firefox

mozilla-firefox

As of 13/5/2025, firefox is moved from gecko-dev (see below) to https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox. It also provides a GNUmakefile, which is simpler than the one described earlier, for immediate use but it remains necessary to prevent it from occupying all CPUs by adding flag j5 as in mozconfig earlier.

The usual git clone https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox gives error message:

fatal: fetch-pack: invalid index-pack output

and we use SSH instead.

# SSH
git clone git@github.com:mozilla/firefox.git
# the latest commits
git clone --depth 1 git@github.com:mozilla/firefox.git
cd firefox
export MOZCONFIG=/rds/project/rds-4o5vpvAowP0/software/firefox/mozconfig
./mach configure --prefix=$CEUADMIN/firefox/nightly
make
./mach install
 

We have

$ git clone git@github.com:mozilla/firefox.git
Cloning into 'firefox'...
X11 forwarding request failed on channel 0
remote: Enumerating objects: 11863463, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (21/21), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (8/8), done.
remote: Total 11863463 (delta 15), reused 13 (delta 13), pack-reused 11863442 (from 2)
Receiving objects: 100% (11863463/11863463), 3.64 GiB | 22.37 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (9503284/9503284), done.
Updating files: 100% (385169/385169), done.
...
Adding configure options from /rds/project/rds-4o5vpvAowP0/software/firefox/mozconfig
 

gecko-dev

(Experimental)

This is the nightly version, in an attempt to explore why the release to CentOS 8 crashes.

git clone https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-dev.git
cd gecko-dev
module load python/3.8.11/gcc/pqdmnzmw
./mach bootstrap
for f in $(ls ~/.local/bin); do ln -sf ~/.local/bin/$f ~/bin/$f; done
export TMPDIR=$HPC_WORK/work
export MOZ_DISABLE_GPU=1
./mach help
./mach configure --prefix=$CEUADMIN/firefox/nightly
./mach build -j4
./mach install
./mach run --setpref="layers.acceleration.disabled=true"
./mach run --disable-e10s
ulimit -a
./mach clean
 

There is also GNUmakefile (extended version as in here listed below) which can be used by gmake.

# This Makefile is a shim for users with muscle memory for the "make" command.
# It's not intended for production usage or anything important.

# Default target to pull, clean, configure, build, and install
all: pull configure build install

# Module loading function (macro)
define load_modules
  if command -v module > /dev/null 2>&1; then \
    . /etc/profile.d/modules.sh; \
    module purge; \
    module load rhel8/default-icl; \
    module load python/3.8.11/gcc/pqdmnzmw; \
  else \
    echo "Module system not available. Skipping module commands."; \
  fi
endef

# Pull the latest changes from the repository (without module loading)
pull:
	@echo "Pulling latest code..."
	git pull

# Configure the build environment
configure:
	@echo "Running configuration with prefix: $(CEUADMIN)/firefox/nightly"
	@# Ensure CEUADMIN is set or use a default value
	$(if $(CEUADMIN),,$(error "CEUADMIN environment variable not set"))
	$(call load_modules)
	./mach configure --prefix=$(CEUADMIN)/firefox/nightly

# Build the project
build:
	@echo "Building the project..."
	$(call load_modules)
	./mach build

# Install the project
install:
	@echo "Installing the project..."
	$(call load_modules)
	./mach install

# Clean the build
clean:
	@echo "Cleaning the build..."
	./mach clobber

# Mark targets that don't represent files
.PHONY: all pull configure build install clean
 

By default, the compile takes all the resources so it is a good idea to make it manageable.

ulimit -v 15728640 # Set virtual memory limit to 15 GB
export MOZCONFIG=/rds/project/rds-4o5vpvAowP0/software/gecko-dev/mozconfig
 

with mzconfig containing these lines

# Set the number of parallel jobs
mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS="-j5"
# Set the object directory
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/obj-@CONFIG_GUESS@
# Enable application (Firefox)
ac_add_options --enable-application=browser
# Enable optimization and disable debugging
ac_add_options --enable-optimize
ac_add_options --disable-debug

for instance, we see it translates to ` /usr/bin/gmake -C . -j5 -s -w install` near the end.