Mobile/Build/Fennec

Building Fennec

Install and run Scratchbox (Maemo only)

If you want to cross-compile Fennec and XULRunner for Maemo, you should first set up scratchbox. Scratchbox is a cross-compilation environment that you will run before compiling Fennec.

NOTE: All the following instructions assume that you are logged in to scratchbox by typing this:

/scratchbox/login

NOTE 2: When you are logged in to scratchbox, you are chroot'ed. This means that /scratchbox/users/YOUR_NAME/home/YOUR_NAME matches to your home directory inside of scratchbox which is /home/YOUR_NAME

Install build dependencies (non-Maemo)

If you are not building for Maemo/Scratchbox, follow the "Installing build tools" instructions for your platform.

Pull the code from Mercurial

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

Create a mozconfig

Create a file named "mozconfig" in the mozilla-central directory. Here's an example mozconfig. The LDFLAGS, with-arm-kuser, and with-maemo-version options should be removed if you're building outside of scratchbox (for x86).

mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/../objdir
ac_add_options --enable-application=mobile

# For improved compile speeds, all optional.
#mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS=-j4
#mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/../fennec-e10s
#export CCACHE_HARDLINK=1
#ac_add_options --with-ccache=ccache

# Make a debug build, optional.
#export MOZ_DEBUG_SYMBOLS=1
#ac_add_options --enable-debug
#ac_add_options --disable-optimize

# Needed on Win32 to fix problem with Windows Vista SDK
#ac_add_options --disable-accessibility

####################################################
# SCRATCHBOX ONLY: Remove everything below this line
# if you are not building in Scratchbox for Maemo. 

ac_add_options --with-maemo-version=5

# Enabling --with-arm-kuser implies Linux on ARM and enables kernel
# optimizations for that platform
ac_add_options --with-arm-kuser

# cs2007q3 gcc 4.2 is busted, we think, and doesn't
# look in the expected places. --dougt.
# $PWD/... was added due to bug 463076
export LDFLAGS="-Wl,-rpath-link,$PWD/dist/bin/:/usr/lib:/lib"

See Configuring Build Options for more information about customizing your build settings.

Build

In the mozilla-central directory:

make -f client.mk build

The build will appear in ../objdir (or whatever MOZ_OBJDIR is set to in your mozconfig).

Running Fennec

Desktop

cd ../objdir/dist/bin
./fennec

You may want to add the $MOZ_OBJDIR/dist/bin directory to your shell's $PATH so you can just type "fennec" anywhere.

Maemo

If you did the above in a Maemo Scratchbox for the CHINOOK_ARMEL target, you can run the build on the N800/N810 device.

Create a Fennec tarball:

cd ../objdir
make package

You'll now have a tarball in objdir/dist/ named fennec-1.1b2pre.en-US.linux-arm.tar.bz2. (you'll probably want to run bunzip2 on it first, since Maemo doesn't include it):

cd dist
bunzip2 fennec-*.tar.bz2

Connect your N900 to your computer in USB Mass Storage mode and copy the tarball to it, then unmount it and disconnect (note: you must actually disconnect the USB cable; also, be sure to close an open terminal on your N900 if you have one). The file will appear in ~/MyDocs. You can drag it in the file manager, or run something like this command:

cp fennec-*.tar "/media/Nokia N900"
umount "/media/Nokia N900"

Extract and launch from a command line (X Terminal) on the device:

# Run this outside of the MyDocs directory, which is mounted noexec:
tar xvf MyDocs/fennec-*.tar 
./fennec/fennec

Building Fennec with XULRunner

Fennec is normally built as a standalone app, but it can also run under XULRunner. Note that this is not fully supported, and some things may work differently in XULRunner builds.

Get the source

Follow the steps from #Pulling the code from hg

Creating a mozconfig

# Options for client.mk.
mk_add_options MOZ_BUILD_PROJECTS="xulrunner mobile"
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/../objdir

# XULRunner options
ac_add_app_options xulrunner --enable-application=xulrunner
ac_add_app_options xulrunner --disable-javaxpcom
export MOZ_SERVICES_SYNC=1 # Enable Firefox Sync for XULRunner (Bug 581010)

# mobile options
ac_add_app_options mobile --enable-application=mobile
ac_add_app_options mobile --with-libxul-sdk=../xulrunner/dist

# For improved compile speeds, all optional.
#mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS=-j4
#mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/../fennec-e10s
#export CCACHE_HARDLINK=1
#ac_add_options --with-ccache=ccache

# Make a debug build, optional.
#export MOZ_DEBUG_SYMBOLS=1
#ac_add_options --enable-debug
#ac_add_options --disable-optimize

Note: if you are building for x86 ubuntu, you might want to add "ac_add_options --disable-dbus" to your mozconfig, or obtain the necessary dbus libraries.

Build

make -f client.mk build

Run

cd ../objdir/mobile/dist/bin
./fennec

Using the Gecko SDK

Rather than build XULRunner yourself, you can use the Gecko SDK. First download and extract the SDK from http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/xulrunner/nightly/latest-trunk/

Use the following mozconfig file, using the correct path to the SDK you downloaded and extracted:

# Options for client.mk.
mk_add_options MOZ_BUILD_PROJECTS="xulrunner mobile"
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/../objdir

ac_add_options  --enable-application=mobile
ac_add_options  --with-libxul-sdk=/PATH/TO/SDK
ac_add_options  --with-system-libxul

Building Win32

Start by setting up your system with the needed SDKs. This means Visual Studio 2008 and the Vista SDK.

Check out the source and create a mozconfig following the instructions above. Be sure to add or uncomment this line:

ac_add_options --disable-accessibility

Then use the commands

configure
make -f client.mk build

Don't panic if configure fails; the make will rerun it with the right options to allow this to work.