[gentoo-user] firefox-bin optimizations?

[gentoo-user] firefox-bin optimizations?

[Mark David Dumlao]

Heya,
I noticed that my firefox-bin is a lot smaller in memory footprint
compared to ordinary gentoo-compiled firefox.

Does anyone know what compiler flags upstream applies to their
firefox? I turned off the custom-optimization USE on mine assuming
that it would follow upstream optimizations, but maybe it doesn't.

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Re: [gentoo-user] firefox-bin optimizations?

[Johannes Kimmel]

On 09/30/2010 12:58 PM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
> Heya,
> I noticed that my firefox-bin is a lot smaller in memory footprint
> compared to ordinary gentoo-compiled firefox.
>
> Does anyone know what compiler flags upstream applies to their
> firefox? I turned off the custom-optimization USE on mine assuming
> that it would follow upstream optimizations, but maybe it doesn't.
>

I thought firefox-bin is a 32-bit binary. If you are using a 64-bit 
gentoo it is likely you self compiled version is a lot bigger.

Regards

Johannes Kimmel

Re: [gentoo-user] firefox-bin optimizations?

[Mark David Dumlao]

On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Johannes Kimmel <johannes.kimmel@gmx.de> wrote:
> On 09/30/2010 12:58 PM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
>>
>> Heya,
>> I noticed that my firefox-bin is a lot smaller in memory footprint
>> compared to ordinary gentoo-compiled firefox.
>>
>> Does anyone know what compiler flags upstream applies to their
>> firefox? I turned off the custom-optimization USE on mine assuming
>> that it would follow upstream optimizations, but maybe it doesn't.
>>
>
> I thought firefox-bin is a 32-bit binary. If you are using a 64-bit gentoo
> it is likely you self compiled version is a lot bigger.

That's right, firefox-bin is a 32bit binary, but I didn't expect the
Virt size to have a nearly 3x difference (855MB vs 355MB) when loading
the same tabs and running the same profile, or the Res size to have
nearly double (200MB vs 130MB).

Is this a speed vs size tradeoff thing? Because I noticed that my
compiled firefox is doing something like 10-30 points higher in the
google v8 benchmark than firefox-bin. But that's relatively a small
improvement, I think my system would do better overall with the giant
memory use reduction.

Or is there an issue with having both firefoxes using the same profile
dirs (not at the same time though).

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[gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[walt]

On 09/30/2010 05:30 AM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Johannes Kimmel<johannes.kimmel@gmx.de>  wrote:
>> On 09/30/2010 12:58 PM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
>>>
>>> Heya,
>>> I noticed that my firefox-bin is a lot smaller in memory footprint
>>> compared to ordinary gentoo-compiled firefox.
>>>
>>> Does anyone know what compiler flags upstream applies to their
>>> firefox?

Try entering about:buildconfig in the URL bar.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Mark David Dumlao]

On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 3:37 AM, walt <w41ter@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 09/30/2010 05:30 AM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Johannes Kimmel<johannes.kimmel@gmx.de>
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> On 09/30/2010 12:58 PM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Heya,
>>>> I noticed that my firefox-bin is a lot smaller in memory footprint
>>>> compared to ordinary gentoo-compiled firefox.
>>>>
>>>> Does anyone know what compiler flags upstream applies to their
>>>> firefox?
>
> Try entering about:buildconfig in the URL bar.

Thanks! that's totally what I was looking for.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Walter Dnes]

On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 12:37:10PM -0700, walt wrote
> On 09/30/2010 05:30 AM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Johannes Kimmel<johannes.kimmel@gmx.de>  wrote:
> >> On 09/30/2010 12:58 PM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Heya,
> >>> I noticed that my firefox-bin is a lot smaller in memory footprint
> >>> compared to ordinary gentoo-compiled firefox.
> >>>
> >>> Does anyone know what compiler flags upstream applies to their
> >>> firefox?
> 
> Try entering about:buildconfig in the URL bar.

