Firefox is a stand-alone browser based on the Mozilla codebase.
This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-11.1 platform.
Download (HTTP): https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/91.6.0esr/source/firefox-91.6.0esr.source.tar.xz
Download MD5 sum: 038c417db527350d4fdd039870af819b
Download size: 369 MB
Estimated disk space required: 6.7 GB (194 MB installed) without tests
Estimated build time: 30 SBU (on a typical 4-core machine) without tests
![[Note]](../images/note.png)
The directory name is firefox-91.6.0
Extracting the tarball will reset the permissions of the current
directory to 0755 if you have permission to do that. If you do
this in a directory where the sticky bit is set, such as
/tmp it will end with error
messages:
tar: .: Cannot utime: Operation not permitted
tar: .: Cannot change mode to rwxr-xr-t: Operation not permitted
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
This does finish with non-zero status, but it does NOT mean there is a real problem. Do
not untar as the root user in a
directory where the sticky bit is set - that will unset it.
As with other large packages which use C++ (or rust), the SBU times to build this vary more widely than you might expect. The build times will increase significantly if your machine has to swap.
Although upstream prefer to use PulseAudio, for the moment Alsa can still be used. Both may need runtime configuration to get sound working.
Autoconf-2.13, Cbindgen-0.20.0, dbus-glib-0.112, both GTK+-3.24.31 and GTK+-2.24.33, libnotify-0.7.9, LLVM-13.0.1 (clang, used for bindgen even if using gcc), nodejs-16.14.0, PulseAudio-15.0 (or alsa-lib-1.2.6.1 if you edit the mozconfig; now deprecated by mozilla), in either case please read the Configuration Information, Python-3.10.2 (rebuilt after installing SQLite-3.37.2), startup-notification-0.12, UnZip-6.0, yasm-1.3.0, and Zip-3.0
ICU-70.1, libevent-2.1.12, libvpx-1.11.0, libwebp-1.2.2, NASM-2.15.05, nss-3.75
If you don't install recommended dependencies, then internal copies of those packages will be used. They might be tested to work, but they can be out of date or contain security holes.
cURL-7.81.0, Doxygen-1.9.3, FFmpeg-4.4.1 (runtime, to play mov, mp3 or mp4 files), liboauth-1.0.3, Valgrind-3.18.1, Wget-1.21.2, Wireless Tools-29, libproxy
User Notes: https://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/firefox
The configuration of Firefox is
accomplished by creating a mozconfig
file containing the desired configuration options. A default
mozconfig is created below. To see
the entire list of available configuration options (and an
abbreviated description of some of them), issue ./mach configure && ./configure --help |
less. You may also wish to review the entire file
and uncomment any other desired options. Create the file by issuing
the following command:
cat > mozconfig << "EOF"
