[proposal] The Opera browser

quarkup · 2009-11-09 23:50:53

There are too many packages for opera on AUR.

Well, this is somehow the same thing we had for chromium, if you cannot remember what happened, check this post: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=79410

You can check the different versions of opera there are on the blog: http://my.opera.com/ruario/blog/2009/09 … ch-version

They differ in the gcc and qt versions - and there is the alternative of using opera with the qt bundled.
As arch uses the latest gcc (gcc4) we need just to know if we want to use the packages for qt3 or for qt4, according to our system - note that there is the qt bundled version.

So IMO somehow we should have these packages:
opera-browser (latest final release, qt4 version)
opera-browser-bundled (latest final release, qt4 bundled)
opera-browser-qt3 (latest final release, qt3 version)
opera-browser-snapshot (latest version, qt4 bundled)

About half of the opera packages are "out of date".
Many of them are equal..

Actually you can find the following opera packages on AUR by searching with the regexp "opera-".
Excluding the 'opera-china-qt4', 'opera-china-qt3', the adblock filters and the 'opera-mini' packages, we got the following list

note: there is also the 'opera' package. The following packages are found on the AUR

opera 10.01-1
The Opera web browser
opera-b1 10.10-1
Opera 10.10 Beta with Opera Unite
opera-beta 10.10-10
The Opera web browser 10 beta release, QT4
opera-beta-qt4 10.00b3-1 (Out of Date)
The Opera web browser beta version
opera-bundled 10.01-3
The Opera web browser, statically linked to QT
opera-dev 10.10_4694-1
The Opera web browser development and testing version - gcc4 shared Qt3 build
opera-devel-qt4 10.10_4685-1 (Out of Date)
The Opera web browser development and testing version, shared Qt4 version
opera-dev-qt4 10.00_4493-2 (Out of Date)
The Opera web browser development and testing version - gcc4 Qt4 build
opera-g4 LATEST-4
The Opera web browser - gcc4 and qt4 (g4)
opera-qt3 9.64-1
The Opera web browser - Qt3 shared build
opera-qt4 10.00-6 (Out of Date)
The Opera web browser, statically compiled against Qt4
opera-shared-b1 10.10-1
Opera 10.10 Beta with Opera Unite, shared Qt4 version
opera-static 9.64-1 (Out of Date)
The Opera web browser, statically linked to QT
opera-unite-devel-qt3 10.00_4440-3 (Out of Date)
The Opera web browser with Opera Unite (development and testing version, shared Qt3 version)

what is your opinion about this topic?
should we turn it simple by changing this list to fewer packages ?

the proposal, again is this
opera-browser (latest final release, qt4 version)
opera-browser-bundled (latest final release, qt4 bundled)
opera-browser-qt3 (latest final release, qt3 version)
opera-browser-snapshot (latest version, qt4 bundled)

notice that the snapshot version is more likely to be a beta version, and nowadays being the "opera united" version.
and notice also that the snapshot is the latest qt, bundled.

IMO this should be this way because the developer's qt is different than ours, and being a beta version and bundled would be more stable than using our qt's.

Last edited by quarkup (2009-11-11 00:07:07)

wonder · 2009-11-10 00:29:44

you missed http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=10333

quarkup · 2009-11-10 10:31:12

wow that's true, my fault.

also, the 'opera' package installs the latest final release (not a beta version) for gcc4/qt4 without qt bundled.

btw, the "bundled" version was more likely known before as "static" - now are some few differences.

Last edited by quarkup (2009-11-10 10:43:18)

flamelab · 2009-11-10 10:44:14

We need a cleaning up here, as well. Start a conversation on aur-general, so that more people will see it.

Last edited by flamelab (2009-11-10 10:44:23)

ruario · 2009-11-10 12:59:27

I just got a couple of hits on my Opera versions blog post from this page so I thought I'd check it out.

I'm an Opera employee working in the Desktop UNIX testing team. If you have any specific questions about Opera versions you can ask me directly. Here, on my blog, via a pm or email ... whatever.

