Thanks to all those who have replied either to
the list or on my personal mail. Finally decided
to give it a try. Downloaded the static binary
from the Opera site (Ver 4.0b1). Run it for over
2 hrs right now.
Initial impressions ... not that bad at all (but
being a beta release, many things don't seem to
work).
Pros :
o Reasonable download of 2.5 mb tarball. (The
dynamic tarballs/ debs are smaller but they
need qt-2.2 installed).
o .deb available !
o Single executable file (about 5.8 mb)
o Simple shell script install/ un-install
o Less resource hungry than Netscape/ Mozilla
o Much faster than both
o Clean intuitive interface
o HTML rendering excellent. Graphics good.
o No crashes in last 2 hrs of constant use.
... perhaps too early to say !
Cons : (some stated in the README itself)
o Non-GPL (binary-only distribution)
o Needs libstdc++ version 6.1, and therefore
not expected to work on slink
o Printing to printer does NOT work
o Some preferences don't work, though lot of
customisation facilities available
o Window settings is not saved
o No Java or plugin support
o Fullscreen mode doesn't work properly
o Scrolling a zoomed/ scaled page doesn't
work properly
o More when I find out more ...
With so many things amiss in the beta version it
seems unfair to ask for regn fees after the 30 day
trial. Otherwise for a beta, seems quite usable for
non-fancy browser requirements even in the present
state ....
As the README file states "Expect these to be fixed
soon" ! Once these rough edges are smoothened, may
surely be worth it.
Putting it to the list for general info ...
USM Bish
On Fri, Nov 03, 2000 at 09:11:02PM +0000, Tom Huckstep wrote:
>
> USM Bish writes:
> > Been on this list for the last few months. Never
> > noticed anything posted on Opera web browser for
> > Linux.
>
> I use the beta of 4.0b1.
>
> <snip>
>
> > There are some .debs on the Opera site as well,
> > but I don't have a clue regarding its popularity
> > in the debian world.
>
> I came to Opera in the windows world, where Netscape was poor and IE
> was bloated and slow. I loved Opera's small size, speed and support
> for W3C standards. I downloaded the statically linked .debs from
> www.opera.com (Potato doesn't provide the required versions of the qt
> libs).
>
> > Never used it myself, so any kind of info like
> > resource utilisation, speed, customisation, java
> > support, plug-in support, glitches etc would be
> > welcome.
>
> At the moment 4.0b1 seems very buggy. It crashes once or twice an
> hour, but always very cleanly. I imagine that 3.x would be much
> better. It certainly was for 'doze, but I don't know if they provide
> it for debian.
>
> As far as performance goes, it is still a lot quicker than Netscape or
> Mozilla, and I use Opera for all my browsing, even through its
> crashes. (Mozilla often segfaults on me anyway.) It has great
> options for customisation. However, I do not believe Java is
> supported as yet. There is a particular glitch where it becomes
> unresponsive for a few seconds, but otherwise the best web browser I
> have ever used.
>
