Compiling Firefox for Slackware.

xushi · 07-14-2005, 04:17 AM

Back in LFS, i compile firefox with the following parameters,
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs...t/firefox.html

I'm wondering if its the same more or less to compile firefox for Slackware.. Or if i really need all that o_O

How would you compile it?

Hal · 07-14-2005, 04:34 AM

Ignore this if you wanted to compile for configuration, or performance or something, but you can just pick up the binary from here:

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or...x-1.0.5.tar.gz

Just extract and you'll have firefox.

xushi · 07-14-2005, 04:41 AM

Hmm, yea i saw the binaries before, but i thought might as well tailor and compile it for my system.. =/

piete · 07-14-2005, 05:07 AM

<insert typically long drawn out background essay here>

In closing:

My compiled Firefox (for x86_64) was slower than the one I downloaded (for x86) off Mozilla's site. It was somewhat distressing, but, lesson learnt: the Mozilla dev team know what they're doing better than I do =D

- Piete.

Nobber · 07-14-2005, 05:09 AM

I've always compiled Firefox for Slack, using the latest BLFS book as a guide.

It gets awkward only if you want to create a Slackware package (which I do), because you need the five or so files that are created by running firefox as root the first time.

Next time I'm at my Slack box, I'll post the exact ./configure line I use - if you like.

sybille · 07-14-2005, 05:23 AM

Xushi--

You can see the options used when Firefox was built by tying "about:buildconfig" into the Firefox address bar.

Here are the options used by the Firefox 1.0.5 binary from Mozilla.org that I installed yesterday:

Code:

about:buildconfig

Build platform
target
i686-pc-linux-gnu

Build tools
Compiler  Version 	                                     Compiler flags
gcc 	  gcc version 3.3.2 20031022 (Red Hat Linux 3.3.2-1) -Wall -W -Wno-unused -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Wno-long-long -pedantic -pthread -pipe
c++ 	  gcc version 3.3.2 20031022 (Red Hat Linux 3.3.2-1) -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wconversion -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wno-long-long -pedantic -fshort-wchar -pthread -pipe -I/usr/X11R6/include

Configure arguments
--disable-ldap
--disable-mailnews
--enable-extensions=cookie,xml-rpc,xmlextras,pref,transformiix,universalchardet,webservices,inspector,gnomevfs,negotiateauth
--enable-crypto
--disable-composer
--enable-single-profile
--disable-profilesharing
--disable-debug
'--enable-optimize=-Os -freorder-blocks -fno-reorder-functions -gstabs+'
--disable-tests
--enable-official-branding
--enable-default-toolkit=gtk2
--enable-xft
--disable-freetype2
--enable-static
--disable-shared

So if those options seem OK to you, or at least OK enough, then there would be no real need to compile a custom version of Firefox, although at the same time it couldn't hurt anything to compile against the specific libraries on your system.

Are you on 64 bit right now? If so, you might take a look at the Gentoo on AMD64 forum. The advice there is to use the 32 bit binary for Firefox rather than compiling, so that 32-bit plugins will work (I think that's the argument, anyway).

xushi · 07-14-2005, 05:36 AM

No, i'm on 32 bit right now. And i guess i'll leave the compilation till a later date when i'm on 64 bit..

I tried it and got
configure: error: Could not compile basic X program.

And i can't be bothered to see whats wrong since there already exist binaries for x86 .. When i'm on 64 bit ill give it another go..

sybille · 07-14-2005, 05:51 AM

Well, if and when you do decide to look into it further, my guess would be that you're needing the x-11 devel package. As I understand it, that's what allows XFT and freetype support to be compiled in, among other things.

xushi · 07-14-2005, 07:02 AM

Thanks sybille, well since i started this thread, i might as well go ahead and compile it

Here's another ./configure error btw...

Code:

creating pr/src/memory/Makefile
creating pr/src/misc/Makefile
creating pr/src/threads/Makefile
creating pr/tests/Makefile
creating pr/tests/dll/Makefile
creating pr/src/pthreads/Makefile
configure: warning: Recreating autoconf.mk with updated nspr-config output

sybille · 07-14-2005, 08:04 AM

Is that an error or is it just informing you that automake.mk has been changed to include options that you've specified?

Did the config process abort right there? If not, then I wouldn't worry too much about that particular warning.

I'm far from an expert on compiling, though.

xushi · 07-14-2005, 08:58 AM

Sorry, yes, the configure stopped right there. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.. running make works, but i wanted to ask just to check if it mised anything in configure or not.

sybille · 07-14-2005, 10:27 AM

Well, like I said, I'm not a compiling expert. But if it were my system, if that was the only warning in ./configure, and then if make seemed to roll along just fine, I wouldn't worry about it.

You should probably wait for a more informed opinion that however, if you're planning to wait.

Charred · 07-14-2005, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by piete
<insert typically long drawn out background essay here>

Thank you so much for making my morning that much more enjoyable!

I am starting to feel like a deadbeat Slackware user, using slackpackages that others have compiled and posted on the web!

I guess I had better move pkg making further up my "Learn to do" list!

xushi · 07-14-2005, 11:28 AM

Well so far it works, appart from the annoying user profile thing that popps up again... Whenever i want to start more than one instance of FF, it forces me to choose another user profile.. Last time i saw that was in FF 0.9

sybille · 07-14-2005, 11:57 AM

That's controlled by the startup script for Firefox, which is the file named "firefox" (as opposed to "firefox-bin") in /usr/lib or wherever you installed the application. You might try editing that script.

But I think that this is supposed to prevent other programs from possibly messing up the profile by writing to the profile folder when it's in use - that's why it's locked and a second session cannot start up. See: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use

I don't know that there is anything on my Linux system that would try to write to my profile folder, but maybe it's a security thing? It doesn't bug me, because I'd rather open a new tab in my existing window than a new window altogether. But everyone has his or her own preferences.

Anyway, glad to hear that it compiled OK. I'm jealous that it went so fast (lightening fast, from my perspective. My computer is so old and slow that I only compile things when there is absolutely no other alternative!)