Re: Firefox 133 test package for ppc64

> On May 13, 2025, at 11:25 PM, Damien Stewart <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> On 13/5/25 6:08 am, Ken Cunningham wrote:
>> It's challenging to debug firefox.
>> 
>> I have 3.5G of RAM, and I added an 8G swapfile, and with that firefox will run under gdb but it takes 15-18 minutes for firefox to start. It uses a lot of swapfile.
> 
> That's a long time. When I first tested it under gdb I found my HDD thrashing because I had left an old swap partition active. Or actually the installer would have picked it up. I setup an SSD that I've dedicated to Linux installs but didn't add a swap partition too. Do you run it from SSD?


At present, not from an SSD. It has been working OK until these challenges.

I guess it's about time to repurpose one of my other SSDs to this system. I'll find one of the older, slower ones from the junk box that I took out of another system during an upgrade, and hopefully it will be compatible.

Otherwise this is not going to be pleasant.


> 
> I did add swap to my SSD but managed to install 8GB to my machine so I could load it into pure memory. That reduces it to around 2 minutes load time. Should time it.
> 
>> Then when you start interacting with is (eg ask it to open a website) it does a hard crash and locks up the system, with no opportunity to backtrace.
>> 
>> Turns out gdb logging is off by default -- I'll turn that on and see if I can capture anything before it downs the system.
> 
> Do you have any way of attaching a terminal? My system has a serial port so it's easy enough for me to do it the "old fashioned" way over serial cable with a "console=ttyS0" added to my kernel command line.  Don't know if a G5 Mac USB supports but I found USB2/3 has a debug feature that's pretty much a modern drop in replacement for a serial port link. Just needs activating in kernel and the right USB cable. So kinda like the old way as you need a modern USB null modem cable now. :-)
> 
> 


So far I have not got into debugging remotely from another system like that. I'm not sure what method would work best for my Apple Dual G5 PowerMac 7,1 (I recall it's a 7,1 -- hopefully that is right). I know these systems can do that, I read about kernel debugging in MacOS using two machines. I think those instructions were with an ethernet cable, but that is MacOS there.



> -- 
> My regards,
> 
> Damien Stewart.
>