Firefox on NetBSD

[zamfofex]

Hello, I’m trying out Ravenports on NetBSD for the first time!

I installed Firefox to try it out, but it seems to refuse to open:

% /raven/bin/firefox
Couldn't load XPCOM.

I investigated a bit further with ktruss, and I found that it’s trying to open /raven/bin/dependentlibs.list which doesn’t actually exist.

But there is a /raven/lib/dependentlibs.list, which I tried to copy to /raven/bin, and it did progress a bit further, but then it tried to open a different file from /raven/bin that was instead in /raven/lib.

[jrmarino]

It's tough that you started with probably one of the hardest packages that build that apparently nobody has tried before.
the /raven/lib is surely the correct one, so apparently the during the build for NetBSD it's getting the wrong path.

I've probably got go through ALL the patches in pkgsrc to figure out which one is missing.

this kind of thing is exactly why we need netbsd users to help point out netbsd-specific issues.

[zamfofex]

I acknowledge Firefox is a fairly complex package. I wanted to try something a graphical program that I actually have use for. Other examples include GIMP 3, Chromium, Blender, but those don’t seem available on Ravenports (though they are available on pkgsrc).

[kraileth]

For both GIMP 3 and Chromium, WIP ports exist, but especially the latter is a beast of epic proportions. Somebody else has also expressed interest in Blender before, so I started creating ports for dependencies that we still miss on RP. However I got stuck. Still all three are examples of what I'd also like to eventually see becoming available.

My NetBSD machine is currently not in usable state as I've been preparing a blog post about NetBSD's sysinst and have been re-installing the system a couple of times over the last two weeks. I'll hopefully be done with that, soon, so I'm able to build a NetBSD + RP desktop again. I think I tested FF on it somewhen last year, but I'm not entirely sure anymore. I'm going to check again.

[jrmarino]

gimp 3 is frustrating. I have it 99% building but there's a self-hosting bug I can't resolve.
https://github.com/Ravenports/customsource/tree/master/bucket_E5/gimp

I've been trying for weeks.

[jrmarino]

Chromium is s completely different discussion.
First, it can take more than 24 hours to compile depending on the machine.
Secondly, even if I get it finished, it will probably only be supported on linux and dragonfly. The patchset for dragonfly is so huge that it needs it's own repository to host it.

there's no port in this class.

and yes, it's also a work in progress.
https://github.com/Ravenports/customsource/tree/master/bucket_A9/chromium-dragonfly

[jrmarino]

the gimp3 in pkgsrc hardly has any patches. I should see if I get different results with the working version of gimp3 on netbsd to see if I get different results. (it's being developed on dragonfly)

[jrmarino]

Found a patch in pkgsrc that might fix this:

$NetBSD: patch-toolkit_mozapps_installer_packager.mk,v 1.5 2025/04/30 03:47:13 ryoon Exp $

* Symbolic link to lib/firefox/firefox causes 'Couldn't load XPCOM.' error.

--- toolkit/mozapps/installer/packager.mk.orig	2020-01-29 07:05:13.000000000 +0000
+++ toolkit/mozapps/installer/packager.mk
@@ -145,7 +145,7 @@ endif
 	  (cd $(DESTDIR)$(installdir) && tar -xf -)
 	$(NSINSTALL) -D $(DESTDIR)$(bindir)
 	$(RM) -f $(DESTDIR)$(bindir)/$(MOZ_APP_NAME)
-	ln -s $(installdir)/$(MOZ_APP_NAME) $(DESTDIR)$(bindir)
+	#ln -s $(installdir)/$(MOZ_APP_NAME) $(DESTDIR)$(bindir)
 
 upload:
 	$(PYTHON3) -u $(MOZILLA_DIR)/build/upload.py --base-path $(DIST) $(UPLOAD_FILES)