Re: [gentoo-user] Seamonkey/Firefox library USE flags

[Dale]

Mick wrote:
> On Thursday 02 Feb 2017 03:19:24 Dale wrote:
>>
>> I been using system libs since just before my first post.  So far, it's
>> working pretty well.  No crashes or anything.  I also upgraded Firefox
>> the other day when it did its release.  It built and seems to be running
>> fine.  When it breaks or stops working right, I'll try switching back.
>>
>> Thanks to all for the replies.  I was curious what others were doing.
>> It seems others use both ways for differing reasons.
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-)
> Other than security implications of older libs being built in with default 
> USE 
> flags, is there some performance or emerge time benefit/disbenefit from using 
> system-libs?  

Keeping in mind that I build more than one package at a time when
updating, I don't see much difference in build time.  It takes roughly a
hour each time.  This is the last few build times with version.


 Sun Dec  4 21:40:15 2016 >>> www-client/firefox-50.0.2
   merge time: 41 minutes and 23 seconds.

 Wed Dec 14 22:30:20 2016 >>> www-client/firefox-50.1.0
   merge time: 53 minutes and 43 seconds.

 Sun Jan  8 20:38:09 2017 >>> www-client/firefox-50.1.0-r1
   merge time: 1 hour, 9 minutes and 3 seconds.

 Wed Jan 18 17:35:08 2017 >>> www-client/firefox-50.1.0-r1
   merge time: 1 hour, 2 minutes and 23 seconds.

 Sun Jan 29 20:29:58 2017 >>> www-client/firefox-51.0
   merge time: 57 minutes and 24 seconds.


The 41 minutes with Firefox building was before the switch.  Odds are,
it was building while nothing else was using CPU time.  The others are
within 10 to 15 minutes of each other.  I looked at some older build
times, pretty much the same.  Based on that, I don't see any difference. 

As to being outdated at times, there are times I hold off on Firefox
because of plugin issues.  I've been known to hold off on Firefox for
weeks at times.  I don't recall holding off on system lib updates. 
While being outdated at times is possible, it likely isn't any more
likely than anything else.  I figure being able to run the latest
Firefox would be a better option but I need my plugins to work. 

On performance, I can't tell any difference.  I had a couple random
crashes before switching and since the switch, none of those.  I didn't
lose any data from the crash but still like it to be stable.  Basically,
it's the same.

Other than no longer crashing at times now, not much difference really. 
I don't know for sure that using system libs is what fixed it either. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Seamonkey/Firefox library USE flags

[Mick]

On Thursday 02 Feb 2017 03:19:24 Dale wrote:
> Nils Freydank wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 18 2017, 19:13:36 CET wrote Dale:
> >> Howdy,
> > 
> > Hi!
> > 
> >> Looking to see how others do this.  I noticed that some "system" stuff
> >> was disabled which I assume means Seamonkey and Firefox would then
> >> compile their own versions of those things or something.  This is the
> >> ones in question:
> >> 
> >> system-harfbuzz
> >> system-icu
> >> system-jpeg
> >> system-libevent
> >> system-libvpx
> >> system-sqlite
> >> system-cairo
> >> 
> >> Questions.  How do you set yours and why if you know why?  Which one is
> >> most stable?  Any other advantages to having it one way or the other.
> >> Should some be on and others off?
> > 
> > I prefer to use system libs because upstream bundled libs are in nearly
> > every project now and then huge security risks (i.e. quite old libraries
> > once(!) imported from another project, slightly modified, never
> > updated)[1].
> > 
> > However, I had to test a bit around which system-* flags don’t crash and
> > currently my setup contains firefox-50.0.1-r1::gentoo with
> > 
> > “system-harfbuzz system-icu system-jpeg system-libvpx system-sqlite“
> > 
> > and the rest needs to be used from bundled setups — at least that was the
> > state at firefox-49 and I didn’t really test more system-libs since then.
> > My system is ~amd64 on Haswell i5, SELinux no-multilib profile and
> > systemd,
> > gcc-5.4.0-r2-hardened as compiler.
> > 
> > [1] Fun fact: spidermonkey seems to be the one anti example: bundled in
> > 0ad is always major versions ahead of what is on the mozilla
> > overlay(sic!). These poor guys need definetly assistance! :)
> > 
> >> Thanks.
> > 
> > Hope that helps,
> > Nils
> > 
> >> [...]
> 
> I been using system libs since just before my first post.  So far, it's
> working pretty well.  No crashes or anything.  I also upgraded Firefox
> the other day when it did its release.  It built and seems to be running
> fine.  When it breaks or stops working right, I'll try switching back.
> 
> Thanks to all for the replies.  I was curious what others were doing.
> It seems others use both ways for differing reasons.
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-)

Other than security implications of older libs being built in with default USE 
flags, is there some performance or emerge time benefit/disbenefit from using 
system-libs?  
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Seamonkey/Firefox library USE flags

[Dale]

