Build Documentation

Build prerequisites

Before you try to build, make sure you have the correct tools, and have configured these tools correctly.

• Unix/Linux
• Windows
• Mac OS X
• Solaris
• OS/2 and eComStation
• BeOS

• JavaXPCOM Build Requirements

Some More Prerequisite Info about autoconf

From a newsgroup post by BDS:
we introduced the requirement that everyone have autoconf-2.13 when we
switched to Mercurial

Mozilla 2 sources do not come with a generated configure script. You will need to have autoconf version 2.13 installed.

On Mac:

sudo port install autoconf213

  

On Fedora/RedHat Linux:

sudo yum install autoconf213


On Ubuntu Linux:

sudo apt-get install autoconf2.13


On other Linux distributions (like e.g. openSUSE):

either see if a package for this is provided or install it manually with the following commands (the last one might need root privileges):

wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.13.tar.gz
tar -xvzf autoconf-2.13.tar.gz
cd autoconf-2.13/
./configure --program-suffix=-2.13
make
make install

On Windows:

autoconf 2.13 comes with MozillaBuild

Note: You may also need to set the "AUTOCONF" variable in your .mozconfig file, as demonstrated in the "Building" section below.

Get the source

Download Mozilla Source Code

Source code for releases is available for download via FTP/HTTP.

  

Mozilla Source Code via CVS

Those doing active development on Firefox 3/Mozilla 1.9 (and earlier) can check out the latest source using CVS. This is the preferred method if you plan to provide patches and fix bugs, as it lets you get up-to-the-minute changes and merge them with your own.

  

Mozilla Source Code via Mercurial

Those doing active development on Firefox 3.1/Mozilla 1.9.1 can check out the latest source using Mercurial. This is the preferred method if you plan to provide patches and fix bugs, as it lets you get up-to-the-minute changes and merge them with your own.

  

Comm-central Source Code via Mercurial

Those doing active development on Thunderbird 3.0/SeaMonkey 2.0/Firefox 3.1/Mozilla 1.9.1 can check out the latest source using Mercurial. This method includes all the code for the applications mentioned, so you can work on Firefox 3.1 development, and still build Thunderbird or SeaMonkey as well.

  

Browse Sources on the Web

Mozilla sources are available for online browsing at the Mozilla Cross-Reference (MXR).

Configuring build options

Running configure and make with the default options will not give you a good working build. You should use a .mozconfig file to obtain a reasonable release build. Please read Configuring Build Options carefully before building.

Build and install

The Mozilla build system uses GNU make and configure scripts to drive the build. Please follow the build and installation instructions carefully.