Firefox Quantum upgrade lost Profile data

Today, my voidlinux received an upgrade to firefox-esr v52 to v60. I backed up my firefox profile in ~/.mozilla, before starting the new upgraded firefox. In hindsight, this saved my ass.

I noticed firefox upgraded my profile, and certain bits got lost. My major concern was losing all my uMatrix rules. I had this same issue with Gentoo last year when they canned firefox-52.

When asking for help on voidlinux irc, the first response told me to build it myself. That first suggestion had me thinking of going back to gentoo, as my void box is runtime only with no development tools. That led to searching for the pkg build files, and I arrived here.

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.0esr/linux-i686/en-GB/

Voila! Problem solved :)

Download the tar file, extract into /tmp. Re/move upgraded firefox profile, and restore ~/.mozilla from backup. Now I could simply run /tmp/firefox/firefox and it loaded up with my old profile. I could successfully export all my bookmarks, rules, and other required data.

Hopefully, this helps someone in similar situation.

opera 12 issues

just installed opera 12, and rolled it back right away. this is not a stable version.
issues: toolbars (specifically main-menu), multimedia (flash videos), indic fonts (malayalam?)

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opera 12.00 starts up with a useless empty bar on top with just one button, wasting screen estate. see image below.


don't bother trawling through the opera forums, as opera developers seem to be windows kiddies. after eating some more of my leftover hair, i find a workaround. go to

Opera -> Settings -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Tabs -> Additional Tab Options -> Show close button on each tab (enable)


this is not ideal, as now every tab has an unnecessary " x" at the end. but is better than an empty line of wasted screen estate.

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the next issue is flash. i just can't play any videos. instead i see an empty static black box, where the video is supposed to be. no buttons, no clicks, ...nothing. like this


opera 12 has "Experimental hardware acceleration WebGL support" which need to be activated by enabling two settings in opera:config, ie set them to 1 (autodetect), or 2 (on). they are initially set to 0 (disabled).
opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableHardwareAcceleration and opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableWebGL

i play with different combinations of these settings wondering if these were the cause of my youtube problems. but every permutation i try gives me the same static black box in youtube.

back to opera forums "Opera for *nix - Linux/FreeBSD", and the first sticky is this post: Flash problems on Linux?
it seems a bit dated for 14/12/2009, but as opera lists this at the top, i expect this to be current. so i trawl through this, and do what it asks:

$ find / -name 'libflashplayer.so' 2> /dev/null
/usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so

$ ldd /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so
linux-vdso.so.1 => (0x00007fff560a7000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0x00007fda2350f000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXext.so.6 (0x00007fda232fc000)
libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXt.so.6 (0x00007fda23094000)
libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6 (0x00007fda22df5000)
libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x00007fda22bbe000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fda229a1000)
librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fda22799000)
libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda22158000)
libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda21ea3000)
libatk-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libatk-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fda21c80000)
libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fda21a55000)
libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda21834000)
libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fda21627000)
libcairo.so.2 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcairo.so.2 (0x00007fda2132c000)
libpango-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpango-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fda210de000)
libgobject-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgobject-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda20e8e000)
libgmodule-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgmodule-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda20c8a000)
libglib-2.0.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda20992000)
libssl3.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl3.so (0x00007fda20751000)
libsmime3.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsmime3.so (0x00007fda20524000)
libnss3.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnss3.so (0x00007fda201e7000)
libnssutil3.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnssutil3.so (0x00007fda1ffc1000)
libplds4.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libplds4.so (0x00007fda1fdbd000)
libplc4.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libplc4.so (0x00007fda1fbb7000)
libnspr4.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnspr4.so (0x00007fda1f978000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fda1f774000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fda1f4f1000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fda1f16a000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fda24d48000)
libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 (0x00007fda1ef4a000)
libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libSM.so.6 (0x00007fda1ed42000)
libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libICE.so.6 (0x00007fda1eb27000)
libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007fda1e910000)
libexpat.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexpat.so.1 (0x00007fda1e6e5000)
libXcomposite.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXcomposite.so.1 (0x00007fda1e4e3000)
libXdamage.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdamage.so.1 (0x00007fda1e2e1000)
libXfixes.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXfixes.so.3 (0x00007fda1e0da000)
libgio-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgio-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda1dd88000)
libgthread-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgthread-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda1db86000)
libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXrender.so.1 (0x00007fda1d97c000)
libXinerama.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXinerama.so.1 (0x00007fda1d77a000)
libXi.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXi.so.6 (0x00007fda1d56a000)
libXrandr.so.2 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXrandr.so.2 (0x00007fda1d362000)
libXcursor.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXcursor.so.1 (0x00007fda1d158000)
libpng12.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0 (0x00007fda1cf30000)
libpixman-1.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpixman-1.so.0 (0x00007fda1cca9000)
libxcb-shm.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb-shm.so.0 (0x00007fda1caa5000)
libxcb-render.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb-render.so.0 (0x00007fda1c89b000)
libffi.so.5 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffi.so.5 (0x00007fda1c68d000)
libpcre.so.3 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre.so.3 (0x00007fda1c450000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0x00007fda1c24c000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007fda1c047000)
libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007fda1be42000)
libselinux.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libselinux.so.1 (0x00007fda1bc21000)
libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007fda1ba0b000)