# If you have a multicore machine, all cores will be used by default.
# If you have installed (or will install) wireless-tools, and you wish
# to use geolocation web services, comment out this line
ac_add_options --disable-necko-wifi
# API Keys for geolocation APIs - necko-wifi (above) is required for MLS
# Uncomment the following line if you wish to use Mozilla Location Service
#ac_add_options --with-mozilla-api-keyfile=$PWD/mozilla-key
# Uncomment the following line if you wish to use Google's geolocaton API
# (needed for use with saved maps with Google Maps)
#ac_add_options --with-google-location-service-api-keyfile=$PWD/google-key
# startup-notification is required since firefox-78
# Uncomment the following option if you have not installed PulseAudio
#ac_add_options --disable-pulseaudio
# or uncomment this if you installed alsa-lib instead of PulseAudio
#ac_add_options --enable-alsa
# Comment out following options if you have not installed
# recommended dependencies:
ac_add_options --with-system-icu
ac_add_options --with-system-libevent
ac_add_options --with-system-libvpx
ac_add_options --with-system-nspr
ac_add_options --with-system-nss
ac_add_options --with-system-webp
# Do not specify the gold linker which is not the default. It will take
# longer and use more disk space when debug symbols are disabled.
# libdavid (av1 decoder) requires nasm. Uncomment this if nasm
# has not been installed.
#ac_add_options --disable-av1
# You cannot distribute the binary if you do this
ac_add_options --enable-official-branding
# Stripping is now enabled by default.
# Uncomment these lines if you need to run a debugger:
#ac_add_options --disable-strip
#ac_add_options --disable-install-strip
# Disabling debug symbols makes the build much smaller and a little
# faster. Comment this if you need to run a debugger. Note: This is
# required for compilation on i686.
ac_add_options --disable-debug-symbols
# The elf-hack is reported to cause failed installs (after successful builds)
# on some machines. It is supposed to improve startup time and it shrinks
# libxul.so by a few MB - comment this if you know your machine is not affected.
ac_add_options --disable-elf-hack
# The BLFS editors recommend not changing anything below this line:
ac_add_options --prefix=/usr
ac_add_options --enable-application=browser
ac_add_options --disable-crashreporter
ac_add_options --disable-updater
# enabling the tests will use a lot more space and significantly
# increase the build time, for no obvious benefit.
ac_add_options --disable-tests
# The default level of optimization again produces a working build with gcc.
ac_add_options --enable-optimize
ac_add_options --enable-system-ffi
ac_add_options --enable-system-pixman
ac_add_options --with-system-jpeg
ac_add_options --with-system-png
ac_add_options --with-system-zlib
# The following option unsets Telemetry Reporting. With the Addons Fiasco,
# Mozilla was found to be collecting user's data, including saved passwords and
# web form data, without users consent. Mozilla was also found shipping updates
# to systems without the user's knowledge or permission.
# As a result of this, use the following command to permanently disable
# telemetry reporting in Firefox.
unset MOZ_TELEMETRY_REPORTING
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/firefox-build-dir
EOF
Compile Firefox by issuing the following commands:
First apply a patch which works around unexplained failures on some machines (a message that a python check on libgkrust.a identified 1 networking function, getsockname) in the rust static library.
patch -Np1 -i ../firefox-91.6.0esr-disable_rust_test-1.patch
If building on a 32 bit machine, the following sed works around an issue with an incompatible “double” type in one header file:
case "$(uname -m)" in
i?86) sed -e '/typedef[ ]*double/s/double/long double/' \
-i modules/fdlibm/src/math_private.h ;;
esac
If the geolocation APIs are needed:
The Google and Mozilla API Keys below are specific to LFS. If using these instructions for another distro, or if you intend to distribute binary copies of the software using these instructions, please obtain your own keys following the instructions located at http://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/api-keys and https://location.services.mozilla.com/api respectively.
echo "AIzaSyDxKL42zsPjbke5O8_rPVpVrLrJ8aeE9rQ" > google-key echo "613364a7-9418-4c86-bcee-57e32fd70c23" > mozilla-key
If you are compiling this package in chroot you must do two
things. First, as the root user,
ensure that /dev/shm is mounted. If
you do not do this, the Python
configury will fail with a traceback report referencing
/usr/lib/pythonN.N/multiprocessing/synchronize.py.
Run:
mountpoint -q /dev/shm || mount -t tmpfs devshm /dev/shm
Second, either as the root user
export the $SHELL environment variable
using export
SHELL=/bin/sh or else prepend SHELL=/bin/sh when running the ./mach commands.
Now invoke the Python mach script to compile the package.
export CC=gcc CXX=g++ &&
export MACH_USE_SYSTEM_PYTHON=1 &&
export MOZBUILD_STATE_PATH=${PWD}/mozbuild &&
./mach configure &&
./mach build
The mozconfig above disables the
tests because they use a lot more time and disk space for no
obvious benefit. If you have nevertheless enabled them, you can run
the tests by executing ./mach
gtest. This will require a network connection, and
to be run from within an Xorg session - there is a popup dialog
when it fails to connect to ALSA (that does not create a failed
test). One or two tests will fail. To see the details of the
failure(s) you will need to log the output from that command so
that you can review it.