  I tried it, and for good measure, did some spelunking in the
.configure file in the firefox tarball.  I have some questions, before
possibly tweaking the Firefox ebuild and/or .configure on my machine...

--enable-application=xulrunner
will Firefox run without this?

--enable-pango
will Firefox run without this?  I have the "moznopango" flag set, which
is supposed to speed things up, but about:buildconfig indicates that
pango is enabled.

--disable-strip --disable-strip-libs --disable-install-strip
Why?  I thought most packages stripped code after install.

--enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2
will Firefox run without this?

--enable-oji
will Firefox run without this?  And what is "oji"?  I can't find any
mention of what it does.

--enable-mathml
I don't really need it right now.

--enable-storage
will Firefox run without this?  The help says...
"Enable mozStorage module and related components".  Can someone please
give a short explanation in plain English what this does?

--disable-ogg
One thing I might consider enabling.  Is there a problem with Firefox's
ogg support, or any other reason to disable it?

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Bill Longman]

On 10/04/2010 10:49 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 12:37:10PM -0700, walt wrote
>> On 09/30/2010 05:30 AM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Johannes Kimmel<johannes.kimmel@gmx.de>  wrote:
>>>> On 09/30/2010 12:58 PM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Heya,
>>>>> I noticed that my firefox-bin is a lot smaller in memory footprint
>>>>> compared to ordinary gentoo-compiled firefox.
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anyone know what compiler flags upstream applies to their
>>>>> firefox?
>>
>> Try entering about:buildconfig in the URL bar.
> 
>   I tried it, and for good measure, did some spelunking in the
> .configure file in the firefox tarball.  I have some questions, before
> possibly tweaking the Firefox ebuild and/or .configure on my machine...
> 
> --enable-application=xulrunner
> will Firefox run without this?

It definitely WON'T run without this. Unless you're only looking at the
intertubes as seen 15 years ago...

[gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[walt]

On 10/04/2010 10:49 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 12:37:10PM -0700, walt wrote
>> On 09/30/2010 05:30 AM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Johannes Kimmel<johannes.kimmel@gmx.de>   wrote:
>>>> On 09/30/2010 12:58 PM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Heya,
>>>>> I noticed that my firefox-bin is a lot smaller in memory footprint
>>>>> compared to ordinary gentoo-compiled firefox.
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anyone know what compiler flags upstream applies to their
>>>>> firefox?
>>
>> Try entering about:buildconfig in the URL bar.
>
>    I tried it, and for good measure, did some spelunking in the
> .configure file in the firefox tarball.  I have some questions, before
> possibly tweaking the Firefox ebuild and/or .configure on my machine...
>
> --enable-application=xulrunner
> will Firefox run without this?

Some of your questions are answered in file 'configure.in'.
  --enable-application=APP
                           Options include:
                             browser (Firefox)
                             xulrunner

I'm confused about that xulrunner flag because I set it to 'browser' in
my own firefox builds, and so do the binary builds from mozilla. Do you
have the xulrunner USE flag set?

> --enable-pango
> will Firefox run without this?  I have the "moznopango" flag set, which
> is supposed to speed things up, but about:buildconfig indicates that
> pango is enabled.

If you referring to a USE flag, I don't see it anywhere.  Must be obsolete.

>
> --disable-strip --disable-strip-libs --disable-install-strip
> Why?  I thought most packages stripped code after install.

Do you have the 'debug' USE flag set?

> --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2
> will Firefox run without this?

You need to pick either that one or cairo-qt if you are building on linux.

> --enable-oji
> will Firefox run without this?  And what is "oji"?  I can't find any
> mention of what it does.

Open JVM Integration:  it enables support for the java plugin named
libjavaplugin_oji.so

> --enable-mathml
> I don't really need it right now.

Add "ac_add_options --disable-mathml" to your .mozconfig file.

> --enable-storage
> will Firefox run without this?  The help says...
> "Enable mozStorage module and related components".  Can someone please
> give a short explanation in plain English what this does?

