Hmm, the "netscape" binary has special needs. In particular, it uses
malloc in a way that doesn't work properly with the malloc in the modern
libc. So you have to tell it to use an old libc library binary,
available from linux archives, libc.so.5.0.9. I do this by unpacking
the netscape tar.gz file in a directory all its own
(/usr/X11R6/bin/Mozilla-v30 so I can remember what it is and where) and
making a shell script /usr/X11R6/bin/netscape that takes care of the
silly library thing. This works. (If your netscape bus-errors when you
hit a java page, this will fix it.) It also keeps any other program
from stumbling into the old libc, and you don't have to mess with
ld-config. Fill in the directory where you keep obsolete libraries.

#!/bin/sh

# Use an old lib for netscape due to malloc error

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/b2/src/old/lib
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

if [ ! -x $LD_LIBRARY_PATH/libc.so.5.0.9 ]; then exit 1
fi

exec /usr/X11R6/bin/Mozilla-v30/netscape

> For quite some time netscape has been dying when it loads and tries to
> execute java applets. Probably about half the time it tries to run the
> applet it dies. Does anyone have the same problem and if so, is there a
> way to fix this? I'm at Netscape Nav. Gold 3.01.

Take a look at:
http://www.blackdown.org/Howto/Howto-3.html

[which says:]

3. How to make Netscape 3.0 and java work

3.1 Getting the environment right

The fundamental problem with Netscape 3.0, java, and linux machines
is the use of a Standard C Library compiled with dl-malloc. Using a
wrapper script and the older gnumalloc, java will for the most part
cease to crash the browser.

The script also sets a very simple CLASSPATH. Be careful, certain
CLASSPATH entries can confuse netscape and cause it to crash, as can
the presence of outdated Netscape class libraries.

#!/bin/sh
export CLASSPATH="/usr/local/netscape/java/classes/java_30:."
export LD_PRELOAD="/lib/gnumalloc.so"
/opt/netscape/bin/netscape $* # NOTE! This must be the path to the
real netscape executable.

To make this all work, follow these steps:

Install netscape. Copy the java_30 file included with the netscape
archive to /usr/local/netscape/java/classes/. Copy gnumalloc.so to /lib.
Edit the shell script to match your setup.

You can find gnumalloc.so at http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/
downloads/gnumalloc.tar.gz. Thanks to Doug Ridgway (ridgway@routh.
UCSD.EDU) for this tip.

Recently, it has been reported that netscape will also crash with
Java applets if using versions of libXext.so higher than libXext.so.6.0.
The solution is to copy libXext.so.6.0 into a directory such as /lib/509/,
making the appropriate symbolic links and setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH
to look in that directory first.

>>This happened to me a lot as well. I finally decided to just disable
>>the java in the preferences menu. Since then, Netscape has only crashed
>>a few times.
>
>>I don't think there's another way around this. If there is, I'd love
>>to hear it.
>

If you're using JDK as well as Netscape, you may find that the CLASSPATH
variable used by JDK interferes with netscape (it uses CLASSPATH or
~/.netscape/java)

#!/bin/sh
unset CLASSPATH
exec /usr/local/bin/netscape3.0

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 07:04:15 -0700
From: Don Marti dmarti@zgp.org
To: "J. Paul Reed" preed@sigkill.com, svlug@svlug.org
Subject: Re: [svlug] Netscape Question
X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2
X-WebTV-Stationery: Standard; BGColor=black; TextColor=black
X-Mascot: penguin
X-OS: Linux svlug.svlug.org 2.0.30 #3 Thu Aug 14 14:47:34 PDT 1997 i486 unknown

On Tue, Sep 21, 1999 at 11:16:51PM -0700, J. Paul Reed wrote:

> The Win32 version of Netscape, when one selects Exit from the file menu,
> will ask "Close all windows and exit" before doing so.

[snip]

> So, anyone know/care to drop the hint of where this little "feature" is
> hiding?

In .Xdefaults. Search for the file Netscape.ad in your /usr/lib/netscape
(or whatever) directory and rejoice in the Netscape-customizing lines
you may find within. Copy them to .Xdefaults and make Netscape do your
bidding. A few good ones:

! Set this to false to disable the <BLINK> tag.
*blinkingEnabled: False

! Whether the Exit menu item should confirm first.
*confirmExit: True

! These resources control the foreground and background colors of text
! which has been selected with the mouse.

*selectForeground: #000000
*selectBackground: #FFFF33

(I like the last one because the default selection color is hard
to see on a laptop screen.)

--
Don Marti | As for systems that are not like Unix, such as
dmarti@zgp.org | MSDOS, Windows, the Macintosh, VMS, and MVS,
http://zgp.org/ | supporting them is usually so much work that it
whois DM683 | is better if you don't. -- Richard M. Stallman