firefox-esr 52.6.0 available for alpha

firefox-esr 52.6.0 available for alpha

[Bob Tracy]

Yes.  Just in case you don't regularly check for updates to the Debian
"unstable/sid" distribution, the long wait for a modern version of
Firefox on the Alpha is over.  For now...

No idea how much longer Michael and I can keep resurrecting Lazarus.
At some point in the near future, it will no longer be possible to build
Firefox on an Alpha unless someone takes up the gauntlet and puts
together a working Rust compiler.  Considering how few of us there are
who might benefit from the effort, it would definitely have to be a
labor of love, performed by someone who does the impossible just because
someone said he couldn't do it.

Of potential interest are some build statistics for Firefox on at least
two different Alpha platforms.  On one of the Debian buildd systems (an
ES45 with 3 CPUs and an unknown amount of RAM), the build took 11:13:17
and approx. 12 GB of disk space.  On my PWS 433au with 1.5 GB of RAM
(maximum amount) and 2.5 GB of swap (pretty much the minimum required),
the build takes over 5 *days* if tests are enabled.

Anyway, enjoy, and pass along your thanks and kudos to Michael.  I'm
pretty much done with Firefox builds on my local machine after this
go-round.  The PWS is too underpowered and otherwise resource-starved
to continue down this road :-(.

--Bob

Re: firefox-esr 52.6.0 available for alpha

[Michael Cree]

On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 12:43:54AM -0600, Bob Tracy wrote:
> At some point in the near future, it will no longer be possible to build
> Firefox on an Alpha unless someone takes up the gauntlet and puts
> together a working Rust compiler. 

Rust uses the LLVM backend.  There was once an experimental Alpha
backend to LLVM.  I am currently attempting to forward port it to
more recent LLVM to see if it might be useful.  It only supported
EV6 and better CPUs which is a higher CPU standard than in Debian
Alpha.  I might get it back to EV56 (when BWX was introduced) and
be able to make sub-architectures to optionally switch in MVI and
CIX. But I have no intention of supporting anything without the
BWX.  And I doubt it will ever produce code the quality of gcc.

I do have a patch that would switch the Debian gcc to produce
code, by default, with BWX.  I haven't ever got around to sending
it to the gcc maintainer to switch over Debian Alpha to only
support Alphas with BWX.  But if I did that then if we ever got
LLVM going again on Alpha there would be no baseline
incompatibility.

Cheers
Michael.