A preview version of the Opera web browser is available for Solaris on x86, i.e. Intel or AMD based PCs. The preview can be downloaded from http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/. There are several files available for download for Solaris on Intel systems. I prefer to use a pkg file, so that I can install the software with a
pkgadd -d command.
If you download the pkg.gz version, you can install it with the following steps.
-
Uncompress the .gz file you downloaded.
# gunzip opera-9.0-20060206.1-static-qt-sol10-intel-local-en.pkg.gz
-
Use the pkgadd command to install the package on your system. The
following command assumes that your current directory is the
directory into which you downloaded the package.
# pkgadd -d ./opera-9.0-20060206.1-static-qt-sol10-intel-local-en.pkg The following packages are available: 1 SCopera opera (i386) 9.0 Select package(s) you wish to process (or 'all' to process all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]: 1 Processing package instance <SCopera> from </home/sysadmin/opera-9.0-20060206.1-static-qt-sol10-intel-local-en.pkg> opera(i386) 9.0 Opera Software ASA Using </usr/local> as the package base directory. ## Processing package information. ## Processing system information. ## Verifying disk space requirements. ## Checking for conflicts with packages already installed. The following files are already installed on the system and are being used by another package: /usr/local/bin <attribute change only> Do you want to install these conflicting files [y,n,?,q] y ## Checking for setuid/setgid programs. Installing opera as <SCopera> Installing part 1 of 1. /usr/local/bin/opera /usr/local/etc/opera6rc /usr/local/etc/opera6rc.fixed /usr/local/lib/opera/9.0-20060206.1/missingsyms.so /usr/local/lib/opera/9.0-20060206.1/opera /usr/local/lib/opera/9.0-20060206.1/spellcheck.so /usr/local/lib/opera/9.0-20060206.1/works /usr/local/lib/opera/plugins/libnpp.so /usr/local/lib/opera/plugins/operaplugincleaner /usr/local/lib/opera/plugins/operapluginwrapper /usr/local/share/bug/opera/bugreport /usr/local/share/doc/opera/LICENSE /usr/local/share/man/man1/opera.1 /usr/local/share/opera/chartables.bin /usr/local/share/opera/html40_entities.dtd /usr/local/share/opera/images/blank.gif /usr/local/share/opera/images/drive.gif /usr/local/share/opera/images/file.gif /usr/local/share/opera/images/folder.gif /usr/local/share/opera/images/link.gif /usr/local/share/opera/images/opera.xpm /usr/local/share/opera/images/opera_16x16.png /usr/local/share/opera/images/opera_22x22.png /usr/local/share/opera/images/opera_32x32.png /usr/local/share/opera/images/opera_48x48.png /usr/local/share/opera/images/operabanner.png /usr/local/share/opera/ini/dialog.ini /usr/local/share/opera/ini/fastforward.ini /usr/local/share/opera/ini/filehandler.ini /usr/local/share/opera/ini/pluginpath.ini /usr/local/share/opera/ini/spellcheck.ini /usr/local/share/opera/ini/standard_keyboard.ini /usr/local/share/opera/ini/standard_menu.ini /usr/local/share/opera/ini/standard_mouse.ini /usr/local/share/opera/ini/standard_toolbar.ini /usr/local/share/opera/ini/unix_keyboard.ini /usr/local/share/opera/ini/xmlentities.ini /usr/local/share/opera/java/opera.jar /usr/local/share/opera/java/opera.policy /usr/local/share/opera/jsconsole.html /usr/local/share/opera/lngcode.txt /usr/local/share/opera/locale/en/default.adr /usr/local/share/opera/locale/en/license.txt /usr/local/share/opera/locale/en/lngcode.txt /usr/local/share/opera/locale/en/search.ini /usr/local/share/opera/locale/english.lng /usr/local/share/opera/opera6.adr /usr/local/share/opera/search.ini /usr/local/share/opera/skin/standard_skin.zip /usr/local/share/opera/skin/windows_skin.zip /usr/local/share/opera/styles/about.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/cache.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/certinfo.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/config.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/contentblock.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/dir.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/drives.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/email.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/error.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/history.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/im.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/image.