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From: jwz@netscape.com (Jamie Zawinski)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.browsers.x,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Netscape - this is ridiculous
Date: 19 Jun 1995 23:56:55 GMT
Organization: Netscape Communications Corporation
Lines: 48
Message-ID: <JWZ.95Jun19165655@abattoir.netscape.com>
References: <1995Jun18.022947.20174@rhrk.uni-kl.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: abattoir.netscape.com
In-reply-to: weber@rhrk.uni-kl.de's message of Sun, 18 Jun 1995 02:29:47 GMT
In comp.infosystems.www.browsers.x Christoph Weber-Fahr <weber@rhrk.uni-kl.de> wrote:
>
> can anybody give me a good reason why Netscape Mac/Windows has nice
> comfortable configuration dialogs for helper applications, while
> Netscape/X doesn't, but wants me to create obscure ascii files with
> undocumented syntax?
Because, given the existing standards we had to get along with on Unix
(the mime.types and mailcap files, which are not in common use on the
other platforms) adding that interface was a lot more work on Unix than
on the other platforms. I wanted to do it; I didn't have time. That
sucks, and I'm sorry.
> This is utterly ridiculous! No, I'm not familiar with Metamail internals,
> and, given the ridiculous state of (not existing) documentation, I have not
> the slightest intention to learn how to write mailcaps or mimetypes files.
And the Unix world needs more people like you full of righteous indignation
at the kind of crap they're expected to put up with (I'm completely serious.)
> P.S. to the FreeBSD side - why does Netscape give an error message about
> a failed uname() call on startup, when running on 2.0R ?
It's a bug in the implementation of the uname() library routine, or something
related to it. I don't know exactly what the problem is on FreeBSD, but the
same problem existed on BSDI, until they fixed it. The Netscape FAQ says:
* When Netscape starts up, it prints out a warning about uname, what do
I do about it?
The warning in question says ``netscape: uname() failed; can't tell
what system we're running on.'' It means that the uname() system call
has failed.
If you are seeing this on a BSDI 2.0 system, you need to get system
patch K200-013 from BSDI. This fixes a compatibility bug for BSDI 1.1
programs running on 2.0.
This problem has also been seen on FreeBSD. We don't know of a fix
there.
Someone familiar with FreeBSD internals will have to figure this one out.
--
Jamie Zawinski jwz@netscape.com http://www.netscape.com/people/jwz/
``A unix signature isn't a return address, it's the ASCII equivalent of a black
velvet clown painting. It's a rectangle of carets surrounding a quote from a
literary giant of weeniedom like Heinlein or Dr. Who.'' -- Chris Maeda