How long does it take to build LibreWolf?

My main laptop is dead, so I’m on a potato laptop with a 6th gen Intel i3 processor and 4GB of RAM. I have IceCat installed, but I really don’t like the defaults it provides.

Maybe I am in the wrong here, but from the Arkenfox page, I’ve read that having way too many extension is bad - there’s an unbelievable amount of these plugins. IceCat being on the older ESR version is a big no when it comes to security. Last but not the least, I want to create a separate, non-secure profile to use normal pages, but IceCat has hard-coded blocks on several websites.

And that is exactly why I’m looking to move to LibreWolf. But the issue is that there is no pre-built binaries available for my distro. I’ve waited the entire day for this browser, and I’m tired of having to come back to a frozen desktop, or build fails while waking from sleep.

I’m trying the build once again, and I just wanted to know how long it takes to build, so that I can leave it uninterrupted.

gaylord_fartmaster,

Maybe I am in the wrong here, but from the Arkenfox page, I’ve read that having way too many extension is bad - there’s an unbelievable amount of these plugins.

By plugins, do you mean browser extensions, or something else? Librewolf just automatically downloads and installs uBlock Origin from the Mozilla add-on store the first time you run it, so there isn’t really a difference between that and using Firefox + Arkenfox and just manually installing uBO.

FriendBesto,

Also, uBO today is a must for any power user, or just any user, for that matter. I have uBO on a number of machines and on average on my settings at leasr a cool 1/4 of all content and connections get blocked. That is a huge % given that I do not use any social media on my PCs. Not even YT, directly.

bizdelnick,

Security fixes are backported to ESR releases so they are not less secure than bleeding edge.

velox_vulnus,

Looks like CVE-2024-29944 affects my IceCat version. Kinda frustrating that I know about this, and yet I’m still using it, as I have no other choice.

neutron,

Librewolf has AppImage on their webpage, too. Does it not fit your use case?

velox_vulnus,

I know that AppImages can run on NixOS after configuring them, but I am not sure if it is a thing in Guix. So far, I haven’t found anything about it.

tkk13909,

Which distro are you on and why are you building Librewolf instead of using the Flatpak or Distrobox?

velox_vulnus,

I am on Guix System. Right now, I have access to IceCat from guix and Firefox from nonguix, of which I have GC’ed Firefox, and modified IceCat, sticking to sane privacy defaults (uBlock Origin + LibRedirect + Dark Reader).

Because I have 120GB of storage, and use Nix side-by-side for personal project, there is barely any space for another third-party package manager, as well as the stuff it will download. I use Guix Home, so having another package manager would also be counterproductive to my effort of creating a reproducibile home user configuration.

LWD,

TIL the things to build a browser take up less space than a package manager… But I don’t do Linux any more hardcore than Ubuntu either

velox_vulnus,

Since builds on Guix are transitive, most of the libraries have been downloaded already when I installed IceCat and Firefox. The biggest headache is trying to build NSS, followed by LibreWolf.

tkk13909,

Alright then. Have fun compiling an entire web browser…

onlinepersona,

4GB RAM are the minimum for building firefox. I’ve seen reports of building with 16GB and an i7 taking 20 minutes. Your machine is quite old, so honestly leave it overnight and check in in the morning, then check in again after work.

Maybe run a timed build. I’m curious about the results.

Anti Commercial AI thingyCC BY-NC-SA 4.0

miss_brainfarts,

reports of building with 16GB and an i7 taking 20 minutes

Which generation i7 though

GolfNovemberUniform,

I would assume the building time on such a machine will be somewhere within 5-14 days (no sarcasm). Use the flatpak or a binary from the AUR

Redjard,
@Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I would not say that necessarily. I asked the Gentoo people and they had similar setups with 12h. At 4GB ram it’ll mainly come down to swapping, so disk speed.
If the 5 days were you experience, was it using a slow hdd?
Edit: remember to disable pgo, wherever you see it. It can double your compile times

Redjard,
@Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

For reference my modern system sits well below 20 minutes without pgo, and below 40 with.

GolfNovemberUniform,

Someone told me that Chromium builds for 2 days on a modern system. I know that Librewolf is smaller but the OP’s system is much slower so that’s how I assumed the build time

Redjard,
@Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I built it 6 months ago on a 3700x, took 3h. Where firefox took 20 minutes

uzay,

I recommend just using the flatpak

SomeBoyo, (edited )

IIRC there is a flatpack of it

Efwis,

First, this would be a better question to ask in a Linux specific community.

Second, Build time is really subjective to the computer and its hardware. There could be bottlenecks at the cpu/memory from the motherboard that will slow it down. It also depends on whether you’re spinning rust or using an ssd.

There are a lot of factors involved in the whole that makes it hard to definitively say how long something takes to build.

devraza,
@devraza@lemmy.ml avatar

But it’s still possible to give an estimate knowing a little bit about the hardware, right?

Redjard,
@Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

The missing number is drive speed, because 4GB ram are not nearly enough, swapping is necessary. But with fast moder drives (were pcie ssds a thing back then?) expect half a day

thanksforallthefish,

At that age cpu it’s almost certainly a hard drive not ssd.

My guess is 1-2 days. 4gb RAM is going to thrash like hell

Redjard,
@Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

ssds are a really cheap upgrade, and have been for a while. My systems of similsr age have had ssd upgrades for about 5 years now. It’ll likely be limited to sata speeds though.

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