User:Cgomes7/Firefox Build

Lab 1 - Firefox Build

Resources

• Build Documentation

Steps

- Check Firefox build prerequisites for the OS you will be using. I was using Windows 7. Windows Prerequisites

- Download the latest MozillaBuild package. This package contains other software that will be needed to successfully build Firefox.

- Install MozillaBuild. Default location is C:\mozilla-build.

- Run the one of the following batch files. In my case I am using visual studio 2010, so I lauched C:\mozilla-build\start-msvc10.bat.

     start-msvc8.bat  (VS 2005)

     start-msvc9.bat  (VS 2008)

     start-msvc10.bat (VS 2010)

- The batch file will open a command line window. Navigate to the C: directory using the command below.

cd /c

- Download the source code for the release version you would like to build. In this case, I downloaded the most recent version. The command below will copy the most recent version and place it in "c/mozilla-central'. Navigate into the the directory using the second command.

hg clone http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/
cd mozilla-central

- Next we must create a .mozconfig file. This file will contain build options that will be used by the make file. The commands below will create a mozconfig file and add in the necessary commands for a Firefox default configuration. more options can be found in the Buil Options Documention.

echo '. $topsrcdir/browser/config/mozconfig' > mozconfig

echo 'mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/ff-opt' >> mozconfig //directoy were Firefox will be built

echo 'ac_add_options --disable-tests'

- Now all that is left is to build.

make -f client.mk

- Using these configurations, the build should take about 1 hour. Once the build is complete the executable can be found in C:\mozilla-central\ff-opt\dist\bin\firefox.exe.

- Opening the executable will open a existing installed version of Firefox installed on your computer. TO get around this create a shortcut on your desktop.

Right click firefox.exe > Send to > Desktop(create shortcut)

- Open using the shortcut on your desktop. Now your done.