[opensuse-factory-mozilla] Planning for Firefox on openSUSE
Hi, not sure how many people still are on that list but before I post more on opensuse-factory@ I'd like to share my thoughts here. As you probably are aware there are major changes planned for Firefox since quite some time which are now executed upstream as Firefox 52(esr) was published. e.g. - removal of the NPAPI interface (plugins) - requirement of Rust to compile FF components - switch from Gtk2 to Gtk3 (which already was done a few releases ago upstream) - usage of Rust will be mandatory starting with Firefox 54 (still optional for FF 53) - Gtk2 is dropped completely for FF53 - Gtk3 builds has at least some user impact on systems with strange dpi apparently http://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1022830 Currently not sure if there is more relevant impact though. Now this has some impact on how to maintain and update Firefox on the different openSUSE flavours which are still active: Leap 42.1 Leap 42.2 Leap 42.3 (to come) Tumbleweed So let me dive into the different versions and elaborate my current plans which are still open for discussion: Leap 42.1 - only maintained until May - has no rust components at all - Gtk3 is slightly older - got Firefox 52.0.1 at the moment -> we could update to 53 max but would need to introduce Gtk3 -> I'm planning to provide 52ESR starting with next cycle for 42.1 until it is out of maintenance Leap 42.2 - has rust but too old - Gtk3 should be fine - got Firefox 52.0.1 at the moment -> we could update with some headaches by bringing newer rust to 42.2 in worst case with every new Firefox cycle; we would need to introduce Gtk3 version though within the 42.2 cycle -> I tend to switch to 52ESR for 42.2 instead of adding the rust burden now for 42.2 Leap 42.3 - has rust - Gtk3 should be fine - got Firefox 52.0.1 at the moment -> the rust maintenance and update cycles are probably a pain; we could switch to Gtk3 and use a minor release as "excuse" -> I think we need to go for the non-ESR version as we cannot circumvent it during the lifetime of 42.3 in any case since ESR releases usually have a lifetime of a year and 42.3 will exceed this; going ESR could still be an option to ease the rust update pain and especially with the funeral of NPAPI plugins it could be wise to keep 52ESR longer on Leap 42 until as long as possible (until 52ESR is unmaintained upstream) For this I really like to seek feedback since I'm undecided here. The rust burden is someone else's work as well and it would need to be agreed upon Tumbleweed - is new on any component anyway -> plan to follow normal upstream releases as close as possible when done so I expect some delay until new releases (including security fixes) will hit Tumbleweed as it is usually harder to integrate with a moving target for the Firefox package (recently learned with 52 on TW) and ESR will be a second Firefox package to be updated at the same time for Leap releases. It will also most of the time require an up to date rust package set and in case this is behind for some reason it might delay Firefox Please send your feedback. I will wait for any input before I plan to announce this on opensuse-factory@ or other channels for broader audience. Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory-mozilla+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory-mozilla+owner@opensuse.org
Hello, On 03/22/2017 05:29 PM, Wolfgang Rosenauer wrote:
Leap 42.1 [...] -> I'm planning to provide 52ESR starting with next cycle for 42.1 until it is out of maintenance
That is very reasonable.
Leap 42.2 [...] -> I tend to switch to 52ESR for 42.2 instead of adding the rust burden now for 42.2
That would also be good for maintenance.
Question, how to give a good user experience for people who may want to
switch between MozillaFirefox and firefox-esr? The way I understand it
these are different package names in the mozilla repos?
Andreas
--
Andreas Stieger
Hi, Am 22.03.2017 um 23:28 schrieb Andreas Stieger:
On 03/22/2017 05:29 PM, Wolfgang Rosenauer wrote:
Question, how to give a good user experience for people who may want to switch between MozillaFirefox and firefox-esr? The way I understand it these are different package names in the mozilla repos?
