[FX] elfurbe: Nightly [Branch|Trunk/OSX] (G3/G4/G5/Intel)

[elfurbe]

Starting at the top.

@fluid: As soon as I figure out what branch means, I'll be doing those. There used to be a MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH tag for branch builds, but so far I don't see anything like that for 1.9.

@feather: We're kinda in nightly-build limbo right now. Nightlies are generally bleeding edge builds off trunk code that are very shaky on stability but have the newest features and design ideas. However, right now, I think nightlies are still coming off the 3.0 code cause I don't think they've branched for a new gecko trunk. I'm not sure about that, but it's what I think.

@krmathis: The master returns! What are you doing in my Firefox thread anyway you Camino convert?

@brassen: It's entirely up to me to remember to do them, as I start release builds by hand. I had 3.0 out the day of.

@jalyst: Yep, that's real 3.0 code right there. But no donations, I'm just a schmuck. Donate to the Mozilla Foundation, they do work. As to removing the Minefields, you can do it yourself by building the source code with the official branding turned on. You may not, however, distribute that build. Mozilla doesn't want people confusing customized third-party builds with official product. This means I can't do it for the site.


Now in general, I've noticed that nightlies are failing lately. It looks like they've changed the output of the tinderbox quickparse page again so my automated tinderbox check is failing which is causing the builds not to run. This has happened before, I still can't come up with a tenable way to keep it from happening, and now I'm trying to figure out again what I can expect from the page so I can parse for a success message, so I don't end up trying to build on failed nights. I am looking into it, hopefully it'll be squared up soon.

I've also noticed there's a FIREFOX_3_0_1_RELEASE tag in CVS, so I'm assuming they're ready to go for the update. They also haven't updated the 3.0.1 candidate builds since July 2 on ftp.mozilla so I'm guessing they're final. I'll probably start 3.0.1 builds later today in light of that.

Also, and this is muy tentativo, I'm investigating the possibility of building MAR-format incremental updates for my builds, so you'd effectively get auto-update functionality, except from me. For those of you following along since the beginning, I investigated this a while back and it didn't seem trivial so I dropped it. I've looked again more recently and I think it might be doable. Again, molto timido, but it's on my mind cause I think it'd be pretty cool.

[feather]

Auto-update would definitely be nice. Cheers dude.

[phiw13]

@fluid: As soon as I figure out what branch means, I'll be doing those. There used to be a MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH tag for branch builds, but so far I don't see anything like that for 1.9.

@feather: We're kinda in nightly-build limbo right now. Nightlies are generally bleeding edge builds off trunk code that are very shaky on stability but have the newest features and design ideas. However, right now, I think nightlies are still coming off the 3.0 code cause I don't think they've branched for a new gecko trunk. I'm not sure about that, but it's what I think.

Gecko 1.9.0 (FX 3.0.x) is build from the CVS repo. I don't think there is a specific Branch tag, but I could be wrong there. You just continue to fetch with CVS as before.
Trunk, aka Gecko 1.9.1 and all further development, aka the bleeding edge, is build from the mozilla-central tree. That is what will be Firefox 3.01 when it is ready. Everything has moved to a Mercurial based repo. You can read about it on MDC: mozilla-central, Mercurial Source code.

And for the ultimate in bleeding edge, you build from the Mercurial tree with GCC 4.2.1, optional compiler that comes with Xcode 3.1 .

From another Camino convert…

[elfurbe]

From the woodwork with the Camino deserters!

I'm working on gcc-4.2, but there's a bug in gfx/thebes/public/gfxPlatformMac.h that breaks it. I don't know how to generate a patch let alone contribute it, but I did manage to fix it. It's a completely trivial bug, and the changes don't constitute anything but a cosmetic change to the code.

Mercurial, eh. I will look into this. Once I get the mercurial fetch process worked out and automated, we'll have bleeding edge nightlies back! I guess I'll call them FX31-? So much easier when they went straight from one number to the next.

I'm building 3.0.1s right now (with gcc-4.2 no less, except Intel, still Tiger on my Intel build box), they should be up in a bit.

[phiw13]

From the woodwork with the Camino deserters!

I'm working on gcc-4.2, but there's a bug in gfx/thebes/public/gfxPlatformMac.h that breaks it. I don't know how to generate a patch let alone contribute it, but I did manage to fix it. It's a completely trivial bug, and the changes don't constitute anything but a cosmetic change to the code.

Yeah, I should've mentioned that, right ? Bad me.
bug 423405 is the one you want. Fixed on Trunk. Hopefully it will fixed on the 1.9.0/Fx 3.0.x Branch soon.

[fluid]

Thanks for your reply. Keep up the good work man!

[brassen]

Thanks for your reply! Indeed I see you already have done the 3.0.1 build!

I've read your previous post reply about the updates and I got a bit confused... Let me know if I'm wrong: About update, if Firefox notifies me of the 3.0.1 I should ignore, right?

So for the update I should download the 3.0.1 through your site and install on top of the existing 3.0? Or must I remove the 3.0 and make a clean install of the 3.0.1?

If I can give you a suggestion, maybe you could make a simple FAQ on you site about theses questions...

Thanks again!

