5.5 amd64 X200: Firefox always crashing? Then try raising datasize.

Heyya,

My Firefox crashed sometime. Been like this since forever I think. Didn't bother to look at it until a few days ago when I think "hey I commonly sees this crashing but why other didn't flame the net about it?". So I went out to search for answers.

Then I found that this is not application or OpenBSD issue, but rather limited default setting. Firefox is quite a resource hog and by default, the datasize limit is set for 512Mb, which is by Firefox, quite low.

So I edited /etc/login.conf and find the default setting like below:

default:\
    *snipped*
    :datasize-max=512M:\
    :datasize-cur=512M:\
    *snipped*

and changed the value to:

default:\
    *snipped*
    :datasize-max=2048M:\
    :datasize-cur=1024M:\
    *snipped*

As I have about 4Gb of ram, this setting should be ok. So far this setting is ok and Firefox haven't crashed yet. Later.

References:

- man login.conf
- http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=7894

5.1 amd64 K43U: CUPS revisited.

Hi,

I just finished setting up CUPS and successfully made the Firefox to use CUPS for printing. At first I just installed cups-1.5.0p8 and change my /etc/rc.conf.local to add:

# Packages script to start (/etc/rc.d/)
pkg_scripts="cupsd"

At the bottom of the file. Now OpenBSD uses that instead of my previous posting and if I use my previous way, doing ps aux | grep cups will display bunch of cups threads being started. Recent way are much better.

So then when I open the http://localhost:631 (CUPS local page), I just add my network printer (HP Laserjet 9050dn) using socket://ip.address then downloading external driver from CUPS's website. Test printing went successful but when I want to print under Firefox, there's only Print to file and Print to lpr options with no CUPS printer. My office also have a Ricoh Aficio MP4500 printer but currently not working for me. Will try to figure this out later.

After searching for answers, I installed gtk+2-cups-2.24.9p0 with all of the dependencies. Restarting Firefox then checking the Print menu, I can now see the printer correctly. But when I tried to print, I get this pdftops failed error and printing queue stopped. So I went off to search for another answer.

Looking at OpenBSD's packages site, I saw cups-pdf-2.5.1 which might be the solution I was looking for. The packages is to print a file to PDF, but I have a feeling this can solve my printing issue. So I installed that, quit a lot of dependencies too then tried printing in Firefox. Wallah! Printing done, I'm happy so back to work. Later then.

5.0 amd64 K43U: Firefox + gecko-mediaplayer + FlashVideoReplacer = watch streaming video inside Firefox!

Hi,

Maybe you guys knew about this far longer than me but this post is just a reminder for me. Anyway, here it is.

- Install Firefox
- Download and install gecko-mediaplayer from OpenBSD package.
- Search for FlashVideoReplacer plugin from Firefox's plugin website. Install that.

After FlashVideoReplacer plugin has been installed. There will be an icon on the top right side of Firefox. Click on it and go to Preferences. On the Replacement tab, I choose:

- Preferred method = embedded
- Plugin/MIME type = WMP (application/x-mplayer2)

Then enjoy streaming videos.

Just a while ago I managed to make a mess by configuring the mplayer plugin to use xv in "Right-click video > Preferences > Adjust Output Settings > Video Output". When I open videos after that, the screen is blank but there's sound. To make it worst, right-click does nothing so I can't go to the Preferences again. The solution? go to ~/.mplayer/ and delete the config. Opening another video will reset the settings. Later.

OpenBSD NC4200: Getting vlc-web plugins to be listed in Firefox

I installed vlc-web package but it's not listed in my Firefox's plugin list. After searching fer a while, I found that the plugin's directory is locked to root only. So I chmod the directory:

sudo chmod 774 /usr/local/lib/mozilla

After restarting Firefox, the plugin is now listed. I'll try and find a video to play and see the outcome.