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/images/bar.png /usr/local/share/opera/styles/images/center.png /usr/local/share/opera/styles/images/opera.png /usr/local/share/opera/styles/images/root.png /usr/local/share/opera/styles/images/top.png /usr/local/share/opera/styles/info.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/mime.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/mimehead.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/plugins.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/accessibility.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/contrastbw.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/contrastwb.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/debugwithoutline.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/disabletables.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/hidecertainsizes.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/hidenonlinkimages.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/imageandlinkonly.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/nostalgia.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/showstructure.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/textonly.css /usr/local/share/opera/styles/user/userstyle.ini /usr/local/share/opera/styles/wml.css /usr/local/share/opera/svg-mo.dat /usr/local/share/opera/svg-mobd.dat /usr/local/share/opera/svg-sa.dat /usr/local/share/opera/svg-sabd.dat /usr/local/share/opera/svg-se.dat /usr/local/share/opera/svg-sebd.dat [ verifying class <none> ] Installation of <SCopera> was successful.
You should then be able to run Opera with /usr/local/bin/opera &
or just opera &, if /usr/local/bin is in your path.
But when I logged off as root and tried to run Opera from my nonprivileged user account, I received an error message.
# exit
bash-3.00$ /usr/local/bin/opera
ld.so.1: /usr/local/lib/opera/9.0-20060206.1/opera: fatal: libstdc++.so.6: open failed: No such file or directory
Killed
Since I encountered an error message indicating that libstdc++.so.6 could not be found I su'ed to the root account again and looked for the file.
bash-3.00$ su - root
Password:
Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.10 Generic January 2005
# find / -name libstdc++.so.6 -print
/usr/sfw/lib/amd64/libstdc++.so.6
/usr/sfw/lib/libstdc++.so.6
/opt/sfw/lib/libstdc++.so.6
So the file existed on the system in several places, but Opera was not
finding it. From my regular user account, I tried specifying the library
search path by setting
LD_LIBRARY_PATH to first
/usr/sfw/lib and then /opt/sfw/lib, but I
still got the same results when I tried to run Opera.
bash-3.00$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/sfw/lib
bash-3.00$ echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
/opt/sfw/lib
bash-3.00$ /usr/local/bin/opera
ld.so.1: /usr/local/lib/opera/9.0-20060206.1/opera: fatal: libstdc++.so.6: open failed: No such file or directory
Killed
When I tried to list all of the libraries Opera might use with the
ldd command, it did not work for the Opera binary.
bash-3.00$ ldd /usr/local/bin/opera
ldd: /usr/local/bin/opera: unsupported or unknown file type
But I then realized I had failed to export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
When I took that step, I was then able to run Opera successfully.
bash-3.00$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
Using the above method would require that you reissue the commands to
set the library path and then export it the next time you logged into
the system again. And, if different programs require different library
paths, you might have to reset LD_LIBRARY_PATH for particular programs.
Alternatively, you can add the applicable library path to your system
default search paths with the crle command on a Solaris
system. On a Linux system, you would edit /etc/ld.so.conf and run
ldconfig.
I prefer Opera over FireFox, since, if the system crashes or I have to restart the browser for any reason, I can return to the state I was in previously within the browser. I understand that a FireFox extension can be installed to provide that capability on FireFox, but that session restoral capability is built into Opera. And Ive never seen Opera wildly consume resources as FireFox seems prone to do on Windows systems where it often gobbles up huge amounts of memory or shoots CPU utilization close to 100%. But when I finally got Opera 9.00 Preview 2 working on my x86-based Solaris 10 system, I was disappointed to discover it doesn't support the SOCKS protocol. I access the Web from that system through a SOCKS proxy server.
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