Re: [gentoo-amd64] firefox-bin vs. firefox

[Fabio A Correa <facorread@gmail.com>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hey Yuval,

Yuval Hager wrote:
> I have been using firefox-bin for historical reasons (flash plugin), but then 
> found out I could also use nspluginwrapper for that. 
> Then I installed firefox from source (a.k.a. Bon Echo), but found out it 
> behaved differently from firefox-bin:
Maybe you will want to give it a try with USE="-bindist" so that the original Firefox branding
is present. Do not forget to emerge --sync first!

> 1) fonts look much uglier. Having the same settings (including gtk-chtheme) 
> gives different results, firefox-bin being preferable. 
> 2) Layering bug - at least at one site, I saw that content with a lower 
> z-index overlays content with higher z-index.
You can also check bugs.mozilla.org for this bugs.

> I couldn't find anything of help in the bugs.gentoo.org database nor the 
> changelog - can someone refer me to the relevant info on this?

> I would much like to work on my source compiled binaries, but it seems 
> inferior.. is it?
It depends on several factors. For example, whether the amd64 XPCOM implementation is robust
enough to render fonts or manage layering the same way than the x86 implementation. Not that
XPCOM is the cause of the bugs you comment on.

On the other hand, the Gentoo folks have written a number of patches to change mozilla-firefox
behaviour; wou can note this, for a trivial example, when you have to hit Ctrl+Shift+W to close
a window instead of Ctrl+W.

Then a way to find the causes of those bugs is to emerge --fetch-all-uri mozilla-firefox, work
on the sources and read the patches and the ebuild. Try patched and unpatched builds and check
for the bugs. By the way, you cannot distribute your compiled modifications with the Firefox
branding.

You can also find build info on firefox on the Linux From Scratch website:
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/stable/xsoft/firefox.html

- --
Fabio A. Correa D.

Physics Dept, Universidad Nacional, Bogota, Colombia
facorread@gmail.com          facorread@alexandria.cc
ffaaccdd@yahoo.co.uk         facorread@unal.edu.co
My webpage and OpenPGP key at http://facorread.150m.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFF8THsYOZCB4zf2uQRAkBxAKDGU7Tj2WdFS/baKo4dzpAXumRGQQCbBYBD
SUhDBbFjWTtpt5yBVFMx4TM=
=oUfE
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-- 
gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list