Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
update regarding my librewolf openbsd port: everything i said earlier about mozilla's allocator is a load of bollocks. firefox is the same code (where the allocator is concerned. librewolf doesn't touch it) and builds perfectly without patching, and runs perfectly.
rather than fix my cursed port, i'm just doing it from scratch, properly this time - no removing www/mozilla. i'll just make it piggyback off of www/mozilla, like other moz projects in obsd.
eg. www/tor-browser also uses www/mozilla
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
and i know this because i built www/mozilla-firefox myself. and ran it. and lamented for a while.
my port is broken. firefox's allocator is fine.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
No! It wasn't bollocks! Or maybe it was. Idk
I re-did my port locally, only modifying www/mozilla-firefox in the least invasive way possible, without replacing/rewriting www/mozilla submodule.
Still the same malloc-related build errors on LibreWolf - BUT FIREFOX BUILDS AND WORKS FINE.
So now I'm analysing the code differences between LibreWolf 149.0.2 and FireFox 149.0.2 in unhinged detail. I now believe it may be a modification LibreWolf has done since v143, that breaks the build on OpenBSD.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
I downloaded the src tarball of firefox 149.0.2 and did git init / git add -A . / git commit -m test, inside it.
then i extracted librewolf 149.0.2 tarball and moved the .git from my firefox directory into it, and did: git add -A . , then git commit -m change
now i have all the changes librewolf made, in bulk. i'm analysing those changes. i will find the smoking gun somewhere in this massive diff.
there is librewolf source.git, with its own build system and patching. but i'll check tarballs.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
i may have found it
+# allow replacing malloc manually, will not affect regular systems
+# not compatible with ac_add_options --disable-jemalloc, which only works when preloading custom malloc
+ac_add_options --enable-replace-malloc
+ac_add_options --enable-jemalloc
librewolf 149 enables these options, but 143 didn't. this is from lw/mozconfig.new, which doesn't exist in firefox.
so earlier, i may have been correct, not wrong. gonna patch lw/mozconfig.new to remove this, and re-test building.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
in other words: I said it was bollocks, but it probably wasn't. there *is* an incompatibility with mozilla's custom allocator, on openbsd, but www/mozilla-firefox isn't using it. www/librewolf is! because librewolf is awesome, and cares about its linux users, so wants to give them a 0.5% performance increase. yes.
yes.
yes
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
librewolf 143's lw/mozconfig.new doesn't have --enable-replace-malloc and --enable-jemalloc in it. but that same file *does* have these, in librewolf 149.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
ALSO FUN FACT:
in that same file, lw/mozconfig.new, librewolf is enabling a bunch of hardening options that openbsd *also enables* on www/mozilla-firefox, but they seem to be entirely redundant on the openbsd port. i can remove most of the extra autoconf options in www/librewolf since librewolf is already applying them!
yes
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
+ac_add_options --enable-application=browser
+
+ac_add_options --allow-addon-sideload
+ac_add_options --disable-crashreporter
+ac_add_options --disable-debug
+ac_add_options --disable-default-browser-agent
+ac_add_options --disable-tests
+ac_add_options --disable-updater
+ac_add_options --disable-cargo-incremental
+ac_add_options --enable-hardening
+ac_add_options --enable-stl-hardening
+ac_add_options --enable-optimize
+ac_add_options --enable-release
+ac_add_options --enable-rust-simd
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
but the actual place to patch is mozconfig (file) in the root of the extracted tarball directory
i... couldn't find this in git grep earlier, because of .gitignore. so i found it manually. librewolf's build system was still adding the malloc-replace options. it should work now.
this is literally the only problem with the librewolf port. needing to disable mozjemalloc. then it should work.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
absolutely bird-brained build system. gnu autotools, plus mozilla = pain
i feel like the french guy in the matrix, when he just keeps saying "ass of shit, motherfucker, piece of shit" and so on, repeatedly, in french (that's what he's saying to neo when he says he loves the french language because of how cursing with it is like, and i quote, "rubbing your ass in silk")
Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d'enculé de ta mère, firefox.
yes.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
FUN FACT: i hate mozilla.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
Adding configure options from /home/leah/portdev/ports-pobj/librewolf-149.0.2/librewolf-149.0.2-2/mozconfig
--enable-application=browser
--allow-addon-sideload
--disable-crashreporter
--disable-debug
--disable-default-browser-agent
--disable-tests
--disable-updater
--disable-cargo-incremental
--enable-hardening
--enable-stl-hardening
--enable-optimize
--enable-release
--enable-rust-simd
--with-app-name=librewolf
^ no --enable-replace-malloc or --enable-jemalloc
yay
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
because librewofl uses a mozconfig, the cli-based configure options in www/mozilla-firefox are useless for librewolf.
but i can't just patch mozconfig, because variables like e.g. $PREFIX are used by openbsd ports.
what i have to do then: put a custom mozconfig is files/
have e.g. @PREFIX@ in there, and sed search/replace with the variable
do this in pre-configure, in the Makefile. that's my next job.
yes. i *will* tame this ungodly build system.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa all the BSDs are great, but openbsd is my favourite one, because it's the easiest one to use in my opinion. they simplify a lot of of options and remove a lot of knobs, and they just make everything as generally efficient as possible. i don't want to have to think about my operating system, i just want everything important to already be done for me - especially security-related things, which openbsd excels at.
openbsd has some limitations that do not concern *me* personally. ymmv.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
there is a lot of overlap. openbsd's firefox port already adds a bunch of hardened autoconf (./configure) options, that librewolf also does. librewolf and openbsd are two peas in a pod.
it baffles me that nobody tried porting librewolf before i did. i mean, someone did, but i'm unsure if they sent it to openbsd. they simply maintained a package repo themselves, but stopped after obsd 7.1
i couldn't find their sources anymore, so i started from scratch, with my own fresh librewolf port.
