Brave 'portable' - 64-bit only - now includes manual updater from Fred...

[mikewalsh]

@Dingo :-

Now; you're in luck. Since you asked me about this a while back, I decided to do something about it.

My previous solution - that of running certain items from a newer Puppy running in a 'chroot' - doesn't suit everyone, especially where resources are limited. So; I've done the same as I've performed in a few of my other Pups.....I've taken the base Puppy SFS, and upgraded just the glibc to a newer version. Nothing else has been touched, so everything else will work exactly as it did before.

I've gone with glibc 2.28 for this, so slightly newer than Bionicpup64's version. I think I grabbed this from josejp2424's build of Busterpup64, a couple of years back. At any rate, I now have Brave running natively in Xenialpup64.

-----------------------------------------------------

If you want to try this, I've uploaded it to MediaFire. You can find it here:-

https://www.mediafire.com/file/wg1r28ww ... 5.sfs/file

All you need to do is to swap this SFS for the existing one. Then, re-boot. That's all there is to it.

Keep your old one somewhere safe, until you know this works OK. Let me know if it does what you want; you should now be able to run the current version of Brave-portable..!

Any issues, let me know, please.

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

Morning, gang.

Amethyst has noticed a small glitch - quite unintentional - in the 'LAUNCH' script. I'll let him explain it, in his own words:-

A note for those using mikewalsh's Brave browser portable: The value of the browser cache is set to 5000000 (which is 5MB in this case). Now, I'm not sure if this is intentional but if you want it to be 500MB for example, you need to change this value to 500000000. Change it to the setting you want by editing the value in the LAUNCH script.

.....along with my reply:-

@amethyst :-

A-ha!

Yes, you're quite right, Nic. From this page:-

https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-c ... -switches/

.....Peter Beverloo's list of Chromium's many command-line "--switches", we get this entry:-

--disk-cache-size - Forces the maximum disk space to be used by the disk cache, in bytes

I'd obviously miscounted; I intended for this be approx 50MB, so one zero short.....

It was a modification of some stuff Fred helped me out with way back when I was trying to get the Iron-portable functional.....and I think it may have come from one of peebee's wrapper-scripts prior to that.

Good catch!

Mike.

Just thought y'all should be aware.

Mike.

[Marv]

Just used the recently included UpdateBrave script (from @fredx181) to update my portable from 1.52.122 to 1.56.14. Worked perfectly, my bookmarks, look'n'feel untouched. Thanks all!

[amethyst]

I've dealt with the maximum limited bookmark icons allowed for the dashboard (which is inadequate) by using a permanently fixed bookmarks bar. This bookmarks bar has one tab called "All Bookmarks" and also my favourite sites (about 20 of them) displayed as additional tabs in the bookmarks bar (but only the icons to save space). Works nicely, I don't use the dashboard now.

[mikewalsh]

@amethyst :-

I've used the folder system for organising bookmarks on a permanent bookmarks bar for a very long time. At last count, I had upwards of 600+ bookmarks in total, all neatly arranged by folder/sub-folder.....

I have around 15 directories on the bookmarks bar at all times.

Always found it to be more convenient. But then I have had almost 15 years to perfect my settings in the Chromium-based 'clones'..!

Mike.

[KevinTheGerbil]

G'day folks,

Just a heads-up.

I just tried using the updater to update from my current amd64 release version 1.56.20 to latest release version 1.57.49 and it failed (it downloaded what appeared to be the zip file but this was just a 9 byte file containing the words "Not Found").

This appears to be because the updater thinks the latest version is 1.57.49 but the GitHub page for 1.57.49 is missing the required amd64 zip file. The previous version (1.57.47) is there, FWIW.

I assume this will (hopefully!) get fixed with a newer release, but in the meantime if your updater isn't working then this is why.

- Kevin

[mikewalsh]

@KevinTheGerbil :- Hallo........and to the "kennels"!

Yeah; this isn't the first time I've seen 'em miss out Linux builds on some releases. It's nowt to worry about; as you say, the fault doesn't lie with Fred's update script......if it can't find what it's looking for, it's been written to quit gracefully. The fault is definitely at t'other end.

At worst, you're only two minor point releases behind. That's nowt to get your knickers in a twist over. I've always been happy enough running any of the Chromium 'clones' up to perhaps 5 or 6 major releases behind. Puppy ain't gonna self-destruct........and in almost a decade with our wee canine, I've never yet "caught" owt nasty!

Fred's update scripts added the final touch to many of my portable-browsers. 95% of the time, it works as smooth as silk.....

Mike.

