Confirmed users
40
edits
Nightly: Difference between revisions
Add mastodon link
m (Remove twitter share, almost nobody uses it) |
Dannycolin (talk | contribs) (Add mastodon link) |
||
| (20 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
[[File:Firefox-nightly logo-only RGB 25%.png|150px|Nightly Logo]][[File:Firefox-nightly wordmark-only RGB 25%.png|| | [[File:Firefox-nightly logo-only RGB 25%.png|150px|Nightly Logo]][[File:Firefox-nightly wordmark-only RGB 25%.png||x100px|Nightly Wordmark]] | ||
== What is Firefox Nightly? == | == What is Firefox Nightly? == | ||
Every day, Mozilla developers write code that is merged into a common code repository (mozilla-central) and every day that code is compiled so as to create a pre-release version of Firefox based on this code for testing purposes, this is what we call a Nightly build. Once this code matures, it is merged into stabilization | Every day, Mozilla developers write code that is merged into a common code repository (mozilla-central) and every day that code is compiled so as to create a pre-release version of Firefox based on this code for testing purposes, this is what we call a Nightly build. Once this code matures, it is merged into the Beta stabilization repository where that code will be polished until we reach a level of quality that allows us to ship a new final version of Firefox to hundreds of millions of people. This development process used to ship a new version of Firefox every 4 weeks is called the Train Model. | ||
{| style="border: 1px solid darkgray; width: 50em" | {| style="border: 1px solid darkgray; width: 50em" | ||
| Line 30: | Line 30: | ||
Of course, Nightly does not have the polish, quality and stability of the Release channel as this is a work in progress but we are doing our best through automation, QA and community to provide you the best nightly builds possible. | Of course, Nightly does not have the polish, quality and stability of the Release channel as this is a work in progress but we are doing our best through automation, QA and community to provide you the best nightly builds possible. | ||
If you are a power-user, that you want to have access to features in developments months before they become mainstream, have tolerance for occasional functional regressions and are looking for an easy way to help Mozilla and Firefox development, you should use Nightly (ideally as your main browser but you can also use it alongside Firefox on the release channel or another browser). | If you are a power-user, that you want to have access to features in developments months or years before they become mainstream, have tolerance for occasional functional regressions and are looking for an easy way to help Mozilla and Firefox development, you should use Nightly (ideally as your main browser but you can also use it alongside Firefox on the release channel or another browser). | ||
Unlike Firefox on the Release channel, Nightly sends by default anonymized usage statistics, called [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#telemetry Telemetry] which helps us improve Firefox and track regressions on a daily basis. Just using Nightly and sending telemetry data is already of great help to all Mozilla developers as it allows them to get usage statistics on the features they work on. | Unlike Firefox on the Release channel, Nightly sends by default anonymized usage statistics, called [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#telemetry Telemetry] which helps us improve Firefox and track regressions on a daily basis. Just using Nightly and sending telemetry data is already of great help to all Mozilla developers as it allows them to get usage statistics on the features they work on. | ||
| Line 50: | Line 50: | ||
Nightly gets an update twice a day (or night, depending on your timezone), building starts at 10:00 and 22:00 UTC, usually builds are available one hour or two later. That means that there is an update in the morning for The Americas and another one for EMEA/Asia | Nightly gets an update twice a day (or night, depending on your timezone), building starts at 10:00 and 22:00 UTC, usually builds are available one hour or two later. That means that there is an update in the morning for The Americas and another one for EMEA/Asia | ||
The update is downloaded in the background, when this is done, there is a small green badge that appears on the hamburger menu which indicates that if | The update is downloaded in the background, when this is done, there is a small green badge that appears on the hamburger menu which indicates that if you restart your Nightly, an update will be applied. | ||
If you don't apply this update within 12 hours, a dialog box will pop up asking you to do so. If you want this dialog to show up later than 12h, in about:config change the ''app.update.promptWaitTime'' value from 43200 to a higher value, 86400 for 24 hours for example. | If you don't apply this update within 12 hours, a dialog box will pop up asking you to do so. If you want this dialog to show up later than 12h, in about:config change the ''app.update.promptWaitTime'' value from 43200 to a higher value, 86400 for 24 hours for example. | ||
