LinuxQuestions.org - Random thoughts on browser choices/Firefox.

I was having some minor dbus issues between clementine and firefox. This prompted me to attempt to compile Firefox without dbus.
I found the mozilla esr17.0.9 source in slackbuilds. I made it through that with some fighting with some apparent memory problems on the final linking.

It works OK/Good, but it is branded nightly. I decided I wanted a real firefox brand and started searching for different source. Immediately I noticed that starting with version 18 and higher, two more modules are included in IPC (interprocess communication), 'unixsocket' and 'netd'. Not knowing what these are and how they effect security, I wonder if they should be included in the build (simple enough to strip them from the makefile)?

I also found that it's easy to eliminate some extraneous build options in configure:

Code:

./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-dbus --disable-gconf --disable-gnomevfs --enable-gstreamer

I know the above works. I would eventually like to test some other options. Which of these would be useful (or mess things up)?

Code:

./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-dbus --disable-gconf --disable-gnomevfs --disable-dbm --enable-gstreamer --enable-address-sanitizer --enable-llvm-hacks --enable-faststripe --disable-logging --enable-strip --enable-install-strip

I decided to try and compile v24 to see if it could be done and also gstreamer is supposed to work to give h.264/html5 support in this version.

1 gig of memory (and 1 gig of swap) isn't enough to compile v24. I finally got a straight answer out of ld, after fighting with it the same as v17.

I would usually get this:

Code:

    INPUT("../../media/webrtc/signaling/signaling_sipcc/src/sipcc/cpr/linux/cpr_linux_string.o")

    INPUT("../../media/webrtc/signaling/signaling_sipcc/src/sipcc/cpr/linux/cpr_linux_threads.o")

    INPUT("../../media/webrtc/signaling/signaling_sipcc/src/sipcc/cpr/linux/cpr_linux_timers_using_select.o")



collect2: error: ld terminated with signal 9 [Killed]

make[3]: *** [libxul.so] Error 1

make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/slackjack/mozilla-release/toolkit/library'

make[2]: *** [libs_tier_platform] Error 2

make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/slackjack/mozilla-release'

make[1]: *** [tier_platform] Error 2

make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/slackjack/mozilla-release'

make: *** [default] Error 2

Or it would complain about some_file.o being truncated. I had this happening with v17 as well (had to finish compile in a straight terminal with no windows manager running). This isn't enough for v24.

It finally coughed up the real reason:

Code:

    INPUT("../../media/webrtc/signaling/signaling_sipcc/src/sipcc/cpr/linux/cpr_linux_threads.o")

    INPUT("../../media/webrtc/signaling/signaling_sipcc/src/sipcc/cpr/linux/cpr_linux_timers_using_select.o")



../../dist/lib/libjs_static.a: could not read symbols: Memory exhausted

collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

make[3]: *** [libxul.so] Error 1

make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/slackjack/mozilla-release/toolkit/library'

make[2]: *** [libs_tier_platform] Error 2

make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/slackjack/mozilla-release'

make[1]: *** [tier_platform] Error 2

There was also a plain syntax error in the javascript code (rawSource when it was supposed to be raw_source).. rawSource not defined, raw_source warning defined in header but not used). That didn't give me much confidence. Made it through that and the stripping of the .def files.
Anyway, I can't make it through the final linking on v24 with 1 gig of mem... and barely made it through v17 (with the same issues).

This means I'm apparently stuck with v17. Is there a better browser choice out there? I was looking at icecat which explains the branding issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat
Or perhaps Midori browser?

Does anyone prefer one of these over Firefox? Any potential security issues with one or another?