[FX/SB/TB] MOOX: 2004.10.14 [Win32] (Optimzed)

Ich entschuldige mich im Voraus, dass meine Postings nicht auf Deutsch übersetzt sind.
Ich berichte über Updates zu meinen (optimierten) Builds normalerweise auf mozillazine.org und pryan.org, und denke dass auch hier ein Thread eröffnet werden sollte. Thanks to Benedikt for help with the translation.

My builds are pulled directly from CVS (both TRUNK and BRANCH/AVIARY) and built using the free Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit. The builds are permanently hosted at MOOX.WS. I design my builds for stability and speed and am currently making two verions based upon included code optimizations for particular CPU architectural instruction sets. Because of the differences in instruction sets, I am have refined my old build naming scheme and adopted the following one instead:

M3 Builds
M3 builds are highly optimized builds that also contain code optimized for the SSE2 instruction set. Given the nature of M3 builds, they are designed only for the following processors that support SSE2:

• AMD Opteron
• AMD Athlon FX
• AMD Athlon 64
• AMD Sempron (3100+)
• Intel Xeon
• Intel Pentium M
• Intel Pentium 4
• Intel Celeron (1.7GHz - 2.8GHz)

M2 Builds
M2 builds are highly optimized builds that also contain code optimized for the SSE instruction set. Given the nature M2 builds, they are designed only for the following processors that support SSE:

• AMD Athlon XP
• AMD Athlon MP
• AMD Sempron (2200+ - 2800+)
• AMD Duron (1.0GHz - 1.8GHz)
• Intel Pentium 3
• Intel Celeron (533MHz - 1.4GHz

M2 builds will also work on any of the processors specified under M3 above as well as some older CPUs including Athlons, Pentium Pros, Celerons (1.0GHz and older), and Durons (1.0GHz and older).

M1 Builds
M1 builds are generally optimized builds that also contain code optimized for the MMX instruction set. M1 builds are targeted for the following processors:

• AMD Athlon
• AMD K6-2
• Intel Pentium 2
• Intel Pentium Pro
• Intel Pentium

If you are uncertain what type of processor you have or what instructsion set(s) your processor supports, you can use the following utility to identify your CPU: CPU-Z. Download this utility, unzip it into a temporary folder, and run the .exe file. In the resulting window that pops up, check the output for 'Instructions' to confirm your processors capabilities.

The builds you download from MOOX.WS are not installers. They are self-extracting zip files (compressed with 7z) that will extract to the folder \Firefox or the folder \Thunderbird (unless otherwise specified).

As always, if you download one of these builds, please let me know what you think about its performance, problems, missing features, etc!

Also, if you have custom build requests, please PM me!

Update for All (2004.08.18/19)
Tomorrow is gonna be a big day. I am going to start building at 1:00AM CST on 2004.08.19 and will be building the following regular builds:

- FX BRANCH M1
- FX BRANCH M2
- FX BRANCH M3

- FX TRUNK M1
- FX TRUNK M2
- FX TRUNK M3

- TB BRANCH M1
- TB BRANCH M2
- TB BRANCH M3

- TB TRUNK M1
- TB TRUNK M2
- TB TRUNK M3

There will be the following custom builds:

- FX BRANCH M2 SVG
- FX BRANCH Oxp_GAFT7_arch:SSE
- FX BARNCH O2_GAFT6_arch:SSE

And, I will also attempt the following experimental builds:

- SB BRANCH M1
- SB BRANCH M2
- SB BRANCH M3

Now, you are probably thinking, how in the hell will all that be done? I plan on putting all of the regular FX M builds up before I leave for work in the morning. The TB M builds and FX Custom builds will be done by mid-day and if I can swing home at lunch and upload I will. Otherwise, they will go up after 6:30PM CST when I get home from work. If the SB builds finish, they will go up then as well.