[KevinTheGerbil]

Thanks Mike - by way of a quick intro I'm originally from the UK but moved to NZ in 2007 and am now very much a permanent fixture here in the shaky isles. Have been using Puppy Linux on and off for many years and in recent times I've been into it pretty much to the exclusion of all else. I'm currently settled on Bionicpup64 as my daily driver after a brief flirtation with F96-CE (the latter being a very good distro IMHO, but for various reasons I have a bit of an aversion to pulseaudio and also Bionicpup just runs blazingly fast on the HP i7 machine I use here).

Brave portable works extremely well in this environment and no, I won't be losing sleep over the update thing. Am loving these portable browser versions along with much of your other portable stuff such as LibreOffice, VLC etc - so thanks and keep up the good work!

I'm also flirting with the dark side (Palemoon portable) ATM, but that's another story...

- Kevin

[mikeslr]

KevinTheGerbil, 'downloaded what appeared to be the zip file but this was just a 9 byte file containing the words "Not Found")',

Murphy's Law, a year in the insurance industry followed by 30+ years practicing Law --What can go wrong?-- makes me 'gun shy'. Which is why I love Mike's portables. Before I update any I right-click the portable's folder, select duplicate, and add a '-O' [for old] to the duplicate. A minute's delay avoids much more time being aggravated.

[mikeslr]

Just tripped over the same hurdle as KevinTheGerbil. As I've been using Brave portable even before Mike updated it to use fredx181's revision of the upgrade code, I downloaded the package fredx181 provided, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 277#p87277 and tried again. No dice.

Something has changed.

[fredx181]

Something has changed.

Yes.
At the moment there are only packages for Windows it seems for latest release: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/ ... g/v1.57.49 , no "....linux-amd64.zip" available.
Hopefully it doesn't stay like that, perhaps running the UpdateBrave script later, a few days from now, it may work.
(or check first https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/latest for linux-amd64.zip , edit: click on "Assets" to see).
EDIT: could be, not sure, that the latest release is only an update for Windows users, so perhaps next release contains the ....linux-amd64.zip (needed for to update the portable Brave).
EDIT: Just ckecked again and https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/latest contains now the linux version brave-browser-1.57.53, so updating with script should work again now.

[mikewalsh]

@mikeslr / @fredx181 / @KevinTheGerbil :-

Mm....yes; sounds about right. Google themselves, as far back as I can remember - I've followed the Chrome release blog for more years than I can count! - have semi-periodically released Windows-only updates, to fix certain zero-days or critical flaws, as part of their ongoing "bug bounty" programme. These particular builds never get released for MacOS or Linux, so, er.....yeah.

It'll catch up eventually. It always does. It just means you sometimes have a slightly longer wait for the next new version, that's all.

Mike.

[Subito Piano]

Hi all --

Mike, first -- kudos on all these portables!!! There's a lot of time invested here and so many benefit from you being so generous with your time.

So -- I have Brave portable. When I download, it fails due to insufficient permissions. Looking at home/spot, Owner and Group have RWE permissions and World has RE only; looking at the parent "home" folder, I see that Owner has RWE permissions, while Group and World have RE only.

So my question is: how do I correctly give permissions to Brave to save into Spot's folder?

Thanks!

[fredx181]

@Subito Piano

So -- I have Brave portable. When I download, it fails due to insufficient permissions. Looking at home/spot, Owner and Group have RWE permissions and World has RE only; looking at the parent "home" folder, I see that Owner has RWE permissions, while Group and World have RE only.

So my question is: how do I correctly give permissions to Brave to save into Spot's folder?

Mike will probably answer too, but here's my view:
Owner RWE permissions, Group RE and World RE is standard, I think.
The thing is that it should be not about /home/spot but about the folder inside the Brave-portable that contains a "spot" directory (after running LAUNCH).
If you run the LAUNCH script (that's how should run the Brave-Portable) from the portable Brave folder, there should be created PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser inside the Brave-portable dir.
Is it created for you ?
If it's there, check the permissions of PROFILE/spot/ by opening terminal IN PROFILE and run ls -l and it should be like this:
# ls -l
drwxr-xr-x 3 spot spot 4096 may 5 20:04 spot
drwxr-xr-x = owner (should be spot), has RWE permissions, Group RE and World E . (or World has RE, that's okay too).

EDIT: rox properties of PROFILE/spot (as is for me);

2023-10-31_19-14-32.png (23.71 KiB) Viewed 771 times

[Subito Piano]

Thanks! But unfortunately I navigated to /mnt/home/Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot and checked the properties, they are the same as your screenshot. :-/ One step closer, I suppose....

[fredx181]

Can you run LAUNCH from terminal to see any error message and post the message ?
@Subito Piano

[pp4mnklinux]

That is not important, only for me to know.-
Is there any problem when using it (Brave Portable) with F96CE ?
Does the LAUNCH file work?