Sometimes, we will issue more than two updates per day, typically this is because we found out we introduced a major regression (a spike in crashes for example) and we don't want our users to have a broken browser for 24h. | Sometimes, we will issue more than two updates per day, typically this is because we found out we introduced a major regression (a spike in crashes for example) and we don't want our users to have a broken browser for 24h. | ||
Sometimes we will have only one nightly or no nightly if there are no patches landed or if we think that the quality is not good enough. | |||
== My nightly build is broken and can't update to a newer Nightly == | |||
On very rare occasions, Nightly can suffer from a bad regression making it totally unusable or unable to receive updates. | |||
If you are stuck on an unusable nightly or if you stopped receiving automated updates, the solution is to download and reinstall a newer Nightly build from [https://nightly.mozilla.org nightly.mozilla.org]. | |||
== Where can I get news about Nightly? == | == Where can I get news about Nightly? == | ||
| Line 60: | Line 67: | ||
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/FirefoxNightly | * Twitter: https://twitter.com/FirefoxNightly | ||
* Mastodon: https://mozilla.social/@FirefoxNightly | |||
* Blog: https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org | * Blog: https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org | ||
* | * Matrix channel: [https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#nightly:mozilla.org #nightly on chat.mozilla.org] | ||
* Experimental platform features page on MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Experimental_features | * Experimental platform features page on MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Experimental_features | ||
* Release notes (updated every week): https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/nightly/notes/ | * Release notes (updated every week): https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/nightly/notes/ | ||
| Line 78: | Line 86: | ||
Bugzilla can be a bit intimidating when you use it for the first time, but we have documentation to help you make useful bug reports here that may get you started: | Bugzilla can be a bit intimidating when you use it for the first time, but we have documentation to help you make useful bug reports here that may get you started: | ||
[https:// | [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html Bugzilla: Bug writing guidelines] | ||
Don't hesitate to ask experienced Nightly users (staff or employees) to help you file the bug in the #nightly | Note that you can use a GitHub account to log in to Bugzilla. | ||
Don't hesitate to ask experienced Nightly users (staff or employees) to help you file the bug in the [https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#nightly:mozilla.org #nightly] channel on Matrix if you are unsure about the process or if English is not your native language and want to make sure your bug description is understandable. | |||
Once you have filed the bug, you may get questions from bug triagers (people that enrich existing bug reports with useful metadata and try to get the right dev in front of the right issue) or developers that are trying to reproduce your bug using your configuration or the steps to reproduce what you experienced - watch your mailbox for such messages! | Once you have filed the bug, you may get questions from bug triagers (people that enrich existing bug reports with useful metadata and try to get the right dev in front of the right issue) or developers that are trying to reproduce your bug using your configuration or the steps to reproduce what you experienced - watch your mailbox for such messages! | ||
=== The bug I found is a regression! === | === The bug I found is a regression! === | ||
| Line 95: | Line 103: | ||
* Article about the CLI version: [https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2016/10/11/found-a-regression-in-firefox-give-us-details-with-mozregression/ Found a regression in Firefox? Give us details with mozregression!] | * Article about the CLI version: [https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2016/10/11/found-a-regression-in-firefox-give-us-details-with-mozregression/ Found a regression in Firefox? Give us details with mozregression!] | ||
* Article with a video tutorial about the Windows version: [https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2017/06/07/using-mozregression-on-windows/ Using mozregression on Windows] | * Article with a video tutorial about the Windows version: [https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2017/06/07/using-mozregression-on-windows/ Using mozregression on Windows] | ||
=== I want to report a website that doesn't work in Firefox === | === I want to report a website that doesn't work in Firefox === | ||
Some websites do not work in Firefox not because of a Firefox bug but because the site is restricting (intentionally or not) their audience to users of a specific browser. This is what we call a Web Compatibility issue. Since these issues can also affect other browsers than Firefox, web compatibility reports are filed in a separate bug tracker at https://webcompat.com/ | Some websites do not work in Firefox not because of a Firefox bug but because the site is restricting (intentionally or not) their audience to users of a specific browser. This is what we call a Web Compatibility issue. Since these issues can also affect other browsers than Firefox, web compatibility reports are filed in a separate bug tracker at https://webcompat.com/ | ||
There is a special menu item in Firefox Nightly to easily report the site you are visiting as being incompatible with Firefox. Click on the "Report Site Issue" item in the Help menu. | |||
=== What is the Nightly Tester Tools extension? === | === What is the Nightly Tester Tools extension? === | ||
| Line 113: | Line 117: | ||
=== I found a bug and I want to write the patch myself! === | === I found a bug and I want to write the patch myself! === | ||
This is a great way to get involved, our developers have full documentation on how to get started hacking on Mozilla code | This is a great way to get involved, our developers have full documentation on how to get started hacking on Mozilla code there: | ||
[https:// | [https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/contributing/contribution_quickref.html#firefox-contributors-quick-reference Firefox Contributors’ Quick Referencee] | ||
== Platform specific instructions == | == Platform specific instructions == | ||
'''Firefox does not support downgrades, even though this may have worked in past versions. If you install Firefox Nightly and later downgrade to an earlier version, you may experience issues with Firefox if they share the same profile of data.''' | '''Firefox does not support downgrades, even though this may have worked in past versions. If you install Firefox Nightly and later downgrade to an earlier version, you may experience issues with Firefox if they share the same profile of data.''' | ||
You will find below additional OS specific instructions as well as a video tutorial for Windows. | You will find below additional OS specific instructions as well as a video tutorial for Windows. | ||
| Line 135: | Line 134: | ||
Download [https://nightly.mozilla.org/ Firefox Nightly]. | Download [https://nightly.mozilla.org/ Firefox Nightly]. | ||
As for any Mac OS app, open it either from Firefox or by double-clicking it in the folder, then drag and drop the icon into the application folder and you're done for the installation part. For detailed instructions, see [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-download-and-install-firefox-mac here]. | As for any Mac OS app, open it either from Firefox or by double-clicking it in the folder, then drag and drop the icon into the application folder and you're done for the installation part. For detailed instructions, see [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-download-and-install-firefox-mac here]. | ||
=== Linux === | === Linux === | ||
| Line 155: | Line 146: | ||
===== Is Nightly available as a .deb/.rpm? ===== | ===== Is Nightly available as a .deb/.rpm? ===== | ||
As of October 2023, we now officially provide a .deb repository for Debian-based distros (example: Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, etc). See: | |||
[https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2023/10/30/introducing-mozillas-firefox-nightly-deb-packages-for-debian-based-linux-distributions/ Introducing Mozilla’s Firefox Nightly .deb Package for Debian-based Linux Distributions] | |||
Mozilla does not provide yet .rpm packages but our tar.bz2 binaries work on all distributions which meet Firefox [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/nightly/system-requirements/ system requirements]. | |||
===== Is there a Nightly repository for my distro? ===== | ===== Is there a Nightly repository for my distro? ===== | ||
We only maintain a repository for Debian-based distros (see section above) | |||
Some volunteers maintain their own repository or ppa but usually those are not maintained over time for Nightly. | |||
For non-Debian distros, the advised installation method is to use Mozilla-provided builds and its software updater. | |||
===== Is there a FlatPak/Snap package ===== | ===== Is there a FlatPak/Snap package ===== | ||
Canonical provides Snap binaries of Firefox and will probably propose also them for Nightly at some point, but this is not yet the case. The tracking bug is [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1297513 Automate generation of Firefox snap packages]. | |||
We | We support FlatPack for Beta builds (since Firefox 75) but not for Nightly builds yet. | ||
There is an unofficial Firefox Flatpak repository created by the Fedora/RedHat maintainers for testing purposes: https://firefox-flatpak.mojefedora.cz/ | There is an unofficial Firefox Flatpak repository created by the Fedora/RedHat maintainers for testing purposes: https://firefox-flatpak.mojefedora.cz/ | ||
| Line 187: | Line 180: | ||
The slides in this presentation are online and can be used as a basis for your own presentation. | The slides in this presentation are online and can be used as a basis for your own presentation. | ||