Now, points of interest:
1) These builds have the latest mmoy patches (updated 15 minutes ago) as well as my usual tweaks.
2) Threw in the patch for 241363 as well.
3) The installers are functioning correctly now (i.e. like they used to). Double click on the .exe file you download and use the dialogue box that opens to say where you want to unpack the files.
4) Starting next week, I think I will begin doing FX and TB builds on alternate days due to the decreasing number of code changes (esp in TB) and the time required to do a full suite of builds as outlined above. The new schedule will likely be:

- Monday: Firefoxes
- Tudesday: Thunderbirds
- Wednesday: Firefoxes
- Thursday: Thunderbirds
- Friday: Firefoxes
- Saturday: Custom builds only
- Sunday: Probably nothing.

If there is a significant code change to warrant a build on an off day or if release code is available, I will do additional builds as needed. I will also do custom builds on the days similar builds are being done, i.e. FX custom builds on Mon/Wed/Fri.

5) I have definitely been cutting back on SVG builds because they only seem to be downloaded by a few people. Going forward, if you want an SVG build, please email me and I will do it as a custom build.

Take care and as always, keep me informed of problems, dislikes, and likes!

8:30AM UPDATE FOR ALL
Had some problems with the builds last night. Somwhere in the source pull for TRUNK_M3, either my script or the Moz sever froze and everything stalled. So the only things done this morning are M1 and M2 builds of Firefox TRUNK and BRANCH. Those have been uploaded and are ready for d/l. I have restarted the rest of the build script and post the rest of the builds, outlined above, late this afternoon (after 6:30PM CST). Not sure the delay happend, but I will try and trouble shoot the logs tonight.

8:30PM CST UPDATE for 2004.08.19
Please, next time I propose to do so many builds within a 24 hour period someone SMACK THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME!

O.K., now that I have that off my chest, on with the update. As mentioned earlier today, there were problems with the FX M3 TRUNK build that delayed everything else. Got that squared away before work and left with the build script running again. Well, after a very long day and dangerous drive home, I was greeted by several finished custom builds, a finished FX BRANCH M3 build, 6 incomplete TB builds, and 3 SB builds that simply failed. I have uploaded the FX M3 and custom builds, and am trying to redo the TB and SB builds. If there is anything finished before I go to bed, I will post it.

For tomorrow, I am going to simply do FX builds, unless the TB ones fail tonight. I will plug in the requested patches and also do the other two custom requested builds. Much of tomorrow, which will be spent at home as my car needs repairs after tonight's drive home, will be devoted to making my build script modular so that I can customize it easily and simply select the modules/builds I want to make, rather than having to edit the full script everytime to choose only certain builds.

If you have any custom requests, let me know b/c I should be able to handle some more tonight and tomorrow.

2004.08.20 Update

• Well the SunBrird builds from yesterday never finished. I have a good snapshot of the errors so I will play around this weekend and see if I can get them to go. And thanks for pointing out that SB needs to be built off of TRUNK!
  
• THe Thunderbird builds from yesterday did finish and are posted. There are M1, M2, and M3 TRUNK and BRANCH builds to choose from.
  
• I am testing a few things today and will likley release new BRANCH and TRUNK builds of Firefox M2 and M3 shortly after lunch.

__________________________

Zitat von Panther

Hi moox, welcome to the german Firefox forums,

you're doing a goog job. I'm using your builds often and I think, they are one of the best optimized builds. Go on. :wink:

Thanks for the feedback!

2004.09.28 Update
Ah, nothing like the smell of new builds fresh out of the oven in the morning...:wink:
Seriously, I do have new Firefox builds up for today. There are M1, M2, and M3 versions of the latest BRANCH and TRUNK sources. Additionally, the M3 builds contain mmoy's latest updates to his SSE2 optimizations. When the SSE and MMX patches are updated I will make similar updates to my M2 and M1 build scripts.

I am working on the localized versions and am going to try a BRANCH M2 localized for German as my first one. I hit several snags yesterday and last night, but Ben Smedberg came through and provided me with some help and needed files that should allow me to finish one. If I get it done today I will post for sure.

Zitat von Janerik

Is there a difference in speed between your builts and the one of mnoy ? Or, as i read somewhere, do you integrate all the speed-patches from mnoy in your builds ? Thx for your reply !