__________________________

This question is because when I install the .deb official file, I can use Brave, but with this portable in F96CE_XFCE_FUSILLI it is imposible to launch it (as I said it is not an important question because I am not specially found on this browser).

Thanks.-

[fredx181]

Does the LAUNCH file work?

For me it works OK on Fusilli.
Any error message when running LAUNCH from terminal ?

[pp4mnklinux]

Not running from terminal, I made it executable and create a direct access in my taskbar to this file.-

I clicked on it and doesn't work. Then I clicked directly on it and nothing happened again.

I don't know what could happen, but, pls, don't waste time on it... if you wanna do it no problem but as I said it is not important, it is curiosity

Have a nice day

[mikewalsh]

@pp4mnklinux :-

Y'know, YOU brought the subject up! Whilst I appreciate it's not your favourite browser, it would be helpful if you could try something for us, please? Even if YOU don't care, it might just help somebody else.......OK?

Can you open a terminal inside the portable directory - alongside the 'LAUNCH' script - and type

Code: Select all

./LAUNCH

.....followed by 'Enter'? Then let us have the readout, please.

I suspect one of two things. Either permissions.....or it's to do with the way XFCE/Thunar work. I always used to find the 'Whisker' menu needed .desktop entries to be written somewhat differently before they would show up, for instance.....

Mike.

[Subito Piano]

@fredx181:
Terminal output:

Code: Select all

root# /mnt/home/Brave-portable64/LAUNCH
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
[13237:13237:1101/081512.840768:ERROR:filesystem_posix.cc(63)] mkdir : No such file or directory (2)
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
chrome_crashpad_handler: --database is required
Try 'chrome_crashpad_handler --help' for more information.
[13237:13256:1101/081513.692636:ERROR:bus.cc(399)] Failed to connect to the bus: Could not parse server address: Unknown address type (examples of valid types are "tcp" and on UNIX "unix")
[13237:13256:1101/081513.692687:ERROR:bus.cc(399)] Failed to connect to the bus: Could not parse server address: Unknown address type (examples of valid types are "tcp" and on UNIX "unix")
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.
[13237:13256:1101/081513.897074:ERROR:bus.cc(399)] Failed to connect to the bus: Could not parse server address: Unknown address type (examples of valid types are "tcp" and on UNIX "unix")
[13237:13256:1101/081513.897154:ERROR:bus.cc(399)] Failed to connect to the bus: Could not parse server address: Unknown address type (examples of valid types are "tcp" and on UNIX "unix")
[13266:13266:1101/081514.233276:ERROR:gpu_memory_buffer_support_x11.cc(44)] dri3 extension not supported.
[13237:13256:1101/081514.274939:ERROR:bus.cc(399)] Failed to connect to the bus: Could not parse server address: Unknown address type (examples of valid types are "tcp" and on UNIX "unix")
[13237:13256:1101/081514.274982:ERROR:bus.cc(399)] Failed to connect to the bus: Could not parse server address: Unknown address type (examples of valid types are "tcp" and on UNIX "unix")
[13237:13364:1101/081514.568178:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(623)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get: object_path= /org/freedesktop/UPower: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.UPower was not provided by any .service files
[13237:13364:1101/081514.571341:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(623)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.UPower.GetDisplayDevice: object_path= /org/freedesktop/UPower: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.UPower was not provided by any .service files
[13237:13364:1101/081514.571851:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(623)] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.UPower.EnumerateDevices: object_path= /org/freedesktop/UPower: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.UPower was not provided by any .service files
[13237:13326:1101/081514.728425:ERROR:nss_util.cc(55)] Failed to create /home/spot/.pki/nssdb directory.
[13237:13317:1101/081515.499079:ERROR:dat_file_util.cc(23)] GetDATFileData: the dat file is not found or corrupted /initrd/mnt/dev_save/Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser/afalakplffnnnlkncjhbmahjfjhmlkal/1.0.506/1/ExtensionWhitelist.dat
[13237:13237:1101/081515.499151:ERROR:extension_whitelist_service.cc(73)] Could not obtain extension whitelist data
[13237:13251:1101/081519.827699:ERROR:dat_file_util.cc(23)] GetDATFileData: the dat file is not found or corrupted /initrd/mnt/dev_save/Brave-portable64/PROFILE/spot/Brave-Browser/afalakplffnnnlkncjhbmahjfjhmlkal/1.0.507/1/ExtensionWhitelist.dat
[13237:13237:1101/081519.828447:ERROR:extension_whitelist_service.cc(73)] Could not obtain extension whitelist data

[pp4mnklinux]

My terminal answer:

root  pp4mnkpuppy  ../Brave-portable64  ./LAUNCH
ash: cd: line 7: can't cd to /initrd/mnt/dev_save/Brave-portable64: Permission denied
ash: exec: line 10: /initrd/mnt/dev_save/Brave-portable64/brave/brave: Permission denied

Photo included

n.b.- the folder where I plade brave is not OPT, but I think it should not matter (i'm using chrome, opera, ff and slimjet this way

[fredx181]

@fredx181:
Terminal output:
.....
.....