Now, as the root user:
MACH_USE_SYSTEM_PYTHON=1 ./mach install
Empty the environment variables which were set above:
unset CC CXX MACH_USE_SYSTEM_PYTHON MOZBUILD_STATE_PATH
export CC=gcc CXX=g++ ...: Upstream now prefer clang so that they can use one compiler everywhere. On the X86 architectures clang now appears to support most of the same security-hardening options as GCC. With the current versions and the default flags, GCC creates a marginally bigger build but takes typically 2 SBU less time on a 4-core machine using the mozconfig above.
export
MOZBUILD_STATE_PATH=${PWD}/mozbuild: The build is
now supposed to tell you that it intends to create ~/.mozbuild, and offer you an option to press
<ENTER> to accept this, or Ctrl-C to cancel and restart the
build after specifying the directory. In practice, the message may
not appear until after <ENTER> is keyed, i.e. the build
stalls.
That directory is used for a (probably random) telemetry
identifier. Creating this in the build directory, and deleting that
after the installation, prevents it being used. If you wish to
participate in telemetry, export MOZBUILD_STATE_PATH to point to
its default directory and remove the entry from the mozconfig.
MACH_USE_SYSTEM_PYTHON=1: Use the system python to create a virtual environment for mach without downloading any python wheels.
./mach configure:
This validates the supplied dependencies and the mozconfig.
./mach build --verbose: Use this
alternative if you need details of which files are being compiled,
together with any C or C++ flags being used. But do not add
'--verbose' to the install command, it is not accepted there.
./mach build -jN: The build should, by
default, use all the online CPU cores. If using all the cores
causes the build to swap because you have insufficient memory,
using fewer cores can be faster.
If you use a desktop environment like Gnome or KDE
you may like to create a firefox.desktop file so that Firefox appears in the panel's menus. As the
root user:
mkdir -pv /usr/share/applications &&
mkdir -pv /usr/share/pixmaps &&
MIMETYPE="text/xml;text/mml;text/html" &&
MIMETYPE="$MIMETYPE;application/xhtml+xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml" &&
MIMETYPE="$MIMETYPE;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https" &&
cat > /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop << EOF &&
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Firefox Web Browser
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
GenericName=Web Browser
Exec=firefox %u
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=firefox
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=$MIMETYPE
StartupNotify=true
EOF
unset MIMETYPE &&
ln -sfv /usr/lib/firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128.png \
/usr/share/pixmaps/firefox.png
The application settings for firefox are accessible by keying about:config in the address bar.
Occasionally, getting working sound in firefox can be a problem. Although upstream prefers pulseaudio, on balance using Alsa may be easier.
If you enabled Alsa for sound, you may need to alter one variable to get working sound. If you run firefox from a term and try to play something with sound you might encounter error messages like:
Sandbox: seccomp sandbox violation: pid
3941, tid 4030, syscall 16, args 48 2147767296 139909894784796 0
0 0.
That was on x86_64, on i686 the syscall number is 54. To allow this syscall, in about:config change security.sandbox.content.syscall_whitelist to 16 (or 54 if using i686).
If you use pulseaudio in a Desktop
Environment, it might already be started by that DE. But if it is
not, although firefox-57 managed to start it, firefox-58 did not.
If you run firefox
from a term and this problem is present, trying to play sound
will encounter error messages warning Can't
get cubeb context!
The fix for this is to close firefox, start pulseaudio to check
it does start (if not, read the information on Configuring in
PulseAudio-15.0) and restart firefox to
check it is working. If it now works, add the following to your
~/.xinitrc: pulseaudio --verbose
--log-target=syslog& (unfortunately, on some
systems this does not work).
You may wish to use multiple profiles within firefox. To do that, invoke firefox as firefox --ProfileManager. You can also check which profile is currently in use from about:profiles.
Although WebRender (using the GPU for compositing) is not used by default, it now appears to work well on supported hardware (ATI, Nvidia and Intel GPUs with Mesa-18 or later. For an explanation, please see hacks.mozilla.org. The only downside seems to be that on a machine with limited RAM it might use more RAM.
To check if WebRender is being used, look in about:support. In the Graphics section Compositing will either show 'Basic' (i.e. not in use) or 'WebRender'. To enable it, go to about:config and change gfx.webrender.all to True. You will need to restart firefox.
It may be useful to mention the processes from firefox which can appear in top - as well as firefox itself, there may be multiple Web Content processes, and now an RDD Process (Remote Data Decoder) which appears when playing web videos encoded with av1 (libdav1d). If WebRender has been enabled, a GPU Process will also appear when firefox has to repaint (e.g. scrolling, opening a new tab, or playing a video).
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