't continue to improve, just that I think that Moore's law is sort of starting to fall apart for CPUs at least.

GPUs are where the real development has been the past few years, and improved graphics may well be the undoing of our PPC machines. Depending on what metric you're using, the Intel 3000 GPU integrated in my i5 MBP is about on par with a lot of mid range AGP cards like 9600s-and I think there have been at least two newer generations of Intel integrated graphics since this c. 2011 CPU.
Click to expand...

Moore's law probably has about 5 years in it without an exceptional breakthrough. Then again it does date from 1960. ;)

The Intel HD 3000 is somewhat quicker than a Radeon 9600. You'd have to skip a couple of generations later - into Radeon X1600 territory to find parity.
 
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MagicBoy said:
Moore's law probably has about 5 years in it without an exceptional breakthrough. Then again it does date from 1960. ;)
.
Click to expand...

Moores's law is dependent on the standard physics model, I fully expect that to be radically modified in my lifetime. Closer still is quantum computing - when that's realised I expect we'll see unimaginable leaps forward.
 
MagicBoy said:
Moore's law probably has about 5 years in it without an exceptional breakthrough. Then again it does date from 1960. ;)

The Intel HD 3000 is somewhat quicker than a Radeon 9600. You'd have to skip a couple of generations later - into Radeon X1600 territory to find parity.
Click to expand...

I guess that I'm a bit lost when we start talking about post-G5 era GPUs.

That's amazing to me, though, that the lowly integrated graphics in a mid-range mobile CPU are better than a high end card from 8 or 9 years ago.

How does the NVidia 8600M GT in my early '08 MBPs compare to the 3000?
 
MagicBoy said:
Found it : http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32899-7.html
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Thanks!

Looking over the chart, I see a few G5 cards in the same line as the Intel 4000-specifically the 6800 Ultra(I have one in one of my G5s and love it) as well as the X800/850(I need to get my flashed FireGL in a computer).

My 8600 is a few notches above.

I always knew that the Intel GMA950 in a lot of early Intel Macs(specifically Macbooks and iMacs) was a piece of crap. It ranks the same as a 2MX or Radeon 7000 on that chart.
 
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I've had a rant about the GMA950 before so won't repeat myself!

The first non-gimped Intel graphics I recall is the GMA X4500 which shipped with the late Core2s running 4-series chipsets. The later Ironlake (Just called plain HD Graphics) was OK, the HD 2000/3000 series are getting decent and squeezing nVidia/AMD out of the low end of the market.
 
MagicBoy said:
I've had a rant about the GMA950 before so won't repeat myself!

The first non-gimped Intel graphics I recall is the GMA X4500 which shipped with the late Core2s running 4-series chipsets. The later Ironlake (Just called plain HD Graphics) was OK, the HD 2000/3000 series are getting decent and squeezing nVidia/AMD out of the low end of the market.
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I forget the model, but the GPU in my mid-09 Macbook is actually decent.

I just really wish that the Blackbooks had been made available with something better than the GMA950, as I love mine but feel like that handicaps it. I know there are hacks to take it past Lion, but I won't do it because of the GPU.

I don't really care in my CoreDuo Mini since it's run headless and I don't have any reason to upgrade it past Snow Leopard Server(not that I could without major surgery).

For what I do with it, the GMA950 in my white iMac is fine, but it would be nice to have a better GPU in it.
 
Surely that chart is inaccurate. The author does say most of the integrated graphics are guestimates. If it's to be believed the graphics card in the last Powerbook is on a par with the HD Intel Graphics in a 2010 Macbook Pro?
 
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