'storage' is the mozilla wrapper for SQLite, but configure.in doesn't
eplain what that means.  I don't see where '--disable-storage' is even
defined, but you can always try it and see what happens.

> --disable-ogg
> One thing I might consider enabling.  Is there a problem with Firefox's
> ogg support, or any other reason to disable it?

I notice that my own firefox builds do compile the code for ogg support,
but I have no idea what it does or if it works correctly.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Walter Dnes]

On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 08:16:08AM -0700, walt wrote

> I'm confused about that xulrunner flag because I set it to 'browser' in
> my own firefox builds, and so do the binary builds from mozilla. Do you
> have the xulrunner USE flag set?

  No.  "emerge --info | grep xulrunner" doesn't find anything.  I'll
have to modify that.

> > I have the "moznopango" flag set, which is supposed to speed things
> > up, but about:buildconfig indicates that pango is enabled.
> 
> If you referring to a USE flag, I don't see it anywhere.  Must be obsolete.

  OK, I'll have to modify that.  Wonder why the Gentoo ebuild maintainer
dropped it.

> > --disable-strip --disable-strip-libs --disable-install-strip
> > Why?  I thought most packages stripped code after install.
> 
> Do you have the 'debug' USE flag set?

  No.  "emerge --info | grep debug" doesn't find anything.  I'll have to
modify that.

> > --enable-oji
> 
> Open JVM Integration:  it enables support for the java plugin named
> libjavaplugin_oji.so

  Since I don't bother with Java, I may as well disable this.

  Some additional spelunking in the ebuild file finds...
mozconfig_annotate '' --enable-extensions="${MEXTENSIONS}"
mozconfig_annotate '' --enable-application=browser
mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-mailnews
mozconfig_annotate 'broken' --disable-crashreporter
mozconfig_annotate '' --enable-image-encoder=all
mozconfig_annotate '' --enable-canvas
mozconfig_annotate 'gtk' --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2
# Bug 60668: Galeon doesn't build without oji enabled, so enable it
# regardless of java setting.
mozconfig_annotate '' --enable-oji --enable-mathml
mozconfig_annotate 'places' --enable-storage --enable-places
mozconfig_annotate '' --enable-safe-browsing

# Build mozdevelop permately
mozconfig_annotate ''  --enable-jsd --enable-xpctools

# System-wide install specs
mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-installer
mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-updater
mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-strip
mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-install-strip

# Use system libraries
mozconfig_annotate '' --enable-system-cairo
mozconfig_annotate '' --enable-system-hunspell
mozconfig_annotate '' --with-system-nspr --with-nspr-prefix="${EPREFIX}" /usr
mozconfig_annotate '' --with-system-nss --with-nss-prefix="${EPREFIX}"/usr
mozconfig_annotate '' --x-includes="${EPREFIX}"/usr/include     --x-libraries="${EPREFIX}"/usr/$(get_libdir)
mozconfig_annotate '' --with-system-bz2
mozconfig_annotate '' --with-system-libxul
mozconfig_annotate '' --with-libxul-sdk="${EPREFIX}"/usr/$(get_libdir)/xulrunner-devel-${MAJ_XUL_PV}

  Looks like I can tweak stuff in the ebuild via "mozconfig_annotate"
lines, and then...

ebuild firefox-3.6.9.ebuild manifest
emerge firefox

  Updating new ebuilds after each "emerge --sync" will be simpler than
maintaining firefox outside of portage via manual builds.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Walter Dnes]

On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 11:27:54PM -0400, Walter Dnes wrote

>   Looks like I can tweak stuff in the ebuild via "mozconfig_annotate"
> lines, and then...
> 
> ebuild firefox-3.6.9.ebuild manifest
> emerge firefox

  Something isn't working.  I put in
mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-pango
mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-oji --disable-mathml

into the ebuild (a copy in my local overlay) and ebuild-manifested it.
Portage said it was building from the overlay, but "about:buildconfig"
shows them as being enabled.  I have been able to
--disable-necko-wifi (WTF is *THAT* in a browser, fercryingoutloud?).