Mmm... Those are lots of errors, something may be wrong with your system, or perhaps you're running a very old Puppy, hopefully someone can help, I have no ideas.

@pp4mnklinux That looks like a pure permissions problem, the permissions of Brave-portable64 folder may be wrong (or dev_save partition).
Seems to me that run-as-spot cannot have access (as your output is showing "ash" which is used by run-as-spot).

[rockedge]

This is interesting, I see this same error when I was experimenting with building distro's with woof-CE. I will have to look back to see how I generated it. I think it might have been when using the newer woof-CE to build on a Bionic64 but the details escape me at the moment since it was some time ago.

Code: Select all

ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot read file data): ignored.

[Subito Piano]

@fredx181
@rockedge (???)

Ooo...we've 2 threads running at the same time....
Regarding not having permission to download using Brave, I'm running the Mac Air under FossaPup (the original Fossa, not the newer CE).

[bigphil]

Hi All,

I too am having permission problems with file downloading.
I see there is some post regarding the problem but, being a bit of a dummy, I can't understand them hence don't know how to fit it.
Would somebody kindly post a simple explanation of how to fix it that even I can understand.

Regards
Phil

[fredx181]

I too am having permission problems with file downloading.

Can you describe more in detail what the problems are ?

[bigphil]

Sorry fredx181.

I'm running fossapup64 and using the Brave Browser portable.
When I try to download a file it says 'Needs permission to download

downloads.png (227.39 KiB) Viewed 401 times

This problem appears to have been talked about on page 1 of this thread but I didn't understand it.
I try to download to directory /mnt/home/temp.

Regards
Phil

[fredx181]

I try to download to directory /mnt/home/temp

The /mnt/home/temp may be the problem as it probably isn't owned by user spot, try /home/spot (or sub-directory from that), the directory to download to must be owned by spot .
EDIT: Try: Running in terminal chown -R spot:spot /mnt/home/temp to make it owned by spot. (but /mnt/home/temp needs to be on a Linux filesystem, e.g. ext3 to make this work , not FAT or NTFS).
EDIT: Mmm.. just thinking, did you make it the "directory to download to" /mnt/home/temp in Brave settings, or was that the default ?

[mikewalsh]

@bigphil :-

Since Brave-portable runs as user 'spot', you should find that the download location is restricted to /home/spot, or sub-directories thereof. The newer Puppies now include /home as a standard part of the file-system. I don't know quite when this was added to Woof-CE, but I was having to manually add this in when I was building the first run-as-spot builds of Chrome, some 40 releases or so back (around 2018-19, I think).

Google had just 'rationalised' their Linux builds around the standard multi-user model employed by all mainstream distros, where the user is JUST 'an ordinary user', with zero admin privileges. Jamesbond of the FatDog team posted in the Chrome thread on the old Forum around that time, to explain that FatDog had been using the /home location for a while to get around multi-user issues.......and indeed, this IS how it's handled. '/Home' is the location for user directories, with a named sub-directory for each individual user within that. So; I started adding a '/home' directory into the SFS builds I produced at that time, with /root/spot being re-created as a sym-link to /home/spot (Puppy using 'spot' as the eponymous 'ordinary user', of course).

Of course, it worked. Worked like a charm, in fact....

--------------------------------------------------

I've handled this for long enough with a small utility I call 'Spot2Root'. It used to be built-into the Chrome SFS, but I soon realied that not everybody appreciated having it provided as an integral part of the browser. So I packaged it as a separate .pet, with the recommendation being to use it to transfer 'spot'-permission files from /home/spot/Downloads to /root/Downloads, resetting permissions to 'root' as it did so. Later builds added the ability to use the utility in reverse, moving files the user wanted to access via a browser running as spot into /home/spot. This made them accessible from that browser.

Later still, I added a check to see if /root/spot was already a sym-link to /home/spot, or if it was still the original /root/spot file. If it was still the original file, the sym-link would then be created.....after first moving the contents of /root/spot into /home/spot, creating the latter location if necessary.

Sorry if this seems complicated. In practice, it's just simple file/permission manipulation; it's far simpler than it sounds!

------------------------------------------------

'Spot2Root' runs from a small icon in the notification area, over near the clock. It'll bring up a wee GUI.....and you simply select the direction you want to move files. Easy-peasy.

You'll need to reset your Downloads location from simply /home/spot to /home/spot/Downloads.

You can find it attached below (I couldn't do this originally, because the old Forum limit was too small).

Any questions, just ask. Hope that helps.

Mike.