Author Topic: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52  (Read 857 times)

KevinP

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Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« on: May 26, 2026, 05:20:23 am »
I have an installation of OS/2 Warp 4.52 on a Gateway Pentium 4 machine.  The motherboard is an Intel D865GLC.  I have 3gb of RAM on it now.  I have the operating system updated to the 14.106_W4 revision.  I was trying to get Seamonkey 2.42.9esr installed on it but am not having any luck.  At first I was getting the "Can't load XPCom" error.  I did follow the RPM Requirements guidelines with the copy I downloaded (the Pentium 4 build from SourceForge) which gives the following list:  bww-resources-rpm cairo fontconfig freetype hunspell libc libcx libgcc1 libicu libjpeg-turbo libkai libpng libstdc++ libvpx nspr nss nss-util os2-base os2-mpts pango pixman pthread zlib
Optionally for multimedia playback, ffmpeg-legacy-56   After I made sure I had these packages installed, and tried to install Seamonkey, the CD drive light would blink as if it were reading the file for around 10 seconds or so and then just stop without ever initiating anything.  I tried running it from a command prompt with the same result.  I wondered if there is a switch I could try using with the command prompt.

Thanks,

Kevin

Dave Yeo

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Re: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« Reply #1 on: May 26, 2026, 05:49:36 am »
Try running like "seamonkey 2>&1 | tee seamonkey.log". Does require tee.exe, attached, hopefully it works as it requires libcn. After examine seamonkey.log
Edit: forgot to attach.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2026, 05:53:00 am by Dave Yeo »

Dave Yeo

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Re: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« Reply #2 on: May 26, 2026, 06:05:07 am »
Usual DLL problems are needing libvpx-legacy-* (could be 2, 4 or 6, I forget what was current when I built them. Also perhaps you need libicu-legacy as well.
Actually, install http://hobbes.os-2.in/files/os2/util-12/system-7/PMDLL_2-12.zip, launch pmdll.exe and navigate to your SM install and load xul.dll, scroll through the DLL tree and report any missing DLLs.

KevinP

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Re: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2026, 05:27:25 am »
Dave, I have to apologize.  It *does* work.  I had assumed the .exe was self-extracting, etc.  I had not read the readme file so I did not understand I had to set the home in config.sys.  If all else fails, read the readme.  Just to make sure I have this right:  I created a directory C:\Seamonkey and extracted everything there.  Then in config.sys I set the parameter:  SET SEAMONKEY_HOME=C:\SEAMONKEY.  Is there anything else I need to do?  This just is for the browser, is that correct?  Can other parts of the suite like Messenger be installed as well?  The old Messenger under Netscape Communicator still works with my e-mail server so I have been able to use it for e-mail although There are a lot of messages it can't decode. 

One thing that is happening a lot with this installation, most often with the Arca Noae Package Manager but also when I try to run some things like Seamonkey, is I get an error message:  SYS0039 The D: device is not ready.  Is there a way to stop that? 

Thanks,
Kevin

Dave Yeo

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Re: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2026, 06:26:22 am »
Yes, the zip contains the whole distribution. I'd advice having the profile somewhere else besides the program directory. I use z:\mozprofiles. Firefox and Thunderbird use the same location to store their profiles and the reason for MOZILLA_HOME is to get away from storing the profile in the program directory for various reasons. You can also have multiple profiles. Under Tools-->Switch Profile allows managing them.
Look at the icons in the lower left corner of the frame, hover the mouse over the individual icons for what they do. By messenger, do you mean IRC? It's the cZ icon. The envelope is mail/news.
It's strange that something is searching, I take it your CD/DVD player/recorder. Could put a data CD in it. But other then fontconfig, I can't think of what is searching. Fontconfig might be searching for fonts, if you installed it with ANPM it should be set up properly
Try running "fc-cache -rv" at a cmd prompt and see it it checks D:
Code: [Select]
H:\tmp>help 00039
Will explain the sys00039, basically device not ready.

Eventually you will need to load the DLL's in high memory. I'll explain how later after you've played some, OS/2 only has 512 MB's of low memory, subtract DLL's and it's more like 300-400 MB.
Edit: fix typo
« Last Edit: May 27, 2026, 06:34:13 am by Dave Yeo »

KevinP

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Re: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« Reply #5 on: May 27, 2026, 08:41:36 pm »
When I mentioned "Messenger" I was thinking of the e-mail client.  I did find it by the icon in the lower left.  It is working well.  Can I just move my profile to a different folder or do I need to go through the installation procedure again?  I tried logging in to this forum on that computer but it wouldn't negotiate the security or at least it didn't while I was waiting.  I had to get back to work.  Since it has been a few years since I used Netscape I do not now remember my thinking but when the split happened I ended up going with Firefox and Thunderbird.  Before that I had used the Netscape suite so Seamonkey is a bit like coming home.

