PowerFox for Tiger

A port of PowerFox to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on PowerPC G5.

PowerFox is a modern, open-source web browser based on the UXP engine and Basilisk browser. The original targets 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard — this fork aims to bring it to Tiger.

Status

Work in progress. The build compiles but is not yet producing a working browser.

What's different from upstream

• Targets powerpc-apple-darwin8 (Tiger) instead of Leopard/Snow Leopard
• Cross-compiled from Linux using GCC 7.5.0 with a custom toolchain:
  • Assembly fixup pipeline for Darwin PPC compatibility
  • SSH-proxied linking on a real Tiger Mac
  • 10.4 universal SDK
• See mozconfig on the tiger-ppc branch for build configuration

Building

This is cross-compiled from Linux — it cannot be built natively on Tiger. Requires:

• GCC 7.5.0 cross-compiler targeting powerpc-apple-darwin8
• cctools-port (assembler, ar, ranlib)
• MacOSX10.4u.sdk
• A Tiger Mac accessible via SSH (for native linking)

Credits

• Jazzzny for PowerFox
• Basilisk and UXP teams for the browser engine
• TenFourFox for legacy Mac OS X support code