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==

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 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]). 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 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 Crossing my fingers, I executed the build process this time failed much quicker then command in hopes that my previous tempt. Once again I received snapshot of the same error as beforerepository was corrupted. This timeSurely enough, I decided to venture into IRC and talk to my fellow classmates about the problem I was havingcorrect. Within minutesThree hours later, I then had various users assisting me with my first Firefox build problems. Tom (mystic) took the time to ensure that I had the required packages installed libraries installed. Dave quickly 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 were correct on my system, I decided to delete and re-checkout the whole Mozilla browser code from the truck. !

[http://cs1.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/Image:Pcvitori_firefox_build.png More Information] =ScreenshotResources=

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.