dugan

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Here are my Firefox 3 and XULRunner 1.9 SlackBuilds.

XULRunner features:

• full support for building other applications (pkgconfig files, libraries, etc)
• extremely aggressive optimizations

Firefox features:

• no more blank applications panel bug
• highest rated icon on gnome-look.org
• system font hinting settings
• extremely aggressive optimizations

Firefox 3 can't really be used to build other applications anymore (it doesn't come with pkgconfig files). For that, you need XULRunner. If you're building XULRunner, then you might as well build Firefox 3 against it. Which is what my SlackBuild does.

The optimizations used are "-O3 -march=native". O3 is what Swiftfox uses, and "march=native" means that gcc chooses the optimizations based on the machine it's running on. Your build will be optimized for your machine, so don't distribute it.

The only dependency is Cairo 1.6. You can use Pat's SlackBuild to install it (just replace the source, and edit the SlackBuild to change the version number). Or you can grab fancier font rendering packages from the Beautiful Fonts in 12.1 thread. Daedra contributed packages that use the -lcd packages from Arch (read at least the first two pages). I contributed packages that use enhancements from Ubuntu.

First install XULRunner 1.9.0.1:

• Source
• SlackBuild

It will take a long time (about 45 minutes on my Asus A8Js).

Then install Firefox 3.0.1:

• Source
• SlackBuild

Because you've already build the rendering engine, it will compile very fast (just a few minutes on my box).

If you have trouble getting a mailto handler working, see the Firefox 3.0 + Email links = No Thunderbird? thread.

While I've only tested these on a system with Gnome Slacky installed, I expect them to work on non-GNOME systems as well.

NOTE: The only version of Flash I recommend is version 9. The current Flash 10 release candidate crashes when I load Gamespot. If you're using GSlacky, be aware that it ships with its own Flash plugin, which I've also had trouble with.

Toods

Interesting way to build Firefox. I will give it a try.

Are you sure that the symlink is correct in the 'doinst.sh' file?.

Bill.

jong357

There's no force flag so it should be ok... Firefox should ship with a "default plugin". So if it's there the symlink won't get created. Great idea tho. I hate /usr/lib/mozilla... That and progs like azureus don't look in that catch all/hackish directory that is /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins....

I've never built with configure. Suprised I've never tried it. I always use a .mozconfig and build in a different directory.

But yea. I'm a little bummed about the new gecko api. Means I'll probably drop firefox from my gnome offering. No need for it anymore.

Actually, it'd be super sweet if Slackware shipped xulrunner... Anything plugin related needs it now...

dugan

The symlink is correct. Firefox looks for plugins in its own "plugins" directory, which in this case is /usr/lib/firefox-3.0/plugins. This directory is not automatically created when you build against XULRunner. Slackware expects plugins to be in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins. So making /usr/lib/firefox-3.0/plugins a symlink to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins allows Firefox to see the plugins you've already installed.

As far as I know, getting Firefox to see /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins is impossible when you're building against XULRunner. The patch used by Slackware and BlueWhite64 doesn't work, and the (different) one used by GSB doesn't work either. So you need the symlink.

jong357

Oh.. Sorry. You don't even get a plugins directory when you build against xulrunner...

shadowsnipes

I don't see any reason not to symlink to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins. Most software installs to mozilla/plugins, so plugins usually only end up in firefox/plugins if the user manually puts them there. This is what I used to do in my Swiftfox slackBuild, but I reverted to the Slackware style patch because Swiftfox sometimes shipped with a print plugin (probably useless).

Anyway, the slackBuilds do indeed look interesting, so I may test them out soon. Thank you for your contributions.

Edit:
I don't think you need the "#!/bin/bash" at the top of your doinst.sh.

Toods

Yes, I understand what you are doing here, but maybe I don't understand the syntax of the command in your 'doinst.sh' file:
This is how I would write the command:
That was the reason I questioned it.

Bill.

shadowsnipes

It might also be a good idea to
in the SlackBuild in case the directory doesn't exist on the system.

shadowsnipes

Are you sure that Daedra's Cairo package is the one needed for xulrunner? I just tried to run the xulrunner slackBuild on a clean 12.1 install after I installed the cairo-1.4.14 package and I got this
Perhaps you meant that we need to use the cairo patch on 1.6.0?

Also, I did not see a FontConfig package. There was just a fonts.conf file.

dugan

The correct Cairo (1.6.4) and Fontconfig packages are on the second page:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...74#post3191474

shadowsnipes

Thank you. It may be helpful to edit your OP so that it points people to that post.

What is the advantage of building firefox with XULrunner (versus with --disable-libxul)?

dugan

You need xulrunner to compile programs against! The pkgconfig files (with a .pc extension) that used to come with Firefox 3 have all been moved to xulrunner. Building xulrunner is the only way to get them.

jong357

Yea. The new gecko 1.9 API changed everything. This is why I think it would be a great idea for Slackware to add xulrunner to it's lineup. It's now become a pretty important package all around.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releas...nnerAPIChanges

You'll have all the libs you see in the current firefox directory plus many needed pkgconfig files and a development sdk directory with the required hearders to build (many things) against. You can also snag a complete set of NSS headers as well (not part of the default install).

Once you have xulrunner on the system, building firefox, seamonkey, thunderbird et. all takes literally 2-3 minutes on a newer system and is a fraction of the size that firefox-2.x was...

I think you meant firefox 2...

You have one centralized package containing all the necessary libs and headers to build any gecko based application against. Really nice to have and long overdue actually.

EDIT - Scratch my "extra NSS headers" comment. Looks like your covered with the default install of xulrunner.

jong357

BTW, what's the reasoning behind a new fontconfig package from the beatiful fonts thread? That shouldn't have anything to do with anything. Yea, you need a recent cairo and general "G libs" but that should be the only build time dependency if I'm not mistaken.

Granted, I haven't built any of it on Slackware yet. Waiting for the new Gnome release in a couple days, but I've migrated on my DIY build and I'm not doing anything funky with freetype, fontconfig or cairo. Are you sure your not just trying to pawn Daedra's font changes onto people?

dugan

I thought you needed fontconfig 2.6 to build Cairo 1.6. But I just checked and realized I was mistaken.