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Opera under Ubuntu for ARM processors
Hi,I just installed Ubuntu on a laptop with the tegra processor and would like to install Opera now. However, from a search of this forum and site it seems there is no such version.
Does anyone know if there are plans to compile Opera for ARM processors or if such a version already exists?
Cheers,
Vraister
Ok, here is an expanded response. 
Our core rendering engine is already widely tested on numerous devices running ARM processors so it should work just fine. Additionally we have had Opera Desktop running on PowerPC and SPARC chips in the past so the desktop code has a lot of cross architecture considerations, which should save us from a lot of the problems other browser manufacturers might encounter when porting their product.
The main thing that stops us is setting up the infrastructure (we have pools of build machines and growing amounts of automated testing). Hence it requires a fair amount of time and effort for us to do this properly and the people that would work on setting all this up are currently devoted to other things, like bugs and features. For now this is sensible given the limited amount of ARM devices that come with (or could even support) a "desktop" Linux distro (and yes, I know there are some because I have one myself, a Sharp NetWalker PC-Z1). Or to put it another way, it is a lot of work for a very small potential user base right now.
Consider that a few years back lots of the manufacturers of netbooks claimed they were just about to bring out new netbooks running some kind of Linux desktop on ARM. However, after the iPad came out they seem to have changed their minds. They ditched those plans or replaced them with Android based devices, which as you probably realise bear little relation to a traditional notebook or desktop, meaning that the 'desktop' version browser is unsuited. And this in turn is is why we offer an Android based Opera Mobile version instead.
Now again there is noise on the internet of Canonical trying to get new devices running Ubuntu on ARM. If they start appear they will no doubt have a very mobile-like Unity based interface. However, underneath it all it is still going to be a lot closer (than Android) to something that makes sense to run Opera Desktop on.
If these devices start to appear and gain some traction in the market then I fairly sure you will see us start to provide Opera Desktop for ARM. Until then we are holding off on this.
Our core rendering engine is already widely tested on numerous devices running ARM processors so it should work just fine. Additionally we have had Opera Desktop running on PowerPC and SPARC chips in the past so the desktop code has a lot of cross architecture considerations, which should save us from a lot of the problems other browser manufacturers might encounter when porting their product.
The main thing that stops us is setting up the infrastructure (we have pools of build machines and growing amounts of automated testing). Hence it requires a fair amount of time and effort for us to do this properly and the people that would work on setting all this up are currently devoted to other things, like bugs and features. For now this is sensible given the limited amount of ARM devices that come with (or could even support) a "desktop" Linux distro (and yes, I know there are some because I have one myself, a Sharp NetWalker PC-Z1). Or to put it another way, it is a lot of work for a very small potential user base right now.
Consider that a few years back lots of the manufacturers of netbooks claimed they were just about to bring out new netbooks running some kind of Linux desktop on ARM. However, after the iPad came out they seem to have changed their minds. They ditched those plans or replaced them with Android based devices, which as you probably realise bear little relation to a traditional notebook or desktop, meaning that the 'desktop' version browser is unsuited. And this in turn is is why we offer an Android based Opera Mobile version instead.
Now again there is noise on the internet of Canonical trying to get new devices running Ubuntu on ARM. If they start appear they will no doubt have a very mobile-like Unity based interface. However, underneath it all it is still going to be a lot closer (than Android) to something that makes sense to run Opera Desktop on.
If these devices start to appear and gain some traction in the market then I fairly sure you will see us start to provide Opera Desktop for ARM. Until then we are holding off on this.
Yeah, I know. Until people start reformatting their tablets to use Linux rather than Android, there won't be a huge demand for it. Or if that "$25 computer" catches on (a Linux computer on something the size of a USB key ... though I'm presuming the $25 figure is without keyboard, mouse and monitor).
Originally posted by sgunhouse:
Or if that "$25 computer" catches on (a Linux computer on something the size of a USB key ... though I'm presuming the $25 figure is without keyboard, mouse and monitor).
nVidia recently patented the same idea. Not sure how they can patent something obvious like a mini-computer (I guess it's about certain engineering details), but I would imagine that means they intend to push such a thing?
The DnD Sanctuary — a safety net for My Opera's demise.
Actually, seeing a new post about it - the Raspberry Pi is currently credit-card sized, guess they couldn't quite get it that small. But there have been computers on a USB key before, so "prior art" would kill that patent unless there's something more specific involved.
(Of course, they pronounce it like "pie".)
(Of course, they pronounce it like "pie".)
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-patent-portable-computer-usb,13878.html
Here's a post about nVidia's patent.
Here's a post about nVidia's patent.
The DnD Sanctuary — a safety net for My Opera's demise.
just bought Toshiba AC100 ARM nVidia Tegra2 based device. +1 for Opera on ARM Linux :-)
btw. until now it was irrelevant if opera was open-source or not, but now the benefits of open-source are totally clear to me, just as flash player is closed source and there will be no release for my freebsd desktop at all :-(
btw. until now it was irrelevant if opera was open-source or not, but now the benefits of open-source are totally clear to me, just as flash player is closed source and there will be no release for my freebsd desktop at all :-(
I hope that Opera will be available for ARM. I'll definitely will get one or two Raspberry Pi
If there will be no straight ARM build of any Opera version, it seems that the only hope is, if eventually someone ports Android for the Raspberry.
If there will be no straight ARM build of any Opera version, it seems that the only hope is, if eventually someone ports Android for the Raspberry.
In the year 105105, if man is still alive, if robots can survive
I got myself some ancient Sony Vaio P (1.33Ghz Atom) running Android-x86. No Opera Mini or Mobile in the Play store. So, I downloaded the .apk and it seems that the architecture is not supported as I can't get it to work. I know I'm part of a small userbase so I'm not trying to push anything. Still, it would be nice to get Opera running on this thing since I use it a lot "on road" and Opera is perfectly suited for that!
Opera
Originally posted by cederom:
and there will be no release for my freebsd desktop at all :-(
I use Opera as my only browser (ok Konqueror opens itself occasionally) on FreeBSD, on both AMD and i386 machines. Its excellent.
I believe there are unofficial ports for Open and Net BSD, but I have no experience of them.
Originally posted by stephenpbarker:
I believe there are unofficial ports for Open and Net BSD, but I have no experience of them.
Unofficial ports? I imagine you must mean the Linux compatibility layer.
The DnD Sanctuary — a safety net for My Opera's demise.
Originally posted by sgunhouse:
We still have versions for FreeBSD being released, they dropped Solaris with 11.11 (or actually some of the 11.50 snapshots).
My bad, but surely they're not unofficial.
The DnD Sanctuary — a safety net for My Opera's demise.
There is an official release of Opera for FreeBSD 32-bit and 64-bit, which I also voted for few years back :-)
I too would like a version of Opera that runs on ARM processors. I am using Firefox 13 on my Pandora (http:///www.openpandora.org) to post this message.
21. February 2013, 12:31:53 (edited)
1. March 2013, 08:18:22 (edited)
Originally posted by sgunhouse:
But the ARM version of Presto existed even before the appearance of WebKit itself.With the upcoming switch from Presto to Webkit, this may become a non-issue ... at least, they'll already have ARM-based versions of Webkit.
I would better hope that the resources freed with the switch will help Opera get to ARM Linux.
Posted using Chromium on MK802 (Allwinner A10 ARM device) with Lubuntu.
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