Keep in mind that in addition to the main stable browser and snapshots we also have Beta and Labs releases. I can clarify the differences if anyone is unsure. I should also mention that the most stable variant is currently still Qt3 based and hence this is what we push on www.opera.com/download. So I would generally encourage "opera-browser" being Qt3 and having "opera-browser-qt4" be the alternative package rather than how quarkup has initially suggested things. Though given the nature of Arch and Arch users (by that I mean more cutting edge), I'm realistic that this suggestion might be ignored.

Also, if anyone is interested in getting Opera into the main repositories it might be possible to arrange a Linux distribution license. This is a separate license from the end user license better tailored for organisations wanting to redistribute Opera. I'm not really involved in licensing at all (so I could be completely wrong here) but my understanding is that it is fairly easy to setup licensing for a non-profit distro, though it would require someone officially representing the distro to sign the redistribution agreement. This is how some of the other distros are able to offer our products within their main repositories. The situation might be a little more tricky with Arch because we generally don't allow our packages to be altered and obviously we don't currently have a native Arch package at the moment. However it might be worth discussing in case something can be worked out. Perhaps I can also see if I can get any leverage for a native package internally as this would simplify things (no promises on this front though!).

P.S. As a side note I actually switched my primary testing distro to Arch64 about a week ago. I'll have to see how it works out for me in in the long run but so far I really like it. Indeed I even plan to switch over one of my home machines as well.

deej · 2009-11-10 13:03:21

Nice to know we have an Opera Man on the job
Now all we need is someone to decipher the licence... not an enviable task

Deej

flamelab · 2009-11-10 13:09:24

It's really nice to hear that an opera developer is working on Archlinux

It was good from you to tell us which opera packages should be primarily used, so that the PKGBUILDs should be adjusted accordingly.

As for Opera's distribution, I think that, lately, the opera PKGBUILD (the stable release) on AUR was altered so that it could be distributed through the [extra] official repository, but it was removed from extra afterwards, because there was that license issue you just mentioned.

If you could inform the developers of what could be done about opera, it would be good

Last edited by flamelab (2009-11-10 13:11:00)

quarkup · 2009-11-10 16:01:13

thanks for being here ruario.

I have some questions to make about opera which are somehow curious for me, but I'm not really sure where should I really place them. Maybe I found a bug or something.

Last edited by quarkup (2009-11-10 16:04:17)

ruario · 2009-11-10 16:04:20

flamelab wrote:

It's really nice to hear that an opera developer is working on Archlinux

I should mention however that I am not a developer, I work in the testing team. Though I am of course talking up Archlinux to those around me (mainly developers) so who knows perhaps we'll get a developer on it soon!

Actually, it is possible we have a developer already using Archlinux as I mainly tend to interact with those in the desktop team. I don't know what every Linux developer runs who works on the core rendering engine. Perhaps one of them already runs it.

flamelab wrote:

It was good from you to tell us which opera packages should be primarily used, so that the PKGBUILDs should be adjusted accordingly.
As for Opera's distribution, I think that, lately, the opera PKGBUILD (the stable release) on AUR was altered so that it could be distributed through the [extra] official repository, but it was removed from extra afterwards, because there was that license issue you just mentioned.
If you could inform the developers of what could be done about opera, it would be good

If you can point me in the right direction of which person I should be speaking to about this I'd be happy to get the ball rolling. I can then put them in contact with our licensing team to see if some agreement can be reached.

ruario · 2009-11-10 16:17:02

quarkup wrote:

thanks for being here ruario.
I have some questions to make about opera which are somehow curious for me, but I'm not really sure where should I really place them. Maybe I found a bug or something.

I don't want to completely take over this thread and make it a bug thread so perhaps not here. Your best bet is always to log a bug report. If you want to specifically mention the bug number to me afterwards to draw my attention to it I'm ok with that. You might also want to visit the Opera Linux forums as well (if you haven't been there already) as there are many knowledgeable users there who could probably help you (I also tend to hang out there). In addition there are channels on irc.opera.com if you want a more immediate response. I tend to hang out in #snapshot myself. Naturally this channel is primarily about the snapshot releases.

