[gentoo-amd64] Re: firefox e10s tab crashes on accessing the net (not about: however)

[Duncan]

Duncan posted on Sun, 26 Mar 2017 14:53:04 +0000 as excerpted:

> When I enable firefox electrolysis (aka e10s) browser-internal pages
> such as about:config, about:support, and about:addons, load, but nothing
> actually on the web will load -- the progress bar goes all the way
> across and just as the page appears to be parsing, TAB-CRASH, with the
> offer to (try to) reload the page (which fails the same way).
>
> This is regardless of whether I'm running with all extensions (which
> I've spent quite some time on weeding out and replacing the non-e10s-
> compatible ones, they're all reported compatible with multiprocess now)
> enabled, all disabled, in safe mode, even after a fir

Seems the problem /may/ have been due to firefox only officially 
supporting pulseaudio now -- no more alsa support.

I was using the apulse library package to work around that issue so I 
could get audio from the upstream firefox install, without having to 
install pulseaudio, and it seems apulse breaks if e10s (multi-process 
firefox) is enabled, thus breaking firefox.

FWIW, Mozilla upstream is leaving the alsa build-time feature available, 
at least for now, but telling distros mozilla no longer tests alsa or 
cares if it breaks, so it's up to any distros that care to keep working.

We'll see how that goes, but meanwhile, at least for now gentoo's firefox 
ebuild still allows alsa (or jack) instead of pulseaudio, and apparently 
enables alsa by default if USE="-jack -pulseaudio" (IOW, no separate 
USE=alsa flag to set).

And once I worked thru a couple bugs (and the loonnnggg now effectively 
required rust dependency build) and got the firefox ebuild actually 
building again, with alsa, I could enable multi-process/e10s and 
everything still worked.

Testing the mozilla-built package again, e10s was still broken as long as 
apulse was installed -- and worked but of course without sound with apulse 
not installed.  Switching back to the ebuild-built firefox, with alsa not 
pulseaudio support, I had both e10s AND audio. =:^)

So it would seem apulse breaks firefox multi-process/e10s -- but since 
the upstream build only supports pulseaudio now, I have four choices, 
either upstream-build with audio using apulse but no multi-process/e10s, 
upstream-build without audio but with multi-process/e10s, upstream build 
but finally give in and install pulseaudio proper, to get both e10s and 
audio, or do the full gentoo build.

For now I'm back to doing the full gentoo build.  Unfortunately, the 
reason I had quit doing that in the first place is because gentoo often 
takes days, sometimes weeks, to make a current build available after 
upstream has updated.  Which is fine for most things, but when the new 
build fixes many security vulns as it normally does, and that's my 
primary way of interacting with the not entirely trusted web, those extra 
few days after upstream release and vuln publishing before gentoo gets an 
ebuild ready could mean the difference between me getting compromised, 
and not.

So I had decided to go with the upstream build in ordered to actually be 
able to upgrade the day a new firefox version, along with all the vulns 
it fixed, was announced.

Now I don't know /what/ I'll do in that regard, as it appears the mozilla 
folks have put those of us who have chosen not to drink the pulseaudio 
koolaid between a rock and a hard place.

Maybe I'll have to try chromium one of these days...  That seems to be 
where mozilla's headed in any case...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman