Mobile/e10s

This page is about the port of Mobile Firefox (Fennec) to the Electrolysis (e10s) multi-process architecture.

Weekly Meetings

There will be a meeting each week to discuss the status of e10s for mobile. Please use #mobile, dev-platforms-mobile@mozilla.org or mozilla.dev.platforms.mobile for communication

Meeting Details:

• Wednesdays @ 1:00PM PST
• +1 650-903-0800 (US/Intl) x92 conf# 8605
• +1 800 707 2533 (US) pin 369 conf# 8605
• #mobile for backchannel
• Agenda and notes

Status

• /Frontend

How to build

Setting up scratchbox (for Maemo devices only)

To build Fennec for Maemo devices like the N900, Nokia uses a scratchbox environment that keeps all of its packages separate from your Linux distribution. So you must:

• Have Linux on your machine or in a VM
• Set up scratchbox, which is a little painful

Below is the condensed version of Maemo install guide, intended for Ubuntu users. If you have questions or need something a little different, it is a good reference.

#
# Scratchbox: install these before doing your Maemo 5 scratchbox.
#

# Install instructions for scratchbox itself. Only need to do these steps once.
sudo echo "deb http://scratchbox.org/debian/ maemo5-sdk main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install scratchbox-toolchain-cs2007q3-glibc2.5-arm7

# Needed for Ubuntu.
sudo echo "vm.vdso_enabled = 0" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo echo "vm.mmap_min_addr = 4096" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo sysctl -p

#
# Maemo 5.0 scratchbox
#
wget http://repository.maemo.org/stable/5.0/maemo-scratchbox-install_5.0.sh \
  http://repository.maemo.org/stable/5.0/maemo-sdk-install_5.0.sh 
sudo sh ./maemo-scratchbox-install_5.0.sh -s /scratchbox
sudo /scratchbox/sbin/sbox_ctl start

# If this is your first scratchbox installation, run this and re-login.
sudo /scratchbox/sbin/sbox_adduser $USER yes

sh ./maemo-sdk-install_5.0.sh

(Note that for this to work, you need to logout and login - opening a new terminal is not enough. The Nokia instructions now continue...)

#
# Run /scratchbox/login.  You are now chroot'ed inside scratchbox environment.
#
sb-conf setup FREMANTLE_ARMEL -c cs2007q3-glibc2.5-arm7 \
  -d qemu:perl:debian-etch:doctools:svn:git -t qemu-arm-sb
wget http://repository.maemo.org/stable/5.0/armel/maemo-sdk-rootstrap_5.0_armel.tgz
sb-conf select FREMANTLE_ARMEL
sb-conf rootstrap maemo-sdk-rootstrap_5.0_armel.tgz
sb-conf install -edFL

# Unfortunately anything built with QT requires a EULA.
# Here you will need to go to http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/eula/index.php and
# accept their EULA. Add the deb repo you subsequently receive to /etc/apt/sources.list
fakeroot apt-get update
fakeroot apt-get install nokia-binaries nokia-apps

For Fennec e10s, you will need to install some additional packages.

# You are still logged in to scratchbox, right?
fakeroot apt-get install libqt4-dev libqt4-gui \
  libxaw7-dev libfreetype6-dev libxi-dev \
  libhildonmime-dev libosso-dev libidl-dev liblocation-dev \
  libasound2-dev libhildon1-dev libiw-dev \
  libxdamage-dev libxcomposite-dev libnotify-dev libhildonfm2-dev \
  libconic0-dev python

Getting the source

Get mozilla and mobile projects off mercurial:

hg clone http://hg.mozilla.org/projects/electrolysis
cd electrolysis
hg clone http://hg.mozilla.org/users/pavlov_mozilla.com/mobile-e10s mobile

Right now, for Fennec we need additional platform patches on top of electrolysis branch. You will need mq for this.

cd .hg
hg clone http://hg.mozilla.org/users/dougt_mozilla.com/e10s-patches/ patches
cd ..
hg qpush -a

NOTE: when getting a new patch queue, don't forget to

hg qpop -a

before you do so!

NOTE for contributors: If you push to the patches queue, please don't modify the status file.

Building for desktop

Ubuntu package dependencies:

# Basic Firefox deps
sudo apt-get build-dep firefox
sudo apt-get install mercurial libasound2-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev \
  libnotify-dev libxt-dev libiw-dev mesa-common-dev autoconf2.13

# QT deps
sudo apt-get install libqt4-dev

Create your .mozconfig in your electrolysis directory. Your .mozconfig should look something like this:

# For improved compile speeds, all optional.
export CCACHE_HARDLINK=1
export CC="ccache gcc"
export CXX="ccache g++"
mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS=-j3

# Make build w/ symbols.
export MOZ_DEBUG_SYMBOLS=1
ac_add_options --disable-debug
ac_add_options --enable-debugger-info-modules=yes

# important mobile options
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=mobilebase-qt-@CONFIG_GUESS@
ac_add_options --enable-application=mobile

# important qt options
ac_add_options --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-qt
ac_add_options --disable-crashreporter

# e10s
ac_add_options --enable-ipc

To build:

make -f client.mk

Building for Maemo devices

Create your .mozconfig in your electrolysis directory. Your .mozconfig should look something like this:

# For improved compile speeds, all optional.
export CCACHE_HARDLINK=1
export CC="ccache gcc"
export CXX="ccache g++"
mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS=-j3

# Make an optimized debug build.
export MOZ_DEBUG_SYMBOLS=1
ac_add_options --enable-optimize
ac_add_options --disable-debug
ac_add_options --enable-debugger-info-modules=yes

# important mobile options
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=mobilebase-qt-@CONFIG_GUESS@
ac_add_options --enable-application=mobile
ac_add_options --with-arm-kuser

# important qt options
ac_add_options --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-qt
ac_add_options --disable-crashreporter
ac_add_options --with-maemo-version=5

# e10s
ac_add_options --enable-ipc

# Other important stuff to prevent build errors (missing glx.h, maybe other stuff)
ac_add_options --with-maemo-version=5

Pro tip: if you are building for desktop and device, take the environment variable MOZCONFIG to your advantage. Put your device mozconfig in your scratchbox home directory. Then, in your scratchbox session:

[scratchbox $] echo export MOZCONFIG=$HOME/.mozconfig >> .bash_profile

Finally, run:

make -f client.mk

How to run

Create an executable script fennectrolysis in your $PATH as:

#!/bin/bash
objdir=[$OBJDIR]/mobile/
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$objdir/dist/bin/xulrunner:/usr/lib/debug/lib:/usr/lib/debug/usr/lib"
cd $objdir/dist/bin && exec "$@" ./xulrunner/xulrunner-bin application.ini

replacing [$OBJDIR] with your fennec objdir.

If you are building a xulrunner-less version of Fennec, do this instead:

cd objdir/dist/bin
rm fennec
cp ../../mobile/app/fennec .
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./fennec

By default Necko-in-chrome is used. If that's not working for you, you can try setting NECKO_SEPARATE_STACKS=1 in your environment (see the necko docs), though this is not a method that will ever be supported in a release.

See Mobile/Build/Fennec for more tips on building, copying to the device, and so forth.