My builds have my own patches, plus all of mmoy's optimizations.

Zitat von Janerik

One question, is it possible to integrate these user.js network-speed settings directly into ur build ? Or ae they already integrated

Which user.js settings are you referring to? I have several network-speed settings patched in. Look at the bottom of firefox.js to see what of mine is in there...

2004.10.03 UPDATE
This past week was amazing on many separate fronts. I have no idea where to begin so I will just ramble on from here...

"THANK YOU!"
I want to say "Thank You" to each and every one of you who has posted a kind word in the forums, sent me a donation (even the 2 who just sent $0.50 - because every donations adds up and helps), or sent me an email saying "Thank You." Your words are greatly appreciated and serve as motivation to keep making the best damn builds I can! I have always done some sort of volunteer work in my life (too many different scenarios to discuss) and this is just another form of that for me. It is a challenge to make these builds better (Mozilla does an great job on their own) but there is also a demand for different and better builds. I take great joying in meeting that demand and providing something that helps people around the world.

Next Builds
Right now I am planning on doing a full suite of BRANCH and TRUNK builds for FX and TB on Monday AM. The FX builds will be up by 8:00AM CST and the TB builds will be up after 5:00PM CST when I return from work.

Security Updates
All of my builds since 2004.10.01 have the updated source code for the security fixes.

Slashdotting
Wow! I had feared a link on slashdot for a long, long time and it finally happened on 2004.09.28. I am still feeling the effects of it as the avg amount of data downloaded from the site remains more than double the daily average of 2.78GB. Thank goodness for the awesome dual-Opteron server that moox.ws is hosted on at nineblack.net - it has handled the increase in traffic flawlessly. My only concern now is bandwidth. If the avg hits and downloads stay where they are right now, I will exceed the current bandwidth allotment by the 20th of this month. Guess I better start scrounging some more pennies to cover that expected overage...

It is great to get the /. recognition, but we cannot forget all of the other builders busting their asses - people like mooy, JTw, BangBang23, BlueFrye, daihard, pigfoot, scragz, amano, djeter, matlhDam, and MMx.

Localized Builds
If you have not noticed yet, I am now making localized builds of Firefox. You can find them here:
http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/localizedbuilds.htm

At the moment, the localized builds are based off of the source code for PR1.0 and PR1.0.1 depending on the locality (I have not had a chance to update all of them yet). There has been much demand for daily localized builds, but doing 3 separate M versions for all of the available localizations would require 36hrs of straight building on my Athlon64 - not an option. What I am working on, and have almost finished, is a simple way of updating the daily BRANCH builds with any localization(s) you want. You would simply download an M build, and 2 separate .xpis to be able to do it. The .xpis are not mine, and I will make sure the proper devs get the credit they deserve, so I am simply testing all possible situations/configurations to make sure the method I am proposing works. Next task for the localization effort will come with Thunderbird - can I do the same for TB Pr builds and daily TB builds as well?

General Maintenance & Updates
I have found a way to streamline my build script even further. These changes will make custom builds easier to manage and allow for easier upkeep of the script as it is getting more and more modularized.

I want to redo the main site at moox.ws to include a blog so that I can make my main posts there, rather than having to make duplicate posts at mozillazine and pryan's sites. Any suggestions on a good blog tool? Also, I am thinking about redoing the layout of the site - I have ideas but again, suggestions are welcomed!

2004.10.05 UPDATE
I am building new Firefoxes this morning and they should all be available by 8:00AM CST. I have also updated all of the localized builds to PR 1.0.1 to reflect the security patches.

I know the UserAgent string in builds is still saying 0.10 rather than 0.10.1, but as best i can determine the source it is built from is patched! The patches were checked in on 10.1.04 to both BRANCH and TRUNK. In fact if you download the security xpi and look at what it does, all it really does is change the UA to 0.10.1. Go ahead and install it if you want, but you are patched already.