Dave Yeo

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Re: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« Reply #6 on: May 28, 2026, 02:08:00 am »
Yes, SeaMonkey is the successor to Netscape and is called the Suite.
You don't have to reinstall to use a different profile but you will lose your current profile. You could just keep using it where it is but if move to AOS, you will likely lose your profile, whereas if you have it standalone, you can move it to a new install with the same MOZILLA_HOME setting.
The trick to getting OS2World to load is to change the user agent. I attach the user agent switcher extension. Unzip and drag'n'drop the XPI on the browser window, say yes to installing, restart if asked.
Afterwards, under Tools  there will be a menu setting, Default user Agent, click it and go to Edit User Agents.. Click New, click User agent and use this, "OS2zilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:128.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.53.23" as the user agent (without the quotes) put OS2zilla as description, perhaps fill out the rest.
Now you can got Tools-->Default Agent and change it to OS2zilla and some sites will now work, lots won't too. Seems you have to do this every time you start the browser.
There's lots of extensions out there, somewhat hard to find the ones that work with our old browser. Things like UBlock_Origin make a better browsing experience.
Tools-->Addons Manager

KevinP

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Re: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« Reply #7 on: May 28, 2026, 04:09:49 am »
OK, I got the Default User Agent Switcher installed on SeaMonkey and it works.  I am typing this from the OS/2 Warp computer.  Another step forward.  Now one more thing is improving the memory.  There is also an odd problem with the mouse.  In the System configurations it says it is not installed properly.  I occasionally get a message on boot that the \os2\boot\vmouse.sys is not loading or something like that.  The PS2 mouse may not work in that case.  It will usually resolve if I reboot.  I see in \os2\boot there are two mouse drivers:  mouse.snp and mouse.sys.  The mouse.sys shows the same date at the message in System that says it is not installed properly.  It apparently is the original IBM version:  10.070.  Thanks!

Dave Yeo

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Re: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« Reply #8 on: May 28, 2026, 04:34:24 am »
Mouse.snp is for plug and play, not a driver.
More later about memory.

Dave Yeo

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Re: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« Reply #9 on: May 28, 2026, 04:58:19 am »
Okay, you need to install the highmem rpm, yum install highmem, or use ANPM.
Then download http://hobbes.os-2.in/download/os2/apps/webbrowser-3/client-3/Mozturbo_1-0.zip
Unzip mozturbo and put smturbo.exe, smturbo.ico and InsTurbo.CMD in your SeaMonkey program directory.
With SeaMonkey closed, run InsTurbo. cmd.
At this point things should be done, with a smturbo object on the desktop and a shadow in your startup folder. You can run smturbo now and then start SeaMonkey. On reboot it should load.
See readme for more.
This works around the kernel bug where DLLs loaded into high memory (above 1GB) don't free their memory when unloaded. Arca Noae has fixed the kernel since but their license with IBM doesn't allow them to distribute the kernel except as part of AOS.
Do you have a VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT in your config.sys?  If not perhaps add something like VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=2560.
Here's mem.exe, stick it somewhere on your PATH like c:\os2 and run mem /v. My output
Code: [Select]
W:\sys\bin>mem /v

Total physical memory:     16,270 MB
Accessible to system:       3,502 MB
Additional (PAE) memory:   12,768 MB

Resident memory:              150 MB
Available virtual memory:   1,880 MB

Available process memory:
  Private low memory:         357 MB
  Private high memory:      2,128 MB
  Shared low memory:          271 MB
  Shared high memory:         665 MB
You can run it before and after installing/starting SeaMonkey.
Offtopic, you should consider installing XWorkplace for more of a feel about ArcaOS. http://hobbes.os-2.in/files/os2/util-12/wps-2/xworkplace/xwp-1-0-17-full-en.wpi

KevinP

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Re: Installing Seamonkey 2.42.9esr on OS/2 Warp 4.52
« Reply #10 on: May 28, 2026, 08:07:12 pm »
Dave,  will this also work to help free enough memory that I can re-install WordPerfect 5.2?  I had been running it before but I guess with the extra .rpms and things the memory has gotten used up.  Thanks,