Finally I have recently started my own blog (which you have obviously already been to). Here I am trying talk about major issues that UNIX users might get confused by. If you find a topic there that is relevant I am very likely to reply to you.

ise · 2009-11-10 16:47:54

ruario wrote:

flamelab wrote:
If you could inform the developers of what could be done about opera, it would be good
If you can point me in the right direction of which person I should be speaking to about this I'd be happy to get the ball rolling. I can then put them in contact with our licensing team to see if some agreement can be reached.

I was the former packager of Opera. I also have written emails to opera, but never get any answer for the license issue. But I think for agreement things should be Aaron (phrakture) the best one. I can be the second one because I would maintain it, if it's going back to [extra].

Daniel

quarkup · 2009-11-10 22:06:26

I am also the contributor and maintainer of my own version of opera (the 'opera-g4' package on AUR)
So I am also able to maintain anything in the AUR associated to this matter.

the mailing list (aur-general) is now aware of this topic.

Last edited by quarkup (2009-11-10 22:07:01)

ruario · 2009-11-11 07:26:52

ise wrote:

I was the former packager of Opera. I also have written emails to opera, but never get any answer for the license issue. But I think for agreement things should be Aaron (phrakture) the best one. I can be the second one because I would maintain it, if it's going back to [extra].

Ouch that is bad! On behalf of Opera, I am really sorry for the lack of response. I can only assume there was some lack of understanding our side about who you were. But it really shouldn't have been that hard. We can try again now again if you like and I'll make sure it is followed up on. However, I don't want to publicly post the direct contact details of person who is primarily responsible for redistribution licenses. So perhaps if you send me a pm with your contact details or drop me an email (my username on these forums at opera.com) I can put you in direct contact. I will not use any details you provide for any other purpose than setting this up.

However, before we go down that route though I'd like to check something this end as I don't want to waste any of your time. Specifically I want to speak to a few people here about the packaging situation. I know that we don't generally allow repacking of our code to avoid changes that might cause confusion or introduce new bugs. However as we don't yet provide a native package for Arch this would obviously be a necessity to get Opera into [extra]. Hence this issue could be a show stopper for the whole thing. Therefore let me speak to the relevant people first to see if there is any leeway on this rule or if we could make some special exception for Arch. If we are able to come up with a workable solution I'll then put you in direct contact with our licensing team (you can of course CC me in any correspondence from that point onwards if you wish, so I can help ensure a fast turn around).

Once I have a clearer understanding of the packaging situation I'll post back here for the benefit of you and anyone else reading this who is interested. Though if you want to send me contact details in the mean time to expedite the process then great, otherwise we can wait until I know what the deal is.

ise · 2009-11-11 08:38:10

ruario wrote:

Once I have a clearer understanding of the packaging situation I'll post back here for the benefit of you and anyone else reading this who is interested. Though if you want to send me contact details in the mean time to expedite the process then great, otherwise we can wait until I know what the deal is.

Contact details sent as PM. Great to see to have someone at the opera side.

deej · 2009-11-11 08:59:06

It would benefit the Opera folk as well, to have it [ Opera ] tested on a bleeding-edge
rolling-release distribution; on many different platforms and by many different folk. We
should charge them a fee :lol::lol:

Deej

ruario · 2009-11-11 09:50:01

ise wrote:

Contact details sent as PM. Great to see to have someone at the opera side.

Thanks, I received them!

deej wrote:

It would benefit the Opera folk as well, to have it [ Opera ] tested on a bleeding-edge
rolling-release distribution; on many different platforms and by many different folk. We
should charge them a fee :lol::lol:
Deej

Now that is just mean!

@quarkup: Going back to your original post that started this thread. One quick comment, nobody should bother making bundled Opera PKGBUILDs. Just use the regular Opera gcc4-qt4 and in the PKGBUILD file have it depend on qt.

Last edited by ruario (2009-11-11 10:00:30)

wuischke · 2009-11-11 09:58:09

Hi ruario,

As an avid Opera user I greatly appreciate your efforts. Thanks!

Opera still is far behind FF+FireBug for web development, but for me personally nothing beats it for browsing the web.

ruario · 2009-11-11 10:20:55

@wuischke: Thanks. Dragonfly is still under active development so hopefully we can rectify this situation for you.

