[gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Mick]

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Hi All,

I happened to notice that Firefox is having more and more USE flags for using 
system-side rather than bundled in libraries:

[ebuild     U  ] www-client/firefox-38.3.0::gentoo [38.2.1::gentoo] USE="dbus 
gmp-autoupdate jemalloc3 jit minimal -bindist -custom-cflags -custom-
optimization -debug -egl -gstreamer -gstreamer-0 -hardened (-neon) (-pgo) -
pulseaudio (-selinux) -startup-notification -system-cairo -system-icu -system-
jpeg -system-libvpx -system-sqlite {-test} -wifi"


However, such libraries are not enabled by default and FF will be downloading 
177,578 KiB of sources.  A couple of questions:

- Will FF be downloading less if the system side USE flags are enabled?
- What are the benefits or disbenefits of enabling them?

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Marc Joliet]

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On Saturday 03 October 2015 10:15:08 Mick wrote:
>Hi All,
>
>I happened to notice that Firefox is having more and more USE flags for using
>system-side rather than bundled in libraries:
>
>[ebuild     U  ] www-client/firefox-38.3.0::gentoo [38.2.1::gentoo] USE="dbus
>gmp-autoupdate jemalloc3 jit minimal -bindist -custom-cflags -custom-
>optimization -debug -egl -gstreamer -gstreamer-0 -hardened (-neon) (-pgo) -
>pulseaudio (-selinux) -startup-notification -system-cairo -system-icu
>-system- jpeg -system-libvpx -system-sqlite {-test} -wifi"
>
>
>However, such libraries are not enabled by default and FF will be downloading
>177,578 KiB of sources.  A couple of questions:
>
>- Will FF be downloading less if the system side USE flags are enabled?
>- What are the benefits or disbenefits of enabling them?

I don't know about the size of the downloads, but is that *really* a problem?  

As to the system-* flags:  I've been setting all of them except for system-
sqlite since... they exist, I think.  I make the exception to system-sqlite 
because it likely has a negative performance impact on other packages that 
depend on sqlite.  However, it seems that at least system-cairo might be 
problematic in recent versions of Firefox, see 
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=558150.

In general, I think it depends on how well upstream supports the flags and how 
quickly problems are noticed when using them, which might not be as quick as 
we like.

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

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Re: [gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Mick]

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On Saturday 03 Oct 2015 10:37:07 Marc Joliet wrote:
> On Saturday 03 October 2015 10:15:08 Mick wrote:
> >Hi All,
> >
> >I happened to notice that Firefox is having more and more USE flags for
> >using system-side rather than bundled in libraries:
> >
> >[ebuild     U  ] www-client/firefox-38.3.0::gentoo [38.2.1::gentoo]
> >USE="dbus gmp-autoupdate jemalloc3 jit minimal -bindist -custom-cflags
> >-custom- optimization -debug -egl -gstreamer -gstreamer-0 -hardened
> >(-neon) (-pgo) - pulseaudio (-selinux) -startup-notification
> >-system-cairo -system-icu -system- jpeg -system-libvpx -system-sqlite
> >{-test} -wifi"
> >
> >
> >However, such libraries are not enabled by default and FF will be
> >downloading 177,578 KiB of sources.  A couple of questions:
> >
> >- Will FF be downloading less if the system side USE flags are enabled?
> >- What are the benefits or disbenefits of enabling them?
> 
> I don't know about the size of the downloads, but is that *really* a
> problem?

When you are on a metered ADSL connection, yes, it can be.


