Firefox w/ Wine is faster than Native Firefox

[vishzilla]

smartboyathome, did you use the V8 Benchmark Suite?

for me, Firefox 3.0.6 => 81.7, Midori 0.1.2 => 1137

[billgoldberg]

I feel no speed difference between Firefox on Windows and on Ubuntu.

[ithanium]

IME firefox is noticably slower in Ubuntu than Windows.

also noticed this thing

[kevdog]

So does anyone know of any instructions how to compile Firefox from source and configure the cflags and ldflags appropriately? I'd like to try to compile Firefox and run the test between the stock and compiled versions.

[oedipuss]

If PGO makes a noticeable difference, why doesn't ubuntu provide a pgo build?

[Erunno]

Firefox is actually more affected by a badly optimized JavaScript Engine than the other browsers. Since Firefox' interface is defined in XUL, which relies on JavaScript as scripting language, any slowdown in SpiderMonkey/TraceMonkey will also have effects on the speed of the interface itself and not just the scripts on web pages.

[smartboyathome]

smartboyathome, did you use the V8 Benchmark Suite?

for me, Firefox 3.0.6 => 81.7, Midori 0.1.2 => 1137

Yes I did.

If PGO makes a noticeable difference, why doesn't ubuntu provide a pgo build?

PGO requires one to compile it to their specific hardware to get the speed boost, and since Ubuntu provides binary packages, not automatic compiling source ones, it wouldn't give the benefit of the PGO builds.

[crimesaucer]

So does anyone know of any instructions how to compile Firefox from source and configure the cflags and ldflags appropriately? I'd like to try to compile Firefox and run the test between the stock and compiled versions.

I'm not sure of how to do this in Ubuntu. In Arch there is already a nice AUR PKGBUILD script that is super easy to use.


I think you need to install this for ubuntu: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Lin...es#Build_Tools



There is PGO building info for Linux here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Bui...ation#Building


This is the part of the Arch PKGBUILD that uses the "make -f client.mk profiledbuild" command as well as the LDFLAGS:

 export LDFLAGS='-lX11 -lXrender'

  LD_PRELOAD="" /usr/bin/Xvfb -nolisten tcp -extension GLX :99 &
  XPID=$!
  export DISPLAY=:99

  sed -e 's/#CFLAGS#/'"$CFLAGS"'/g' <"$srcdir"/mozconfig >.mozconfig

  LD_PRELOAD="" make -f client.mk profiledbuild MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS="${MAKEFLAGS}" || return 1
  kill $XPID

  make -j1 DESTDIR=${pkgdir} -C ff-opt-obj install || return 1

The part about the C[XX]FLAGS uses the ones that are already set in the Arch /etc/makepkg.conf file.


There is also the mozconfig:

# load defaults from src tarball
. $topsrcdir/browser/config/mozconfig
# add our own options
ac_add_options --enable-application=browser
ac_add_options --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib
ac_add_options --with-system-nspr --with-system-nss--with-system-jpeg --with-system-zlib --with-system-png
ac_add_options --with-pthreads
ac_add_options --enable-optimize="#CFLAGS#"
ac_add_options --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2 --disable-freetype2 --enable-xft --enable-system-cairo
ac_add_options --disable-tests --disable-installer --disable-debug --disable-profilesharing --enable-single-profile
ac_add_options --enable-official-branding
ac_add_options --enable-dbus
ac_add_options --enable-jemalloc
ac_add_options --enable-pango --enable-crypto --enable-svg --enable-canvas 
ac_add_options --disable-xprint
ac_add_options --disable-crashreporter
ac_add_options --enable-xinerama
ac_add_options --enable-safe-browsing --enable-webservices
ac_add_options --enable-strip
#ac_add_options --enable-libxul --with-libxul-sdk=/usr/lib/xulrunner-devel-1.9
mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS=-j8
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/ff-opt-obj
mk_add_options PROFILE_GEN_SCRIPT='$(PYTHON) $(MOZ_OBJDIR)/_profile/pgo/profileserver.py'

This has the part about PGO here:

mk_add_options PROFILE_GEN_SCRIPT='$(PYTHON) $(MOZ_OBJDIR)/_profile/pgo/profileserver.py'

And the part about C[XX]FLAGS here:

ac_add_options --enable-optimize="#CFLAGS#"

And the part about cairo:

ac_add_options --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2 --disable-freetype2 --enable-xft --enable-system-cairo

I'm sure someone can make a script for ubuntu, or you could modify your mozconfig file and use ./configure make with the correct build options or something.



One last thing..... it takes over and hour to build for me.


Also read this digg comment: http://digg.com/linux_unix/Firefox_F...9788#c23309788

[cardinals_fan]

I just ran this against Opera, Firefox, Midori, and cxChromium (Crossover's port of Google Chrome), and Opera scored 127, Firefox 133, Midori 1381(!!!) and cxChromium 1122(!). I dunno what to say about that.

WebKit. You can love it or hate it, but you can't deny it

Anyway, links -g is the fastest browser for me, but I can't test it because it doesn't support javascript.

[MaxIBoy]

Native Linux Firefox (straight from the repos) scores 128 on that benchmark-- Windows Firefox (straight from Mozilla's site) under WINE scores 160.

However, the benchmark only looks at Java performance. Sometime in the future, I'm going to make a greasemonkey script that will browse a bunch of local (on the hard drive) sample webpages (html, xml, flash, php, java, and so on,) in a bunch of different tabs and windows, and measure overall responsiveness.