[feature request] Warn if CPU lack SSE2

Discussion of features in Mozilla Firefox
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Nettkrawler
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[feature request] Warn if CPU lack SSE2

Post by Nettkrawler »

Hi.

I have just solved an issue regard a Linux mint computer where Firefox suddenly just start crashing after a program update.
I made a thread where I asked for help in the LM forum: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic. ... 8&start=20

If you read all that, you can imagine I spend pretty much time before I finally understood what was the culprit - the old cpu doesn't have sse2 feature.

Therefore this is my request: Make Firefox so it generates a errormessage that tell the user that it cannot run because the CPU doesn't have this feature - rather than an appcrash that makes the user look everywhere else.
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malliz
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Re: [feature request] Warn if CPU lack SSE2

Post by malliz »

If it cannot run how can it generate a message?
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James
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Re: [feature request] Warn if CPU lack SSE2

Post by James »

https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/53.0/releasenotes/
Ended Firefox Linux support for processors older than Pentium 4 and AMD Opteron
which basically means cpu's that does not support at least SSE2.

You can use the Firefox 52.0 ESR to have security updates for a while still as they generally get eight main updates. Firefox 52.8.0esr should be out when Firefox 60.0 is released in May 2018.
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Nettkrawler
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Re: [feature request] Warn if CPU lack SSE2

Post by Nettkrawler »

malliz
It does run the profile manager just well. Also the FF error manager (or what it calls) does run and does a job by telling the user that a crash has occured.

James
Thank you for that idea. How do I install Firefox 52.0 ESR to Linux Mint 32 bit Mate edition? It doesn't appear in software manager, only the most recent one does.
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therube
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Re: [feature request] Warn if CPU lack SSE2

Post by therube »

(Don't really know about Linux, but) why don't you just download Firefox 52(.1.2) ESR directly & go with that.


(FWIW, SeaMonkey 2.46 requires CPU with SSE2 support.)
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ianas
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Re: [feature request] Warn if CPU lack SSE2

Post by ianas »

I do believe it's a rust issue
rust needs sse2 and you can't compile Firefox without rust
https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-fac ... 00926.html
https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-fac ... 00333.html
so if you're on an i586 processor Firefox-52-esr is your only choice it's one of the reasons (along with the gtk3 bug some distro's are defaulting to esr)
toolong
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Re: [feature request] Warn if CPU lack SSE2

Post by toolong »

SSE2 was introduced into Intel chips with the Pentium 4 in 2001 and AMD processors in 2003.

For your computer to not support SSE2 it would be very old. I don't see it as necessary to test for SSE2 in today's computers.

Sorry.
ianas
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Re: [feature request] Warn if CPU lack SSE2

Post by ianas »

The Tinsmith wrote:SSE2 was introduced into Intel chips with the Pentium 4 in 2001 and AMD processors in 2003.

For your computer to not support SSE2 it would be very old. I don't see it as necessary to test for SSE2 in today's computers.

Sorry.
no 32 bit AMD processor had no sse2 support they had their own 3d-now but those didn't catch on, intel's P4's did P3 and bellow didn't
I do own an ancient PC with a 32bit sse2 capable CPU (a 2002 Celeron) I don't use it but I know people with "newer" 32bit AMD's that don't have SSE2 or with a bit older P3's that only have SSE1 and they are a bit disappointing

my point was that Firefox needs a current version of rust for compilation as most Linux distro's try to support a wide range of hardware this is impossible for current versions of Firefox because Rust has been written with SSE2 optimizations that can't be turned off and Rust produces SSE2 optimized code there is nothing end users or Linux maintainers can do about it
currently opensuse defaults to Firefox 52 esr but it provides 55 in a separate repository, but soon they will move on to the stable release and provide an extra ESR build that will be installable in parallel (they will patch the esr to use a different profile folder) for legacy both hardware and software (a lot of enterprise use the java plugin) use
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