Bug 208700

Summary: 64-bit firefox not functional
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: David Woodhouse <dwmw2>
Component: firefoxAssignee: Christopher Aillon <caillon>
Status: CLOSED RAWHIDE QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: rawhideCC: jrb, wtogami
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OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2007-04-02 18:52:25 UTC Type: ---
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Description David Woodhouse 2006-09-30 11:42:14 UTC
After an upgrade from FC5 to FC6 I had firefox and firefox-devel installed for
both ppc and ppc64 architectures.

/usr/bin/firefox attempts to run the ppc64 version, which fails.

Furthermore, /usr/bin/firefox _redirects_ the error messages to /dev/null,
making it hard to diagnose. Manually running it shows the following:

[dwmw2@pmac ~]$ /usr/lib64/firefox-1.5.0.7/firefox

(firefox-bin:10192): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in
module_path: "clearlooks",
[dwmw2@pmac ~]$ 

I'm not sure why the actual firefox binary is installed for both architectures
-- wouldn't it be sufficient to install just the libraries which are supported
by firefox-devel? That is, shouldn't we have separate firefox-libs and firefox
packages, and install only the _former_ in both architectures?

Comment 1 David Woodhouse 2006-10-16 11:05:50 UTC
Installing gtk2-engines.ppc64 makes the above warning go away but firefox still
just exits, now silently.

Breakpoint 2, 0x0000008051144cd0 in .exit () from /lib64/libc.so.6
#0  0x0000008051144cd0 in .exit () from /lib64/libc.so.6
#1  0x00000080511297f4 in .generic_start_main () from /lib64/libc.so.6
#2  0x0000008051129a68 in .__libc_start_main () from /lib64/libc.so.6
#3  0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()

It wants fixing, but we don't actually want to be using 64-bit firefox anyway,
so the simplest fix in the short term is probably to drop the firefox.ppc64
package from the compose, since it's probably too late to fix it properly by
moving the libraries into a separate 'firefox-libs' package.

Comment 2 David Woodhouse 2007-01-02 16:43:08 UTC
We've shipped a few firefox updates since FC6 was released with this FC6Blocker
bug still unfixed, and we're _still_ knowingly shipping an officially-branded
"firefox™" which is totally non-functional on ppc64.

We should be shipping only the 32-bit firefox, or at _least_ fixing the
/usr/bin/firefox shell script so that it runs the 32-bit firefox by default
instead of the 64-bit one.

Comment 4 David Woodhouse 2007-01-02 20:27:54 UTC
Note that even if 64-bit firefox actually worked, it would be the wrong thing
for us to do. Our distribution is mainly 32-bit on PowerPC; our plugins are
32-bit. The plugins available elsewhere (RealPlayer, Java) are 32-bit.

For us to ship a 64-bit firefox would be inconsistent with the rest of the
distribution and very suboptimal -- even if it _did_ work. We need to use 32-bit
firefox.

Comment 5 Christopher Aillon 2007-01-02 20:36:20 UTC
Noted for the hundredth time.  Please let me know when your patch is ready.

Comment 6 David Woodhouse 2007-01-02 20:40:49 UTC
The patch won't be ready for 1.5.0.x -- it's for trunk only.

Comment 7 Christopher Aillon 2007-01-02 20:43:57 UTC
Then we need a 1.5 version.

Comment 8 David Woodhouse 2007-01-02 20:59:56 UTC
No, we don't. For reasons outlined in comment #4.

Comment 10 David Woodhouse 2007-01-02 21:26:46 UTC
Please don't make private comments; this is a Fedora issue and if you have
something which you don't want to say in public then it's better not to say it
at all.

In a _Fedora_ context there is no need for a 1.5.0.x patch and I will not be
generating one -- because it would be counterproductive if we actually _shipped_
such a thing. If upstream wants it then they can of course do it for themselves
-- but it isn't something we want to ship in Fedora.

Comment 11 Christopher Aillon 2007-04-02 18:52:25 UTC
Should be fixed now.