To everyone else interested in the initial thread, here is how I would name the AUR packages if it was entirely up to me:

opera
opera-g4
opera-snapshot
opera-snapshot-g4
opera-beta
opera-beta-g4
opera-labs-[labs feature name]
opera-labs-[labs feature name]-g4

I'm just using "opera" rather than "opera-browser" as I am not aware of any other software projects called "opera" that would result in confusion. It also keeps the package name smaller. The ones not mentioning "g4" should use Qt3 (for now) because this is what is considered the (current) most stable variant and is the only variant offered on www.opera.com/download at the time I write this.

The "*-g4" packages would be our Qt4+ based builds with the "g" being a reference to Opera generation names. A short summary if you don't want to click on that link, is that gcc-qt3 is generation 3 and the gcc4-qt4 builds are generation 4. This is better than using "*-qt4" as it encapsulates more than just the Qt version. I also see that quarkup has used generation names before in a previous package build.

Snapshots and Beta should be obvious I hope. Our "Opera Labs" releases are about showcasing specific features so they need to include the feature name to easily distinguish between them if more than one is listed. (Some example names for labs releases being "opera-labs-widgets" and "opera-labs-video". Those being our "widgets as desktop applications" labs release and our "HTML5 Video" labs release).

All of these packages should link to the most recent respective Opera version. Of course, if anyone needs help working out what is the most recent version I can give tips or simply tell you.

Once G4 is considered entirely stable (comparative to G3) the main 4 variants ("opera", "opera-snapshot", "opera-beta", "opera-labs-[labs feature name]") could switch to being based on this (i.e. switch to a Qt4+ dependency), with the other variants abandoned.

Finally, If we are able to move something from the AUR into [extra] I would tend to suggest just "opera" and (for now) "opera-g4", with the rest remaining in AUR (assuming of course that there are users willing to create and maintain each of these variants! ).

Last edited by ruario (2009-11-11 17:03:26)

ruario · 2009-11-11 11:26:28

"Snapshots" are what other software projects would typically call alpha releases. They show off the latest updates to the current stable (or next branch) and tend to come out just over once a week.

Last edited by ruario (2009-11-11 19:14:44)

mjunx · 2009-11-12 04:50:12

Just chiming in to say I'd love for this to get into action. I'm not even sure which AUR package I installed (I'm kinda new to Arch), and those stability issues with the Qt4 version (especially snapshots) have been biting me randomly for the past month or so.

quarkup · 2009-11-12 12:41:22

on the ruario sugestion of opera packages on AUR, the actual situation would change like this:
- the 'opera' package would be changed to qt3 (latest final release, qt3 version);
- the 'opera-g4' package can stay as it is (latest final release, qt4 version);
- the 'opera-b1' could change its name to 'opera-beta-g4' (the qt4 beta version);
- the 'opera-beta' would be changed to the qt3 version (the qt3 beta version);

the snapshots and labs versions should be discussed too.

Last edited by quarkup (2009-11-12 12:44:10)

Aaron 'Я' God · 2009-11-13 13:50:29

Hoy there gang; ruario!

I would just like to pipe in to express my appreciation. Opera has become my browser of choice, hands down! There are just so many handy features that no one else seems prepared to offer to their users. I also enjoy being able to tell my Firefox devotee friends that their is an alternative browser (just like there was an alternative to IE... Sound familiar?). Any way, I am glad to see that Opera is finally getting some serious attention from the Arch community. Keep up the good work, every one!

deej · 2009-11-17 10:32:50

I notice that the Opera site now has Arch as a named distribution !
Well done ruario.

I'm using 10.00 Beta 3 now, no problems so far.

Deej

quarkup · 2009-11-17 10:39:32

im updating the opera-g4 PKGBUILD to have variables(switches) for the snapshot version

it has already switches for the beta version and bundled version

check it out (here) to see how to get the latest version from opera's ftps (betas/ final versions with or without the qt bundled)

Last edited by quarkup (2009-11-17 10:43:50)

ruario · 2009-11-17 11:28:12

deej wrote:

I notice that the Opera site now has Arch as a named distribution !
Well done ruario.

Yes, that is my influence. We don't tend to list distributions we have not tested but as I have tested Opera with Arch 32 and 64 I asked them to add it as a download option. Keep in mind though that this is not an native Arch package. It is just our generic tar ball package with the old install.sh script, so it is probably preferable in most cases to use a PKGBUILD for now, as that allows for integration with with pacman and easy uninstall. It'll take more work from me to convince our team to start making native packages for Arch. Yes PKGBUILD files are very simple but new package formats need work to integrate with our current automated build system. Additionally we won't add stuff for which we don't have a good testing environment in place to confirm all packages are valid (it can't all be reliant on me running Arch). In the short term at least this probably won't happen for Arch, Gentoo, Slackware, etc., hence (for now) we just offer these generic packages.

If you do want to use a generic package because you have found that your preferred PKGBUILD does not update frequently enough to the latest version, you have several options (listed in order of preference):

1. Edit an existing PKGBUILD you created (or was created by someone you trust) to point to the latest generic package and then install via the usual means.

2. If you are the only user on your system then run install.sh as your non privileged user. Opera will then be installed for that user only using ~/bin, ~/lib, ~/share, as its defaults making clean up quite simple. You'll just need to edit your $PATH to include ~/bin.

3. Install Opera in a non-standard place at least once (install.sh lets you use a prefix) to see what files get added and where they would be placed. You can then either alter your $PATH to use the non standard location or delete everything and let it do a regular install (with no prefix) safe in the knowledge that you now understand where files are being placed and hence you can manually remove Opera should you ever want to.

5. Finally if you want to be really controversial you can get RPM from the AUR and use the "--nodeps" option to install one of the .rpm packages. Yes this is a very 'ugly' idea on Arch (given the beauty of pacman) but it works and it is possible. It is also something I currently do as I frequently have to upgrade Opera to the latest internal version (we usually have more than one build a day internally), and even editing build numbers in my own PKGBUILD is more hassle than "rpm -Uvh --nodeps operapackage.rpm". Granted I could automate the PKGBUILD further but hey this works and is simple (hence not totally against the Arch way), so I stick with it. I also get the benefit of a more up to date Opera wrapper script (the one included in the tarballs is dated and missing some improvements [yes, that is a bug]) and opera.desktop and opera.svg are placed in the correct locations.

With that out of the way, just an update on getting Opera in one of the official repositories. We had an internal meeting today (arranged by 'yours truly') and discussed the current EULA. I believe that the members of the UNIX/Linux Desktop Team did a good job of explaining why it should be relaxed to allow for easier redistribution by Linux distros and mirrors. This is now being considered and hopefully (though I can't promise anything) we should get a new/better license for Opera Desktop that makes requesting a multi-distribution license irrelevant.

However, even if this does get the all clear I should add that it can take time to actually get a new license out there as it must be considered by various departments in addition to legal finding a wording that works internationally. So please don't expected anything for a couple of months at least.

In the mean time, thanks once again to everyone who has ever made a PKGBUILD of Opera (and to ise especially for maintaining it in [extra] previously), as we know that without your help we simply wouldn't have many Arch users. You all do a great job that is highly appreciated by the entire Opera Desktop Team!

Arch Linux

#1 2009-11-09 23:50:53

[proposal] The Opera browser

#2 2009-11-10 00:29:44

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#3 2009-11-10 10:31:12

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#4 2009-11-10 10:44:14

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#5 2009-11-10 12:59:27

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#6 2009-11-10 13:03:21

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#7 2009-11-10 13:09:24

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#8 2009-11-10 16:01:13

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#9 2009-11-10 16:04:20

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#10 2009-11-10 16:17:02

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#11 2009-11-10 16:47:54

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#12 2009-11-10 22:06:26

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#13 2009-11-11 07:26:52

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#14 2009-11-11 08:38:10

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#15 2009-11-11 08:59:06

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#16 2009-11-11 09:50:01

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#17 2009-11-11 09:58:09

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#18 2009-11-11 10:20:55

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#19 2009-11-11 11:26:28

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#20 2009-11-12 04:50:12

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#21 2009-11-12 12:41:22

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#22 2009-11-13 13:50:29

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#23 2009-11-17 10:32:50

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#24 2009-11-17 10:39:32

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

#25 2009-11-17 11:28:12

Re: [proposal] The Opera browser

Board footer