LibreWolf

Content

• Infra
  • Overview
  • Packages
  • Forks
• Build
  • Build: Tarball
  • Build: Repository
  • Translations
• Development
  • Development: Creating a patch
  • Development: Existing patches
  • Development: Creating a patch for problems in Mozilla's Bugzilla
    • Development: Contributing
• MacOS and Windows

Infra

Overview

graph LR
 FFSRC(Firefox Source)
 FFSRC--Tarball--->Source
 subgraph LibreWolf/
 Settings(Settings)--"librewolf.cfg<br>policies.json"-->Source
 Website(Website<br><br>- Documentation<br>- FAQ)
 subgraph Browser/
 Source(Source<br><br>- Patches<br>- Theming<br>- Weblate<br>- Build scripts)
 bsys6(bsys6<br><br>New Docker building<br>repository)
 AppImage
 ArchGentoo["Arch / Gentoo"]
 end
 end
 Website-->librewolf.net
 Source--"Source tarball"-->bsys6
 AppImage--".appimage"-->librewolf.net
 bsys6--"Windows setup.exe"--->librewolf.net
 bsys6--"Windows portable.zip"--->librewolf.net
 bsys6--"Windows .msix"--->MS("Microsoft Store")
 bsys6--"Windows .nupkg"--->Chocolatey
 bsys6--"Linux binary tarball"--->Flathub
 bsys6--"Linux binary tarball"--> AppImage
 bsys6--"Linux .deb"--->repo.librewolf.net
 bsys6--"Linux .rpm"--->repo.librewolf.net
 bsys6--"Linux binary tarball<br>for 'librewolf-bin'"--> ArchGentoo
 Source--"Source tarball<br>for 'librewolf'"-->ArchGentoo
 ArchGentoo-->AUR_Overlay["AUR / Overlay"]

Packages

These are the locations where people have their repositories and build artifacts.

Active:

• Arch - Arch Linux package
• BSYS6 - Linux Mint, Fedora, Ubuntu, MacOS, portable and setup for Windows
• Gentoo - Gentoo GNU/Linux package

Downstream:

• Alpine Linux

Forks

Previous:

• CachyOS Browser
• FireDragon Browser

Build

There are two ways to build LibreWolf. You can either use the source tarball or compile directly with this repository.

Build: Tarball

1. Let's download the latest tarball . This tarball is the latest produced by the CI. You can also check the sha256sum of the tarball there:

   tar xf <tarball>
   cd <folder>
   

2. Then, you have to bootstrap your system to be able to build LibreWolf. You only have to do this one time. It is done by running the following command:

   ./mach --no-interactive bootstrap --application-choice=browser
   

3. Build LibreWolf and then package or run it with the following commands:

   ./mach build && ./mach package
   # or
   ./mach build && ./mach run
   

   Note

   To get all parameters of ./mach, use:

   ./mach configure -- --help | less
   

Build: Repository

1. Clone this repository with Git:

   git clone --recursive git@codeberg.org:librewolf/source.git librewolf-source --depth=1
   cd librewolf-source
   

2. Build LibreWolf source code, also you have to bootstrap your system to be able to build LibreWolf. You only have to do this one time.

   make dir && make bootstrap
   

3. Package LibreWolf or run it with the following commands:

   make build && make package
   # or
   make build && make run
   

Translations

We use Weblate to localize all LibreWolf-specific strings. You can help us by translating LibreWolf into your language at https://translate.codeberg.org/engage/librewolf. Here is the current translation status:

Development

Development: Creating a patch

The easiest way to make patches is to go to the LibreWolf source folder:

cd librewolf-$(cat version)
git init
git add <path_to_file_you_changed>
git commit -am initial-commit
git diff > ../mypatch.patch

We have Gitter / Matrix rooms, and on the website we have links to the various issue trackers.

Development: Existing patches

The easiest way to make patches is to go to the LibreWolf source folder:

make fetch
./scripts/git-patchtree.sh patches/sed-patches/disable-pocket.patch

Now change the source tree the way you want, keeping in mind to git add new files. When done, you can create the new patch with:

cd firefox-<version>
git diff 4b825dc642cb6eb9a060e54bf8d69288fbee4904 HEAD > ../my-patch-name.patch

This ID is the hash value of the first commit, which is called initial. Don't forget to commit changes before doing this diff, or the patch will be incomplete.

Development: Creating a patch for problems in Mozilla's Bugzilla

Well, first of all:

• Create an account.
• Handy link: Bugs Filed Today.
• The essential: Firefox Source Tree Documentation.

Now that you have a patch in LibreWolf, that's not enough to upload to Mozilla. See, Mozilla only accepts patches against Nightly. So here is how to do that:

1. If you have not done so already, create the mozilla-unified folder and build Firefox with it:

   hg clone https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-unified
   cd mozilla-unified
   hg update
   MOZBUILD_STATE_PATH=$HOME/.mozbuild ./mach --no-interactive bootstrap --application-choice=browser
   ./mach build
   ./mach run
   

2. If you skipped the previous step, you could ensure that you're up to date with:

   cd mozilla-unified
   hg pull
   hg update
   

3. Now you can apply your patch to Nightly:

   patch -p1 -i ../mypatch.patch
   

4. Now, let Mercurial create the patch:

   hg diff > ../my-nightly-patch.patch
   

5. After this, it can be uploaded to Bugzilla.

Development: Contributing

Time to start hacking! You should join us on Matrix, say hello in the Introduction channel, and find a bug to start working on. See the Firefox Contributors' Quick Reference to learn how to test your changes, send patches to Mozilla, update your source code locally, and more.

MacOS and Windows

We understand, life isn't always fair 😺. The same steps as above apply you will just have to walk through the beginning part of the guides for:

• MacOS: The cross-compiled Mac .dmg files are somewhat new. They should work, perhaps with the exception of the make setup-wasi step.
• Windows: Building on Windows is not very well tested.

Help with testing these targets is always welcome.