2004.10.05 *LATE* Update
I will have the usual FX builds for tomorrow. I am going to to try a Japanese localization as mentioned earlier - I fear this will not be as easy as the others. I am also trying Italian (which has failed everytime thus far) and Polish tonight.

Still feeling the effects of a /.ing - my avg bandwidth consumption is still more than double what it was prior to the /.ing. Right now it is hovering at 5.6GB/day!!! The cool thing is that my host is more than willing to give me a custom plan that will not be *that* much more than I am paying right now - an extra $20.00/month or so. For now, it will work, but I am basically hording all of the recent donations in anticipation of a move to a dedicated server...

moox withdrawl?
My last builds for a short while will be on Friday. That afternoon I will be taking the family on vacation through the following Thursday. My apologies in advance for the build interuption, but some things get #1 priority and my family is one of those things, espcially with another baby due in December...

2004.10.08 UPDATE
This has gotta be quick, I am still putting out fires at work before I depart for the beach...
My apologies in advance for not answering the last few days worth of posts - work has been all consuming. I will get to each of you and the emails/pms when I return.

- Fresh FX and TB builds will be up today (several are already up)
- I will have new builds again starting 2004.10.14
- Once back I want to move ahead on the following...

• Full suite of localized Thunderbird builds based upon 0.8 source code
• Overhaul of moox.ws to incorporate a primary blog where all status updates can be posted in a central location. Goal is to make announcements there and have feedback there, rather than clogging the forums at Mozillazine and Pryan.org
• Consider starting a general forum at moox.ws for comments if blog does not work
• Make small scale versions of MOOX builds as installers for those non-techno type who wanna try it

Enjoy the weekend and I will see youa ll soon...

2004.10.11 Update
Well, the weather has changed and we have been having a hell of a good time as of late. My daughter and her cousin are playing quite nicely together (never know with 2yr olds), we have been able to get to the beach yesterday and today, and the fishing has at least been entertaining. Brother-in-law and I snuck back over to the high-rent end of the island and are "borrowing" some bandwidth from the hotel there. Think I might send them a note as we leave letting know they are wide-open, but thanking them for the access while we were in town :wink:

No news on my M builds as I obviously cannot build on the laptop I have with me. I do have my workstation at home ready to go with the build script set to start at 3:00AM CST on Thursday morning. Will upload those as I make my way out to work that day.

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Zitat von tosbsas

Coudl oyu also check the memory use - at least my m1 build is really high up there - nearly triples opera

Ruben

I can look into it, but alot of that coding is higher-level stuff that is controlled by the official FX developers. I might be able to adjust it in my builds, but it would not make it into the official builds unless they approve it. Also, Opera and Firefox are designed around very different code bases and structures, trying to match their performance is not a fair goal (read: apples to oranges).

2004.10.14 Update
I made it home safe from the trip and have just checked to make sure that the builds or tomorrow will run as scheduled. Barring any unforeseen natural disaters, everything should compile as expected and I plan to upload the FX builds for today before I leave for work and the TB builds for today, once I return home in the afternoon. No time to do anything but post this quickie note as I still need to unpack and get ready for tomorrow at work. I will spend some time over the weekend getting caught up and implementing the first series of changes discussed previously.

2004.10.24 Update

Let the Speed Testing begin!!!
Seriously, I have uploaded several test builds and made a page detailing them and the testing methods. You can find all of the info out in this thread:
http://www.moox.ws/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2

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There will be new Firefox and Thunderbird builds for tomorrow - the announcements will be here and over here.

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PLEASE, PAY ATTENTION TO THIS...
Starting tomorrow, 2004.10.25, I will no longer be posting updates pertaining to my builds at mozillazine.org, pryan.org, or firefox-browser.de. I have worn these forums out with some rather long threads and I figure I might as well step up and begin hosting my own forum to discuss my builds and related issues at moox.ws. The direct link is http://moox.ws/forum

Please head over there, register and watch those forums for announcements relating to my builds. I will watch here for the next week or so and remind people posting here to take the conversation over to the MOOX forums, but after that, I will not be here that often (other than lurking).