> As to the system-* flags:  I've been setting all of them except for system-
> sqlite since... they exist, I think.  I make the exception to system-sqlite
> because it likely has a negative performance impact on other packages that
> depend on sqlite.  However, it seems that at least system-cairo might be
> problematic in recent versions of Firefox, see
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=558150.
> 
> In general, I think it depends on how well upstream supports the flags and
> how quickly problems are noticed when using them, which might not be as
> quick as we like.
> 
> HTH

Have you found that using local system flags causes rebuilds of FF more often?  
I seem to build or rebuild FF every couple of weeks, but I would not want to 
have to rebuild it more often.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Alec Ten Harmsel]

On Sat, Oct 03, 2015 at 10:57:47AM +0100, Mick wrote:
> 
> Have you found that using local system flags causes rebuilds of FF more often?  
> I seem to build or rebuild FF every couple of weeks, but I would not want to 
> have to rebuild it more often.
> 

I have been using all the system-* flags as long as I can remember. I
can't remember the last time that I rebuilt firefox for a reason other
than a version update or I had directly changed its USE flags. I usually
update weekly, so I see firefox rebuilds probably once a month or a
little less frequently on average.

Alec

Re: [gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Mick]

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On Saturday 03 Oct 2015 12:18:19 Alec Ten Harmsel wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 03, 2015 at 10:57:47AM +0100, Mick wrote:
> > Have you found that using local system flags causes rebuilds of FF more
> > often? I seem to build or rebuild FF every couple of weeks, but I would
> > not want to have to rebuild it more often.
> 
> I have been using all the system-* flags as long as I can remember. I
> can't remember the last time that I rebuilt firefox for a reason other
> than a version update or I had directly changed its USE flags. I usually
> update weekly, so I see firefox rebuilds probably once a month or a
> little less frequently on average.
> 
> Alec

Thank you all for your replies.  I've enabled the system-* flags and firefox 
built in the same time give or take a few seconds.  I can't see a difference 
yet, although it feels faster - clear psychological advantage!  ;-)

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Oct 3, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thank you all for your replies.  I've enabled the system-* flags and firefox
> built in the same time give or take a few seconds.  I can't see a difference
> yet, although it feels faster - clear psychological advantage!  ;-)
>

The same tarball is used either way.  We'd need to rip it apart and
distribute modified tarballs ourselves if we wanted to change that,
and this generally isn't how we do things.  In the case of firefox it
might even have legal issues due to how they treat their trademarks,
but I'd have to look into that.

I wouldn't expect using system sqllite to have any negative impact on
other system packages using sqllite.  It might or might not affect
firefox performance if its sqllite build options are different from
the system library.  I believe some sqllite behavior settings are only
configurable at build time.

Besides saving build time, using system libraries would save RAM and
load time as well, since firefox would share those libraries with
other programs vs loading private copies of them.  There is also the
security matter, which is normally a very important reason to use
system libraries, but firefox is probably at least as rigorous about
keeping their bundled libraries updated as Gentoo is, so that could go
either way.

Obviously you're going to have less upstream support in general for
system libraries, but most distros are going to use them anyway.

I'm not quite sure why more of them aren't used by default on Gentoo.
Chromium tries to use as many system libs as they can, with more
experimental ones being defaulted to bundled, and ones that they
haven't managed to unbundle may not be optional.  Google loves to
patch the stuff they distribute, so you can't just switch to system
libs in all cases without fixing all the APIs.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Mick]

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On Saturday 03 Oct 2015 15:57:15 Rich Freeman wrote:

> I wouldn't expect using system sqllite to have any negative impact on
> other system packages using sqllite.  It might or might not affect
> firefox performance if its sqllite build options are different from
> the system library.  I believe some sqllite behavior settings are only
> configurable at build time.

Portage asked me to add this USE flag:

 >=dev-db/sqlite-3.8.10.2 secure-delete

> Besides saving build time, using system libraries would save RAM and
> load time as well, since firefox would share those libraries with
> other programs vs loading private copies of them.  

Yes, FF now takes a few milliseconds less to load.  I didn't check the RAM  it 
occupies before and after, but what you say makes sense.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Alec Ten Harmsel]

On Sat, Oct 03, 2015 at 10:15:08AM +0100, Mick wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I happened to notice that Firefox is having more and more USE flags for using 
> system-side rather than bundled in libraries:
> 
> ...
>
> However, such libraries are not enabled by default and FF will be downloading 
> 177,578 KiB of sources.  A couple of questions:
> 
> - Will FF be downloading less if the system side USE flags are enabled?