From looking at this it still seems feasible having it this way but on
how I have been doing it always in the mozilla repo is that I always had two packages with the same ESR version. One was just the regular MozillaFirefox name but with ESR. This one does not exist just yet in the mozilla repo as long as the regular Firefox hasn't moved on. Afterwards "firefox52" will stay in the repo providing ESR with the name MozillaFirefox. The other one already exists in "firefox52esr" which has the package name firefox-esr. The problem is that MozillaFirefox and firefox-esr are conflicting because they overlap in the file list quite heavily and also in the profile used by default. So at this moment one can only use firefox-esr or MozillaFirefox but not install them in parallel. In addition to that downgrades from later Firefox versions to earlier ones (no matter if ESR or not) are not really supported upstream. They do not handle profile downgrades specifically. So if something in the profile changes in an incompatible way there is risk of breakage. So you are exactly asking the right question because up to now I thought that we will just ship ESR within a package called MozillaFirefox. This still should be possible technically but is not very obvious. Because the way how to switch between regular and ESR will be just based on the version number (and vendor change). So as it is designed at this moment it would look like this after next update round: installed: MozillaFirefox-52.1.0 (ESR) switch to regular: (mozilla/vendor change) MozillaFirefox-53.0 switch back (cautious since not really supported; see above): either - switch to firefox-esr from mozilla repo - switch back to MozillaFirefox-52.1.0 from official or mozilla repo (by downgrade) the other hand I'm listening to feedback. Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory-mozilla+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory-mozilla+owner@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On Wed, 2017-03-22 at 17:29 +0100, Wolfgang Rosenauer wrote:
Please send your feedback. I will wait for any input before I plan to announce this on opensuse-factory@ or other channels for broader audience.
Thanks for the effort here. Just to go a little bigger picture on your otherwise solid, and detailed, plan, I'd say: In general, Leap should have the current Firefox ESR release by default, with the stable release as an alternative, to the extent it is manageable. Tumbleweed should have the current Firefox (stable) release by default. ESR as an alternative (should always be available), as well as best effort to build beta and nightly. Failures in the substandard channels will give us a pretty good heads-up on upcoming maintenance nightmares ;-) - -- James Mason Technical Architect, Public Cloud openSUSE Member SUSE jmason@suse.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQEzBAEBCAAdFiEEg/RjZ+RraZBnLRN4GzlRiGxEkCMFAljbBB4ACgkQGzlRiGxE kCMgQAgAmQ+v6ooFpc/AHcKjUhSaordmi8OKmNhn4tPtgWdIkna/KqtRD4iTlW3l T5A60bpQkiB7fgJnzYn3Ei1uIB8L0VihN3wX1GFQmEjColIJw/xcO3gkmRwch7HE /G7B+bB0ih4F1V7m53GRjPghgBdwNv4EuDOq8hxyMpcrAABLDLzZSiYxpcaV46Bl RKGPXakUTS3ziawKQ0DRqTi3bSfIlP6kRlKJExnvo7pg/7kq0GsWO2hhZPBcc00l GKuGaw0v6cv6UFA5ORWWnSbPpCTpqCSU4SDhIcFK4qEU6/SAlU1PwhDIxgAfi/Gh SEtznqxXH4SXRPMn9viHLKKYM4q/Fw== =11j/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- N�����r��y隊Z)z{.���r�+�j3�YZ��칻 �&ޢ���� ����'��-���w�zf���^�ˬy������V�� ޮ�^�ˬz��
Am 29.03.2017 um 02:47 schrieb James Mason:
Just to go a little bigger picture on your otherwise solid, and detailed, plan, I'd say:
In general, Leap should have the current Firefox ESR release by default, with the stable release as an alternative, to the extent it is manageable.
in https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory-mozilla/2017-03/msg00002.html I'm explaining what I already do with regards to packaging both variants with explanation about package names. I haven't thought about the implications caused by shipping both variants in one distribution and how to handle upgrades and going from A to B and back. But I explained that switching back and forth is probably a bad idea and I'm not sure how to make it save enough.
Tumbleweed should have the current Firefox (stable) release by default. ESR as an alternative (should always be available), as well as best effort to build beta and nightly. Failures in the substandard channels will give us a pretty good heads-up on upcoming maintenance nightmares ;-)
I'm mainly lagging behind nowadays but there are mozilla:beta and mozilla:alpha repositories which were used to provide betas and dev editions but not nightlies. I once wanted to build nightlies but OBS does not support what is required to do it server based and some things are breaking unnoticed as the patches are currently set up. So nightly is currently out of scope and I barely can provide betas but in this cycle I have them. So is there any feedback how transition from the current shipping model to the proposed one should look like assuming we want to implement it starting with 42.3? Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory-mozilla+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory-mozilla+owner@opensuse.org
participants (3)
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Andreas Stieger -
James Mason -
Wolfgang Rosenauer