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While In prior years, I have attempted to build various open source projects in the past (I, for example KDE.e. KDE)This project however, this will be my first time attempt at building Firefox. Before I begin discussing the whole build process, let me give it is important for you a bit of to have some basic information about my the computer that I will be building on.

==My Notebook SpecificationsHardware Configuration==

:<pre>Intel Pentium 4 Processor-M 1.6 MHz:512 MB RAM:40 gig Hard Drive:Dual Boot – Ubuntu and Windows XP</pre>

This computer is about 5 years old, so . So let’s see how it holds up in a Firefox build. Let the build begin!

Since I have already installed the latest version of Ubuntu on my notebook, I would will only require a few more packages before I can execute my first build. My first step was to install any of the missing build perquisites prerequisites on the developer website on to my machine.  Using the Synaptic Install Wizard, I located and downloaded each package listed on the Mozilla website ([http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Linux_Build_Prerequisites Linux Build Prerequisites] Using the Synaptic Install Wizard, I located and downloaded each package listed on the Mozilla website). The following packages were installed:

My next step was required me to download the most recent version of the Mozilla source code from the cvs repository. To accomplish this task, I first need to create a directory to hold all my cvs repositories. Finally, i need I needed to checkout the latest browser version from the Mozilla trunk and build it. I used the following commands to complete these tasks.

Now that we I have a link to the Mozilla repository, I can now specify which code segment to download using the MOZ_CO_PROJECT parameter. Since we’re I am only building Firefox, we can I am able to specify the keyword ‘browser’ for the MOZ_CO_PROJECT parameter, which will allow me to download only the browser components.

By accident, I missed the section that talks about discusses the build options configuration file. I then quickly moved to the Firefox build section and initiated the following command to build my newly downloaded browser source.

My The very first problem! Failing I encountered was due to read my failing to see the section about creating a .mozconfig file has resulted in the following error.

Once again, I initiated the build command described above to restart the Firefox build. After 1 one hour into the build process, I noticed a consistent flow of error messages being display on my terminal. Minutes later, the build crashed. It turns out that I was missing a file called ‘int_types.h’ that which caused various build files to crash as they could not resolve to this header file. After various google searches with no results, I decided to venture into the google newsgroups in hopes of an answer. To my surprise, many users were having the same issue. Described in As I began to read the descriptions of many cases, I quickly realized that my current situation was a result of not having the g++ package installed. I quickly installed the g++ package and re-executed the build command.  The build process this time failed much quicker then my previous attempt. Once again I received the same error as before. This time, I decided to venture into IRC and talk to my fellow classmates about the problem I was having. Within minutes, I had various users assisting me with my build problems. Tom (mystic) took the time to ensure that I had the required packages (libraries) installed. Dave then asked me about my make version and described how it may cause an issue if I had the wrong version installed. After double checking all the requirements listed by Tom and Dave, I found that they were all correct on my system. Therefore, I decided to delete and re-checkout the whole Mozilla browser code from the trunk.

Crossing my figures, I executed the build command in hopes that my previous snapshot of the repository was corrupted[http://cs1. Surely enough, I was right! (What a guess) 3 hours later, I had my first Firefox build!senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/Image:Pcvitori_firefox_build.png More Information]

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To tell you the truthIn all honesty, I was expecting a fierce battle with the Mozilla Firefox buildto be much more complex and difficult then it was. This It turned out to be better then I expected , as building on Ubuntu proved to be very easy and straight forward. The build problems I encountered allowed me to understand more about the build system and how the slightest file/version change can break the build.