  Any ideas?  A long time ago, in a place far away, I used to build
Mozilla 0.9x "the hard way", because the downloadable binary was
painfully slow on my machine.  And later on Phoenix 0.9x (remember
that?).  I've forgotten most of what I learned, but I can follow the
instructions at https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Simple_Firefox_build
I have a couple of questions before proceeding...
1) what do I have to set to force all files to be installed in /opt or
in /usr/local ?
2) I've got 8 gigs of ram.  How do I force the compiler to use /dev/shm
as the scratch directory ?

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[William Kenworthy]

In /etc/fstab I have (this is a diskless atom based PXE system):

shm                     /dev/shm        tmpfs           nodev,nosuid,noexec                             0 0

tmpfs                   /tmp            tmpfs           size=1250M,mode=1777,noatime,auto               0 0
tmpfs                   /var/lock       tmpfs           size=10m,noatime,auto                           0 0
tmpfs                   /var/run        tmpfs           size=10m,noatime,auto                           0 0
tmpfs                   /var/cache/hald tmpfs           size=10m,noatime,auto                           0 0


and in /etc/conf.d/local.start:
mkdir /tmp/portage
mkdir /tmp/portage/tmp
mkdir /tmp/portage/distfiles

and it /etc/make.conf

DISTDIR="/tmp/portage/distfiles"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR='/tmp/portage/tmp'
PORTDIR='/tmp/portage/'
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
PORTAGE_BINHOST="http://tinderbox.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/amd64/"
PKGDIR="/tmp/portage/packages/"


It works fine except for gcc where with 3G of ram, everything in tmpfs
and swap over nfs works randomly due to running out of ram.

BillK




On Thu, 2010-10-07 at 00:55 -0400, Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 11:27:54PM -0400, Walter Dnes wrote
> 
> >   Looks like I can tweak stuff in the ebuild via "mozconfig_annotate"
> > lines, and then...
> > 
> > ebuild firefox-3.6.9.ebuild manifest
> > emerge firefox
> 
>   Something isn't working.  I put in
> mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-pango
> mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-oji --disable-mathml
> 
> into the ebuild (a copy in my local overlay) and ebuild-manifested it.
> Portage said it was building from the overlay, but "about:buildconfig"
> shows them as being enabled.  I have been able to
> --disable-necko-wifi (WTF is *THAT* in a browser, fercryingoutloud?).
> 
>   Any ideas?  A long time ago, in a place far away, I used to build
> Mozilla 0.9x "the hard way", because the downloadable binary was
> painfully slow on my machine.  And later on Phoenix 0.9x (remember
> that?).  I've forgotten most of what I learned, but I can follow the
> instructions at https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Simple_Firefox_build
> I have a couple of questions before proceeding...
> 1) what do I have to set to force all files to be installed in /opt or
> in /usr/local ?
> 2) I've got 8 gigs of ram.  How do I force the compiler to use /dev/shm
> as the scratch directory ?
> 

-- 
William Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au>
Home in Perth!

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[William Kenworthy]

To clarify, building everything except gcc works fine - its gcc itself
thats problematic