Simon Zerafa
Wow. Nice! 🙂🖖
I do need to try one of the BSD's one day.
Which one would be better for someone unfamiliar with this OS? 🙂
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa also xlibre is maintained by neo-nazis (they repeatedly say racist shit on their github, and xlibre's maintainer literally posted on the devuan mailing list expressing support for nazis in 2018).
so even if xlibre was maintained by technically literate people, which it isn't, they're also nazis. so even then, i still wouldn't use GhostBSD
xlibre is a fork of xorg btw. i initially got excited about the prospect when it first came out, until i learned that they're all neo-nazis.
Simon Zerafa
Oh, dear. Well I did learn that in entry Computer Science classes in 1984 so seems best avoided then 😕
Simon Zerafa
Cool. Is GhostBSD with a look or best avoided?
Thanks for the information 🙂🖖
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa GhostBSD uses xlibre, which is maintained by someone why doesn't know how the bitshift operator works in C, or how it differs to XOR, so no, i wouldn't use ghostBSD at all.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa @470m i find that openbsd does basically everything i need. it has limitations eg:
* no multilib (think: no wine, and old proprietary games on steam)
* no journaling/cow in its filesystem. fsck like its 2005 - i/o heavy operations that rely on cache for speed, will falter on obsd. not too bad though.
* actually good wifi support, but not as great as linux
* wayland not stable yet - but meh, xorg/xenocara is fine.
* NO bluetooth support (at all)
other minor stuff. like i said, ymmv
Simon Zerafa
Ultimately I would need an OS that does basic productivity tasks without being Windows.
Currently working with CachyOS Linux which seems like it will do the trick, once I've worked out why the 1 TByte SSD boot drive seems constantly full 🤣
atom
HardenedBSD is quite good. Basically just FreeBSD with additional security hardening (e.g. PaX); but the installation can be hit-or-miss, in my experience, and those AI-generated patches from upstream will be present.
atom
FreeBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFly BSD are a little more complex, but if you're familiar with setting up a system mostly from scratch you should be fine.
However, bear in mind that FreeBSD has been recently accepting AI-generated patches.
MidnightBSD is a little odd. Some of the features are neat, but there are a few that seem a little strange to me. They also added age declaration, which doesn't sit well with me.
atom
@simonzerafa @libreleah I'd say OpenBSD is probably the easiest, as it has a simple line-by-line installer and graphics out-of-the-box (either choose "yes" when asked about xenodm(1), or run startx when you log in). However, in my experience, this BSD tended to be a somewhat sluggish at times (they prioritise security over performance, which is fair).
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa @470m it also doesn't have as many hardware hacks as linux. like, my KVM switch for example, aggressively fakes the EDID for compatibility, and openbsd only detects that i can have 1080p. i have to set a custom modeline in xorg to get 1440p, then it works. no big deal, but linux auto-detects 1440p just fine (it pokes real EDID aggressively)
on my system (dell optiplex 9020 sff with libreboot), hdmi audio doesn't work at all in openbsd. works fine on linux.
like i said
YMMV!!!!!!!
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@470m @simonzerafa as i said. its limitations do not concern me :)
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa @470m yeah and like, for the big stuff, openbsd is actually pretty good. AVOID nvidia graphics cards with openbsd, they are NEVER going to work (unless someone ports nvk/nouveau).
it has excellent ports of the amd and intel video drivers from linux. happy days. idk, the nvidia situation might improve perhaps?
openbsd has pretty amazing support for the typical hardware you'd use... but then you find that lots of super random peripherals don't work (at all).
your mileage may vary!!
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa @470m the SOLUTION, for a happy life and a good mental health, is to do what i do:
only use ten year old junk. then openbsd will work perfectly at all times.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa @470m this makes sense. if you have a runaway process that starts using lots and lots of memory and opening lots and lots of files, you don't want it to bring down your entire system right?
on linux, stuff like that will ruin your day. openbsd gives you sanity by default. but yeah. if you want to allocate 8GB of memory in your program, openbsd is not going to let you do that at all, by default :)
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa @470m fortunately, openbsd has the best documentation. actually understandable manpages, and an excellent FAQ section. you can learn everything about it without searching on google. they document everything *well*, better than any other system i've ever used.
but yeah, openbsd isn't linux. if you've got a linux brain, you will need re-education before you can comfortably use openbsd in production.
always remember to read the manuals, carefully. openbsd expects you to read manuals.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa @470m yeah but like, my DragonFly Red USB DAC works perfectly. so i can bang out tunes on my nice AKG headphones
but...... openbsd sndio either has weak buffering or no buffering, because when my system is under heavy load, audio starts to sound like a murderous robot from a bad 1960s movie.
i can tweak that (would increase latency), but meh.
lots and lots of rough edges that linux / other BSDs probably smooth over, aren't done in openbsd. you must tweak it. but i daily drive it.
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa @470m openbsd is also extremely conservative about things you take for granted on e.g. linux
for example: in /etc/login.conf you will find very austere limits on memory, file descriptors, etc. i don't remember exactly what it was, but i think it was something like 1GB or something, for a program/user. i had to tweak memory / file descriptor limits, to use all of my RAM, and open more than... 128 files at a time or whatever it was.
(otherwise my librewolf builds just fail horribly)
Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot
@simonzerafa @470m and i now wish to be ten thousand percent clear:
i am not saying these things to criticise openbsd. these things are *why* i like openbsd. linux distros make a million assumptions about you and take you for a ride. i regard the linux model of open source as akin to being dragged along a dirt road. linux users don't notice it until they use a bsd. and bsd seems hard at first.
but then you read the manuals. and then you learn how your system works. you become a better person.
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