As far as I can tell, the same tarball is downloaded no matter which
system-* USE flags you set. The ebuild tells the build system to use the
system stuff.

> - What are the benefits or disbenefits of enabling them?

Enabling the use of system libraries could make Firefox unstable, since
the FF developers may have patched the bundled libs. It will also save
compile time, although compared to FF itself, most of the libs that can
be prevented from bundling have short compile times.

For me, personally, disabling those USE flags and using bundled libs
represents some sort of idealogical loss since I view bundling libraries
as a cop out solution. This may or may not matter to you.

Alec

Re: [gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Dale]

Alec Ten Harmsel wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 03, 2015 at 10:15:08AM +0100, Mick wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I happened to notice that Firefox is having more and more USE flags for using 
>> system-side rather than bundled in libraries:
>>
>> ...
>>
>> However, such libraries are not enabled by default and FF will be downloading 
>> 177,578 KiB of sources.  A couple of questions:
>>
>> - Will FF be downloading less if the system side USE flags are enabled?
> As far as I can tell, the same tarball is downloaded no matter which
> system-* USE flags you set. The ebuild tells the build system to use the
> system stuff.
>
>
> Alec
>
>


That's true.  Regardless of USE flags, same tarball.  I don't recall
ever seeing USE flags affect the size of the tarball unless it is a
binary which likely doesn't have USE flags anyway. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Bryan Gardiner]

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On Sat, Oct 03, 2015 at 06:26:37AM -0500, Dale wrote:
> Alec Ten Harmsel wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 03, 2015 at 10:15:08AM +0100, Mick wrote:
> >> Hi All,
> >>
> >> I happened to notice that Firefox is having more and more USE flags for using 
> >> system-side rather than bundled in libraries:
> >>
> >> ...
> >>
> >> However, such libraries are not enabled by default and FF will be downloading 
> >> 177,578 KiB of sources.  A couple of questions:
> >>
> >> - Will FF be downloading less if the system side USE flags are enabled?
> > As far as I can tell, the same tarball is downloaded no matter which
> > system-* USE flags you set. The ebuild tells the build system to use the
> > system stuff.
> 
> That's true.  Regardless of USE flags, same tarball.  I don't recall
> ever seeing USE flags affect the size of the tarball unless it is a
> binary which likely doesn't have USE flags anyway. 

"emerge -pf" shows what distfiles are required and takes USE flags
into account, if you want to check for yourself.

Cheers,
Bryan

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Re: [gentoo-user] FF increasingly being bundled up

[Dale]

Bryan Gardiner wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 03, 2015 at 06:26:37AM -0500, Dale wrote:
>> Alec Ten Harmsel wrote:
>>> On Sat, Oct 03, 2015 at 10:15:08AM +0100, Mick wrote:
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> I happened to notice that Firefox is having more and more USE flags for using 
>>>> system-side rather than bundled in libraries:
>>>>
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>> However, such libraries are not enabled by default and FF will be downloading 
>>>> 177,578 KiB of sources.  A couple of questions:
>>>>
>>>> - Will FF be downloading less if the system side USE flags are enabled?
>>> As far as I can tell, the same tarball is downloaded no matter which
>>> system-* USE flags you set. The ebuild tells the build system to use the
>>> system stuff.
>> That's true.  Regardless of USE flags, same tarball.  I don't recall
>> ever seeing USE flags affect the size of the tarball unless it is a
>> binary which likely doesn't have USE flags anyway. 
> "emerge -pf" shows what distfiles are required and takes USE flags
> into account, if you want to check for yourself.
>
> Cheers,
> Bryan


But the Firefox tarball will be the same size.  If you change a USE
flag, that may pull in dependencies but it doesn't change the size of
the Firefox tarball itself.   The Firefox tarball is getting rather
large.  I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not. 

Dale

:-)  :-)