BillK



On Thu, 2010-10-07 at 15:52 +0800, William Kenworthy wrote:
> In /etc/fstab I have (this is a diskless atom based PXE system):
> 
> shm                     /dev/shm        tmpfs           nodev,nosuid,noexec                             0 0
> 
> tmpfs                   /tmp            tmpfs           size=1250M,mode=1777,noatime,auto               0 0
> tmpfs                   /var/lock       tmpfs           size=10m,noatime,auto                           0 0
> tmpfs                   /var/run        tmpfs           size=10m,noatime,auto                           0 0
> tmpfs                   /var/cache/hald tmpfs           size=10m,noatime,auto                           0 0
> 
> 
> and in /etc/conf.d/local.start:
> mkdir /tmp/portage
> mkdir /tmp/portage/tmp
> mkdir /tmp/portage/distfiles
> 
> and it /etc/make.conf
> 
> DISTDIR="/tmp/portage/distfiles"
> PORTAGE_TMPDIR='/tmp/portage/tmp'
> PORTDIR='/tmp/portage/'
> PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
> PORTAGE_BINHOST="http://tinderbox.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/amd64/"
> PKGDIR="/tmp/portage/packages/"
> 
> 
> It works fine except for gcc where with 3G of ram, everything in tmpfs
> and swap over nfs works randomly due to running out of ram.
> 
> BillK
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 2010-10-07 at 00:55 -0400, Walter Dnes wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 11:27:54PM -0400, Walter Dnes wrote
> > 
> > >   Looks like I can tweak stuff in the ebuild via "mozconfig_annotate"
> > > lines, and then...
> > > 
> > > ebuild firefox-3.6.9.ebuild manifest
> > > emerge firefox
> > 
> >   Something isn't working.  I put in
> > mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-pango
> > mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-oji --disable-mathml
> > 
> > into the ebuild (a copy in my local overlay) and ebuild-manifested it.
> > Portage said it was building from the overlay, but "about:buildconfig"
> > shows them as being enabled.  I have been able to
> > --disable-necko-wifi (WTF is *THAT* in a browser, fercryingoutloud?).
> > 
> >   Any ideas?  A long time ago, in a place far away, I used to build
> > Mozilla 0.9x "the hard way", because the downloadable binary was
> > painfully slow on my machine.  And later on Phoenix 0.9x (remember
> > that?).  I've forgotten most of what I learned, but I can follow the
> > instructions at https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Simple_Firefox_build
> > I have a couple of questions before proceeding...
> > 1) what do I have to set to force all files to be installed in /opt or
> > in /usr/local ?
> > 2) I've got 8 gigs of ram.  How do I force the compiler to use /dev/shm
> > as the scratch directory ?
> > 
> 

-- 
William Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au>
Home in Perth!

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Arttu V.]

On 10/7/10, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 11:27:54PM -0400, Walter Dnes wrote
>
>>   Looks like I can tweak stuff in the ebuild via "mozconfig_annotate"
>> lines, and then...
>>
>> ebuild firefox-3.6.9.ebuild manifest
>> emerge firefox
>
>   Something isn't working.  I put in
> mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-pango
> mozconfig_annotate '' --disable-oji --disable-mathml
>
> into the ebuild (a copy in my local overlay) and ebuild-manifested it.
> Portage said it was building from the overlay, but "about:buildconfig"
> shows them as being enabled.  I have been able to
> --disable-necko-wifi (WTF is *THAT* in a browser, fercryingoutloud?).
>
>   Any ideas?

I think the eclass(es) might be messing up the config, e.g., by
force-feeding pango and some other settings.

Could you try also copying the mozcoreconf-2.eclass to your local
overlay's eclass/ subdir, and edit it there to suite your taste?

-- 
Arttu V. -- Running Gentoo is like running with scissors

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Walter Dnes]

On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 12:03:19PM +0300, Arttu V. wrote

> I think the eclass(es) might be messing up the config, e.g., by
> force-feeding pango and some other settings.
> 
> Could you try also copying the mozcoreconf-2.eclass to your local
> overlay's eclass/ subdir, and edit it there to suite your taste?

  I tried but no luck.  I think I'll try building manually and see what
happens.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

[gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Peter Weilbacher]

