this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
20 points (100.0% liked)

Linux

8071 readers
608 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system

Also check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hello,

I would like to test websites against old versions of WebKit (the engine powering Epiphany and Safari) and the obvious way to do it without needing a SaaS solution like Browserstack would be to install old versions of Epiphany.

My first idea was to look at Snap and Flapak (as that would prevent issues with mismatched dependencies) but neither offer any version other than the latest.

Does anybody have an idea?

top 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Build it from source?

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/epiphany

https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit

Might be a bit of work first the time, but should get easier for other versions?

If you have a mac: https://webkit.org/build-archives/#mac-sonoma-x86_64%20arm64

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm not familiar with flatpak-builder, does it handle dependencies not available on the system?

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not a clue, never used flatpak-builder. I was more thinking of just building the binarys rather than entire flatpaks

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My main fear with building the binary is that it would eventually require old dependencies that I do not have on my system.

[–] realbadat@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

Stand up a little VM with an install of Debian 9.

Don't mess with your main system, don't worry about flatpaks, and you can just get rid of it if you're done with it.

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Valid concern. But at that point you just built that dependancy as well. Really depends how far back you want to go?

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 2 points 1 year ago

At least 4-5 years back, I want to test behaviors of WebKit circa iOS 13

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know, but Flathub only offers versions built in 2024.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] AProfessional@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The old versions are not intended to be used like this, they get cleaned up for space, otherwise it would be petabytes of unused software.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

That makes sense, as most users automatically use the most recent version and don't need to downgrade to prior ones.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Surely not the most elegant solution, but you can download old Gnome live ISOs of e.g. Debian and run in a VM.

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, why haven't I thought about this sooner?

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe you were hoping that there is an easy and elegant solution like Appimage, Flatpak or Snap.

[–] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

More elegant than running an entire Linux system in a vm.