October 13, 2005
Call for Help: Linux Profiled Builds
The Soft Sell
Thanks to Brian Ryner's heroics back in the day, we are capable of building and distributing Linux profiled packages for Firefox 1.0.x. Now that we've moved on to new build systems, new operating systems, and new toolchains, replicating that profiled build process onto the new systems took a back seat to other issues.
We'd love to have a cookbook for adding profiled build capabilities to a new build system. In honor of our desire to build them again, I filed bug 292377. Aspiring developers or long-term Mozilla hackers alike, please take a look at the bug and let us know if and how you can replicate a good toolchain for building profiled packages on a modern day Linux OS.
The Hard Sell
Are you a Linux die-hard capable of toolchain-irifics? Do you help yourself fall to sleep by counting compiler flags and then dream of mozconfig settings? While it's too late to switch to Linux profiled builds in the 1.5 cycle we could add the changes to our trunk nightlies and ensure we have them in place for our next major release. Maybe you can help us scratch the community's itch by generating that exact recipe of what tools need to be installed and what mozconfig settings are needed on late-day Linux systems to bring Linux profiled builds to the masses?
Take troubleshooting bug 292377 for a spin and if you answer the $64,000 question[1] you can brag to your long-haired Linux sysadmin friends that you helped us bring back profiled builds.
[1] No, this isn't worth $64,000. But if you do it, I'll buy you a beer the next time you and I are at Molly Magee's.