On 05.10.2010 07:49, Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 12:37:10PM -0700, walt wrote
>> On 09/30/2010 05:30 AM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Johannes Kimmel<johannes.kimmel@gmx.de>  wrote:
>>>> On 09/30/2010 12:58 PM, Mark David Dumlao wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Heya,
>>>>> I noticed that my firefox-bin is a lot smaller in memory footprint
>>>>> compared to ordinary gentoo-compiled firefox.
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anyone know what compiler flags upstream applies to their
>>>>> firefox?
>>
>> Try entering about:buildconfig in the URL bar.
> 
>   I tried it, and for good measure, did some spelunking in the
> .configure file in the firefox tarball.  I have some questions, before
> possibly tweaking the Firefox ebuild and/or .configure on my machine...
> 
> --enable-application=xulrunner
> will Firefox run without this?
> 
> --enable-pango
> will Firefox run without this?  I have the "moznopango" flag set, which
> is supposed to speed things up, but about:buildconfig indicates that
> pango is enabled.
> 
> --disable-strip --disable-strip-libs --disable-install-strip
> Why?  I thought most packages stripped code after install.
> 
> --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2
> will Firefox run without this?
> 
> --enable-oji
> will Firefox run without this?  And what is "oji"?  I can't find any
> mention of what it does.
> 
> --enable-mathml
> I don't really need it right now.
> 
> --enable-storage
> will Firefox run without this?  The help says...
> "Enable mozStorage module and related components".  Can someone please
> give a short explanation in plain English what this does?
> 
> --disable-ogg
> One thing I might consider enabling.  Is there a problem with Firefox's
> ogg support, or any other reason to disable it?

And you see all those options listed in firefox-bin buildconfig? Then this
is surely not the Firefox built by upstream (mozilla.com). They would only
use a minimal set of build options not all the rubbish (most of which is
currently ignored or just obsolete) that the Gentoo non-bin ebuilds set.
   Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Arttu V.]

On 10/9/10, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 12:03:19PM +0300, Arttu V. wrote
>
>> I think the eclass(es) might be messing up the config, e.g., by
>> force-feeding pango and some other settings.
>>
>> Could you try also copying the mozcoreconf-2.eclass to your local
>> overlay's eclass/ subdir, and edit it there to suite your taste?
>
>   I tried but no luck.  I think I'll try building manually and see what
> happens.

Sorry, I went after the wrong eclass. Apparently www-client/firefox
compiles just a shell of an application ("front-end", mostly written
in XUL and JS?) when the real stuff is in net-libs/xulrunner. And
xulrunner's ebuilds use mozconfig-3.eclass instead.

Another thing I noticed about mozilla's build system is that one
*must* remove the enabling from the eclass(es) due to the way
mozilla's configure checks for these settings. If you have both
--enable-pango and --disable-pango in .mozconfig then enable will
override. And since Gentoo moz* eclasses will automatically force
several enabling lines into .mozconfig, it's useless to add
--disable-foo later on (e.g., in the ebuild). The change has to be
made in the eclass(es).

Thus equipped, I copied both mozconfig-3.eclass and
mozcoreconf-2.eclass over to a local overlay, modified their hardcoded
--enable-pango statements into --disable-pango's, re-emerged both
packages (xulrunner, firefox), and now about:buildconfig shows among
other things:

<snip>
Configure arguments
--enable-application=xulrunner --enable-optimize --disable-installer
--disable-pedantic --enable-crypto --with-system-jpeg
--with-system-zlib --disable-updater --disable-pango --disable-svg
--enable-system-cairo --disable-strip --disable-strip-libs
--disable-install-strip
</snip>

There it is, --disable-pango. Unfortunately by now I have already
forgotten why I was even removing pango in the first place, so I think
I'll re-enable it. I'd rather see if there are some ricing
opportunities^W^Wcompiler optimization switches that can be toggled to
make this sluggish browser faster.

-- 
Arttu V. -- Running Gentoo is like running with scissors

[gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Peter Weilbacher]

On 05.10.2010 17:16, walt wrote:
> 
>> --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2
>> will Firefox run without this?

Yes, it will. cairo-gtk2 is the default (last I looked).

> You need to pick either that one or cairo-qt if you are building on linux.
> 
>> --enable-oji
>> will Firefox run without this?  And what is "oji"?  I can't find any
>> mention of what it does.
> 
> Open JVM Integration:  it enables support for the java plugin named
> libjavaplugin_oji.so

But that will only work until FF 3.5.x. 3.6 has OJI support removed.
And as all up-to-date Java plugins without security problems on Linux
are not OJI, you will want to not set this one.

