Building firefox fails with wrong version checks

FlowIt · 2016-10-31 16:51:04

I am trying to build Firefox 49.0.2-1. I ran pacman -Syu before starting the build, all packages are up-to-date.
The configure script fails. The first error I encountered was a compliant about a missing symbol in nspr, so I changed the --with-system-nspr option to --without-system-nspr. I did the same for jpeg after the second error. The third error was about zlib and the first error which showed some version information.

configure: error: Insufficient zlib version for --with-system-zlib (1.2.3 required)

pacman -Qi shows that zlib is in version 1.2.8. I have no idea why the check fails and without having any clue about the source of this wrong behaviour I feel uncertain where to file a bug. Has anybody had success in building firefox?

eschwartz · 2016-10-31 21:47:50

It was built in the repos of course.

Also, I built it myself (against gtk2). It definitely builds.

But, I always build in a clean chroot, using makechrootpkg from devtools.

FlowIt · 2016-11-01 00:56:57

I checked, it works for me, too in a clean chroot. Still, I am not satisfied. What if I want to use my version of gcc, what if I want to link against my versions of certain libs, ...? A clean chroot is great for the guys who build packages for the repos but for the individual user it has some shortcomings (I know of grayskys tools, they can help, but again, it's just additional work around something that should work on the "real" system).
Do you have any starting points where to investigate? What can cause the described issue?

eschwartz · 2016-11-01 02:07:00

ISTR a mention *somewhere* that Firefox doesn't like being built outside of a clean chroot. (Which is how I originally came to build in a chroot.) But I have no idea why.

Maybe your configure logs can give a clue as to what is going on. You could also try installing to the chroot, some/all the packages from a live system, in an attempt to figure out what causes the Firefox build process to conk out. But it is likely some deep black magic, since you aren't the first person to be bothered by this...

Whatever the issue is you should probably take it up with the upstream Firefox developers,.

adamlau · 2016-11-23 04:59:37

I rarely build in a clean chroot. I had a similar issue with FF 50 which I tracked down to corrupted and/or missing .pc files in /usr/lib/pkgconfig.

Arch Linux

#1 2016-10-31 16:51:04

Building firefox fails with wrong version checks

#2 2016-10-31 21:47:50

Re: Building firefox fails with wrong version checks

#3 2016-11-01 00:56:57

Re: Building firefox fails with wrong version checks

#4 2016-11-01 02:07:00

Re: Building firefox fails with wrong version checks

#5 2016-11-23 04:59:37

Re: Building firefox fails with wrong version checks

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