[jalyst]

@jalyst: Yep, that's real 3.0 code right there. But no donations, I'm just a schmuck. Donate to the Mozilla Foundation, they do work. As to removing the Minefields, you can do it yourself by building the source code with the official branding turned on. You may not, however, distribute that build. Mozilla doesn't want people confusing customized third-party builds with official product. This means I can't do it for the site.

Understood thanks for clearing this up.

Also, and this is muy tentativo, I'm investigating the possibility of building MAR-format incremental updates for my builds, so you'd effectively get auto-update functionality, except from me. For those of you following along since the beginning, I investigated this a while back and it didn't seem trivial so I dropped it. I've looked again more recently and I think it might be doable. Again, molto timido, but it's on my mind cause I think it'd be pretty cool.

Haha, you read my mind! My very next line of questioning was whether or not there are plans (officially or non officially) to have; release, beta, and nightly builds optimised for an architecture of choice & downloadable via the auto-update in Firefox?

This would be very sweet as I imagine auto-updating from my current Intel optimised build to release 3.0.1 via auto-update will put me back to a plain vanilla x86 build, or may even result in a sick Firefox install (although I cant recall it being an issue in the past).

No pressure though mate...

I think it would be even better if we could somehow get the "powers that be" at Mozilla to see the value in doing this. They would have far better resources behind them to integrate it and just make it a standard feature of auto-update channels!

Anyways, just some initial thoughts..

Cheers,
-jed.
Brisbane, Australia

[elfurbe]

I should point out that right now you won't get any auto-update notifications and the like from my builds. By default, auto-update is disabled for third party builds to keep accidents from happening. The only current way to update from one of my builds to the next is to trash the Minefield.app you have, download the new one you want and put it in place. Once I figure out if I can build the update packages and automagicatate keeping the update server's xml current, then I'll turn it on and set the auto-update settings properly at build time to allow Firefox to check back with my server for updates.

Like I said, it's very much just an idea I have. If I can pull it off, I will definitely drink myself a cold one.

As to Moz doing architecture tuned builds themselves, it's really not tenable, and the QA and testing required to maintain them would be immense. Considering the performance gain vs the compatibility loss, it just makes more sense for them to offer the universal builds they have now that "just work" on a broad variety of hardware and leave this tweaking nonsense to nutcases with too much time on their hands, exemplar: me. They are making some strides with PGO building which has the potential to deliver some performance gain without resorting to architecture-dependent compiler flags. Ted was trying to get Mac PGO working a while back but got rather fed up with it and moved on. I haven't played with it much more myself either. I'm not even the prodigal tweaker here with my single Intel build spanning all Intel chips. I really need to get together some compiler options for Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, and the beefy Quads and build separate versions for each. Argument is that they're all so fast anyway that it won't matter in the same way it does for old PPC Macs. But whatever, it's not like I'm doing anything better.

So much time and so little to do, as Bill Wonka said.

[brassen]

The only current way to update from one of my builds to the next is to trash the Minefield.app you have, download the new one you want and put it in place.

Thanks for your reply, but I got another doubt (I swear it's my last question...). By deleting minefield.app and getting the 3.0.1 in place, will I lose my profile config (addons, bookmarks, passwords)?

Thanks!

[feather]

Why can't you install over it? I remember reading a guide when installing the nightlies NOT to use the uninstall option as it'll wipe out your settings etc. But I could be wrong.

I don't know why but all of a sudden my FF by elfurbe and beatnik are not showing forum avatars on vbulletin v3.6.8 and v3.7.2, but avatars show up on phBB and vbulletin v3.5.4??

[elfurbe]

@brassen: Nope.

@feather: I don't even know what uninstall option you're talking about, honestly. There's no "installer" involved, you're just dragging app bundles around.

Your profile is stored in your user Library. If you open Finder, click on your home folder and then open Library->Application Support you'll see a Firefox folder in there. This is where your profile is. It is a good idea to backup your profile from time to time if you're changing nightlies a lot, as you never know when one will chew it up by accident, but changing out your app bundle doesn't impact your profile at all, in and of itself.

[brassen]

@brassen: Nope.

Thanks again! I've just updated and it's working perfectly!

Nice job!

Cheers

[feather]

Was referring to this

Be forewarned that if you decide to un-install the 3.0 version using the un-installer and you select the box labeled "Remove my Firefox / Minefield personal data and customizations", you will be removing all personal data and customizations for every version of Firefox that you now have installed! Please be careful with that feature, it won't remove just the 3.0 data, you'll lose everything.

That I read here when I was trying out the nightlies befor the official release. But it probably doesn't apply anymore.

[phiw13]

Was referring to this

Be forewarned that if you decide to un-install the 3.0 version using the un-installer and you select the box labeled "Remove my Firefox / Minefield personal data and customizations", you will be removing all personal data and customizations for every version of Firefox that you now have installed! Please be careful with that feature, it won't remove just the 3.0 data, you'll lose everything.

That I read here when I was trying out the nightlies befor the official release. But it probably doesn't apply anymore.

Nah, that is for Windoze users. Firefox Mac (and the same goes for Camino and SeaMonkey) doesn't have an 'Uninstaller'.
Removing the application bundle 'Firefox.app' (usually installed in /Applications) gets rid of the whole application, without touching you personally data. Your personal data (your profile) lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox.