[MVLUG] Firefox on Linux

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Don McCoy writes:
>Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>> Does gcc even support PGO?  I haven't come across it...
>>
>>   
>Well, since GCC is near and dear to me, I took a few minutes to check, 
>and it does.  :)
>
>Use -fprofile-generate for compilation and linking, run in a typical 
>usage scenario, then use -fprofile-use.
>
>Here's the reference I found.  Actually, a pretty interesting read in 
>its own right.
>
>    http://haifux.org/lectures/218/

Thanks for posting that -- it is interesting.  I don't think I've ever
seen such a combination of hardware and software techniques in one
place before.


>As far as mozilla's reasons for neglecting linux go, I find this 
>interesting a little.  Mostly I wonder what the business case is for 
>them paying more attention to performance on Linux platforms.  If there 
>is no business case for it, then it seems understandable to me why they 
>would not use up a lot of resources for it...  That is the kind of thing 
>the community should do if there is enough desire for it (in my 
>relatively uninformed opinion that is).

I thought that was why it was a Mozilla Foundation...

>On the other hand, some projects are easier to work with than others.  
>Don't know what the case is here.  And some projects have such a high 
>potential barrier to entry as far as knowledge required to build and 
>test changes.  It would not surprise me if Firefox is more like a bear 
>when it comes to building it correctly.

Good question...

>Out of curiosity, anybody ever build Firefox?  There's a bug or two I 
>might like to fix in Thunderbird also, but I haven't tried as I assume 
>that would be difficult as well. 
>
>Thankfully, not everyone is as lazy as I, or obviously none of this 
>software would exist at all!  ;)