>> --enable-mathml
>> I don't really need it right now.
> 
> Add "ac_add_options --disable-mathml" to your .mozconfig file.

Don't bother, or does it matter if you save 15 kB in the binaries? Nothing
will run faster if you disable it.

>> --enable-storage
>> will Firefox run without this?  The help says...
>> "Enable mozStorage module and related components".  Can someone please
>> give a short explanation in plain English what this does?
> 
> 'storage' is the mozilla wrapper for SQLite, but configure.in doesn't
> eplain what that means.  I don't see where '--disable-storage' is even
> defined, but you can always try it and see what happens.

This is the default, and I think one cannot disable it any more. SQLite
is an integral part of Firefox by now. The flag above is probably ignored.

>> --disable-ogg
>> One thing I might consider enabling.  Is there a problem with Firefox's
>> ogg support, or any other reason to disable it?
> 
> I notice that my own firefox builds do compile the code for ogg support,
> but I have no idea what it does or if it works correctly.

Use --disable-ogg is you don't want HTML5-like Ogg-Theora movies in
webpages.

   Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Walter Dnes]

On Sat, Oct 09, 2010 at 06:53:04PM +0300, Arttu V. wrote

> There it is, --disable-pango. Unfortunately by now I have already
> forgotten why I was even removing pango in the first place, so I think
> I'll re-enable it.

  Pango is used for rendering non-Latin characters, e.g. Japanese and
Chinese glyphs.  It does slow things down somewhat and it's not
necessary if you're only using Latin-type characters (i.e. US, Canada,
and western Europe).  At one time, there was a "moznopango" USE flag,
but that seems to have disappeared.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Walter Dnes]

On Sat, Oct 09, 2010 at 06:53:04PM +0300, Arttu V. wrote

> Thus equipped, I copied both mozconfig-3.eclass and
> mozcoreconf-2.eclass over to a local overlay, modified their hardcoded
> --enable-pango statements into --disable-pango's, re-emerged both
> packages (xulrunner, firefox), and now about:buildconfig shows among
> other things:
> 
> <snip>
> Configure arguments
> --enable-application=xulrunner --enable-optimize --disable-installer
> --disable-pedantic --enable-crypto --with-system-jpeg
> --with-system-zlib --disable-updater --disable-pango --disable-svg
> --enable-system-cairo --disable-strip --disable-strip-libs
> --disable-install-strip
> </snip>
> 
> There it is, --disable-pango.

  Thanks for the explanation.  I've got pango disabled now.  I'll see
what else I can get rid of.

> Arttu V. -- Running Gentoo is like running with scissors

  Gentoo is a really sharp distro<G>.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: firefox-bin optimizations?

[Paul Hartman]

On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 11:12 PM, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 09, 2010 at 06:53:04PM +0300, Arttu V. wrote
>
>> Thus equipped, I copied both mozconfig-3.eclass and
>> mozcoreconf-2.eclass over to a local overlay, modified their hardcoded
>> --enable-pango statements into --disable-pango's, re-emerged both
>> packages (xulrunner, firefox), and now about:buildconfig shows among
>> other things:
>>
>> <snip>
>> Configure arguments
>> --enable-application=xulrunner --enable-optimize --disable-installer
>> --disable-pedantic --enable-crypto --with-system-jpeg
>> --with-system-zlib --disable-updater --disable-pango --disable-svg
>> --enable-system-cairo --disable-strip --disable-strip-libs
>> --disable-install-strip
>> </snip>
>>
>> There it is, --disable-pango.
>
>  Thanks for the explanation.  I've got pango disabled now.  I'll see
> what else I can get rid of.
>
>> Arttu V. -- Running Gentoo is like running with scissors
>
>  Gentoo is a really sharp distro<G>.

AFAIR many years ago (in firefox 1.x days) Pango was already the cause
of many people's slowdowns, it was also slower the more fonts you had
installed on your system. Back then, you could disable Pango at
runtime by doing:

export MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1

Maybe it still works.