Nils Freydank wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 18 2017, 19:13:36 CET wrote Dale:
>> Howdy,
> Hi! 
>> Looking to see how others do this.  I noticed that some "system" stuff
>> was disabled which I assume means Seamonkey and Firefox would then
>> compile their own versions of those things or something.  This is the
>> ones in question:
>>
>> system-harfbuzz
>> system-icu
>> system-jpeg
>> system-libevent
>> system-libvpx
>> system-sqlite
>> system-cairo
>>
>> Questions.  How do you set yours and why if you know why?  Which one is
>> most stable?  Any other advantages to having it one way or the other.
>> Should some be on and others off?
> I prefer to use system libs because upstream bundled libs are in nearly every 
> project now and then huge security risks (i.e. quite old libraries once(!) 
> imported from another project, slightly modified, never updated)[1].
>
> However, I had to test a bit around which system-* flags don’t crash and 
> currently my setup contains firefox-50.0.1-r1::gentoo with
>
> “system-harfbuzz system-icu system-jpeg system-libvpx system-sqlite“
>
> and the rest needs to be used from bundled setups — at least that was the 
> state at firefox-49 and I didn’t really test more system-libs since then.
> My system is ~amd64 on Haswell i5, SELinux no-multilib profile and systemd, 
> gcc-5.4.0-r2-hardened as compiler.
>
> [1] Fun fact: spidermonkey seems to be the one anti example: bundled in 0ad 
> is 
> always major versions ahead of what is on the mozilla overlay(sic!). These 
> poor guys need definetly assistance! :)
>
>> Thanks.
> Hope that helps,
> Nils
>
>> [...]
>


I been using system libs since just before my first post.  So far, it's
working pretty well.  No crashes or anything.  I also upgraded Firefox
the other day when it did its release.  It built and seems to be running
fine.  When it breaks or stops working right, I'll try switching back. 

Thanks to all for the replies.  I was curious what others were doing. 
It seems others use both ways for differing reasons. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Seamonkey/Firefox library USE flags

[Nils Freydank]

On Wed, Jan 18 2017, 19:13:36 CET wrote Dale:
> Howdy,
Hi! 
> Looking to see how others do this.  I noticed that some "system" stuff
> was disabled which I assume means Seamonkey and Firefox would then
> compile their own versions of those things or something.  This is the
> ones in question:
> 
> system-harfbuzz
> system-icu
> system-jpeg
> system-libevent
> system-libvpx
> system-sqlite
> system-cairo
> 
> Questions.  How do you set yours and why if you know why?  Which one is
> most stable?  Any other advantages to having it one way or the other.
> Should some be on and others off?

I prefer to use system libs because upstream bundled libs are in nearly every 
project now and then huge security risks (i.e. quite old libraries once(!) 
imported from another project, slightly modified, never updated)[1].

However, I had to test a bit around which system-* flags don’t crash and 
currently my setup contains firefox-50.0.1-r1::gentoo with

“system-harfbuzz system-icu system-jpeg system-libvpx system-sqlite“

and the rest needs to be used from bundled setups — at least that was the 
state at firefox-49 and I didn’t really test more system-libs since then.
My system is ~amd64 on Haswell i5, SELinux no-multilib profile and systemd, 
gcc-5.4.0-r2-hardened as compiler.

[1] Fun fact: spidermonkey seems to be the one anti example: bundled in 0ad is 
always major versions ahead of what is on the mozilla overlay(sic!). These 
poor guys need definetly assistance! :)

> Thanks.
Hope that helps,
Nils

> [...]


-- 
Nils Freydank
GnuPG-Key: 0x44594171807206CF @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
   fpr: AA2D 5CC0 0457 297F 6164  3911 4459 4171 8072 06CF

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Re: [gentoo-user] Seamonkey/Firefox library USE flags

[Dale]

Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 07:13:36PM -0600, Dale wrote
>
>> Questions.  How do you set yours and why if you know why?  Which one
>> is most stable?  Any other advantages to having it one way or
>> the other.  Should some be on and others off?
>   A thread "Subject: [gentoo-user] palemoon again: USE=system-libs" is
> asking the exact same question right now about Pale Moon (a Firefox
> fork).  As a precautionary principle, I try to avoid system libs as much
> as possible.  Using the internal version avoids ABI mis-matches (as in
> "Windows DLL-hell") between the external library and the internal calls.
>
>   System libs do work 99% of the time, but there can be problems if the
> browser is updared and expects a newer library, or a library is updated
> and changes ABI.  Gentoo ebuilds can specify dependancy version ranges,
> but that may sometimes run into blockers if multiple apps want the same
> library, but different versions.
>

I was just reading a post there about this.  I was sort of curious as to
what others do and why.  I can see the point you are making tho. 
Keeping it in sync could be interesting. 

To add some info.  I enabled those and recompiled Seamonkey and Firefox
earlier today.  I had Seamonkey crash a couple times the other day and
thought I would try using it this way, see if it matters.  Firefox is
pretty stable tho.  The only gripe I have on it, memory usage and being
so dang slow to close.  I tell it to quit and it sits there for a
while.  Thing is, I have TONS of tabs.  It got so bad, I added that tab
grouping thingy to help sort them out a bit.  lol 

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Seamonkey/Firefox library USE flags

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 07:13:36PM -0600, Dale wrote

> Questions.  How do you set yours and why if you know why?  Which one
> is most stable?  Any other advantages to having it one way or
> the other.  Should some be on and others off?

  A thread "Subject: [gentoo-user] palemoon again: USE=system-libs" is
asking the exact same question right now about Pale Moon (a Firefox
fork).  As a precautionary principle, I try to avoid system libs as much
as possible.  Using the internal version avoids ABI mis-matches (as in
"Windows DLL-hell") between the external library and the internal calls.

  System libs do work 99% of the time, but there can be problems if the
browser is updared and expects a newer library, or a library is updated
and changes ABI.  Gentoo ebuilds can specify dependancy version ranges,
but that may sometimes run into blockers if multiple apps want the same
library, but different versions.

-- 
Walter Dnes 
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications