Firefox Status

[decryphe]

Hello Everyone!

Finally I got a hold of the Blackbird I ordered and have gotten around to build a nice desktop around it. I'm using Ubuntu 19.10 with KDE on it, works pretty nicely out of the box, except Firefox.

There's two issues I'm having trouble with right now: It can't store browsing history (seems to be an issue with sqlite) and many pages (including addons.mozilla.org) crash the tab while loading without error message.
I've tried building from source to get the newest version, which did work, but that version crashes during start after creating the UI. See console output after "./mach run".

I did check the https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Porting/Firefox wiki entry, but it's mostly for big-endian OSes, whereas Ubuntu is running in little-endian mode.

My main question would be, what's the current status on getting Firefox running nicely on POWER? What's currently missing?

Regards

[ClassicHasClass]

No, Firefox should work and build fine. I haven't done a build against central in a couple weeks, but I'm typing this in Firefox 71 on Fedora 31 on a Talos II, so I know at minimum that mozilla-release works. What does your mozconfig look like? The ones I use are here:

https://www.talospace.com/2019/12/firefox-71-on-power.html

(which uses the same ones as ...)

https://www.talospace.com/2019/05/firefox-67-on-power.html

[decryphe]

With those hints I managed to get it working, two main points:
- Clang doesn't compile it right yet, I had to force using gcc/g++
- Not sure about the selection of a different linker, it did not make any apparent difference.

I opted to fetch apt-get source firefox and build it with an updated mozconfig.in that sets:
export CC=/usr/bin/gcc
export CXX=/usr/bin/g++
Also had to limit threads to 24, I ran out of RAM on 32 threads.

Successfully running mainline firefox installed through a selfmade deb-package.

[xilinder]

Yeah, I ran into the same problem and reported it. Meanwhile I exported my bookmarks to a USB stick from another computer, moved that 'Boormarks.html' file to my Ubuntu 19.10 home folder and set firefox home to open that page. Not ideal, but it works.

[ClassicHasClass]

With those hints I managed to get it working, two main points:
- Clang doesn't compile it right yet, I had to force using gcc/g++
- Not sure about the selection of a different linker, it did not make any apparent difference.

Yes, clang doesn't work properly. It's possible that gold has been fixed, but I'd still stick to GNU ld (bfd).

I opted to fetch apt-get source firefox and build it with an updated mozconfig.in that sets:
export CC=/usr/bin/gcc
export CXX=/usr/bin/g++
Also had to limit threads to 24, I ran out of RAM on 32 threads.

Successfully running mainline firefox installed through a selfmade deb-package.

I just do -j24 for makes myself, but largely because I want a few threads so I can play Descent. How much RAM is in your system? This machine has 32GB.

[MauryG5]

Guys Firefox 75 seems to bring a lot of interesting news on Linux with this latest version. Try it then as soon as our Power version comes out ...

[tle]

Firefox 76 is already out.

@ClassicHasClass: Is your JIT patch re-based yet?

[ClassicHasClass]

I have had little time to work on it because of the schedule with my day job, unfortunately.

[amock]

In case you haven't seen it there is a bug about this https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1591164.  I haven't verified if it's actually fixed in the latest Ubuntu version, but that's something you could try.  I haven't run into this issue with Firefox on Fedora, so that's another option.

[ClassicHasClass]

The JIT is back ... and builds!

https://www.talospace.com/2021/06/progress-on-openpower-spidermonkey-jit.html

[MauryG5]

Unfortunately, the Ubuntu Firefox bookmark problem still persists today. I read that they had reported it but unfortunately there have been no corrections to date ... I am currently using 20.04 with KDE-PLASMA, I have not installed Firefox and on this graphical environment there is no default but in any case if I put Gnome as a graphical environment, Firefox has the same problem, even if you use 20.10. Now I don't know 21.04 but I don't think anything has changed even in that ...