at this point, i give up on that post and go back to troubleshooting on my own.

http://youtube.com/html5 tells me this:

What does my browser support?
Video tag [y], h.264[!], WebM [!]

Note the answer to the above question, when a few lines above it says that Opera 10.6+ supports WebM. What does [!] mean?

opera:plugins lists all plug-ins and their status.

then i wonder, if youtube has any other issues. so i uninstall opera 12.00, reinstall opera 11.64, and try youtube. voila... it works! so it has to be opera 12 and not anything else on my system!

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update: for now, i have installed opera 12.00 & 11.64 side-by-side on the same system. i don't seem to have the above issues on 11.64. so i guess, i'll continue using 11.64 for now.

i'm still sticking with opera, as i find it to be lean, small & fast, when all the others are going bloatware. i only use iceweasel (firefox, for the uninitiated ;-) when opera doesn't suffice. for eg, when i need to work with indic fonts, which opera won't render properly.

adb reference

adb - Android Debug Bridge


# adb {start|kill}-server
$ adb [dis]connect {host}:{port}
$ adb devices
$ adb reboot [recovery|bootloader]

$ adb shell mount -a
$ adb remount

$ adb shell ls -lhSr /system/app/

$ adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.browser/.BrowserActivity
$ adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.settings/.Settings

$ adb logcat
$ adb get-state
$ adb status-window
$ adb shell dumpsys activity


Opera cpu/memory leaks and Flash

i have been a long term user of opera, as i like it's light resource demands. one particular concern has been the long running issue of cpu/memory leaks. opera seems to continue consuming cpu/memory as it runs longer. so you need to periodically *restart* it. this problem exacerbates after visiting websites with flash. sometimes, it gets so bad, that i have to kill -9 ... i usually disable plugins, or only enable on-demand. but there are times when i need flash.

$ ps ux | grep opera

gives some clue. seems to me that opera plugin handling is badly written, when I see

.../lib/opera//operapluginwrapper

.../lib/opera//operaplugincleaner

note the double slashes in the path, instead of a single slash.

i found some others having similar problems. perhaps they might help. although, they seem to be historical issues, i still have problems with opera 11.51, the latest release.

>> extremely high CPU usage by opera plugin wrapper process http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1288274

>> build 4464 (intel linux) and operapluginwrapper http://www.archivum.info/opera.beta/2009-07/00030/build-4464-(intel-linux)-and-operapluginwrapper.html

fennec: firefox mobile

The Mozilla Blog caught my eye with a post on Firefox Mobile for Android. http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2011/08/16/firefox-for-android-has-a-new-look-and-tools-that-empower-developers-to-build-rich-mobile-web-experiences/

Exploring from there, I reached here: http://mozilla.com/mobile

android fonts

I can't view any non-english characters. I am told that android 2.2 resolved this issue. I won't be able to get Froyo soonish. So I have to live with this issue for the time being.

My workaround has been to use Opera Mini with fonts being rendered on the server. I can read many sites, though not all.