Closed Bug 26315 Opened 25 years ago Closed 24 years ago

Need runtime requirements in release notes

Categories

(Documentation Graveyard :: Help Viewer, defect, P3)

Product:
Documentation Graveyard
Component:
Help Viewer
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED FIXED

People

(Reporter: akkzilla, Assigned: verah)

References

Details

(Keywords: relnote, Whiteboard: [PDT+] (need documentation entry, no checkins))

Attachments

(1 obsolete file) 

We need to list requirements to run mozilla somewhere obvious in the release
notes (preferably near the very top, since a lot of users won't be able to run
it at all and we shouldn't piss them off by making them waste a long download).

When possible, we should also help them figure out where to get the requirements
if they don't already have them.

So far, the requirements I know about are:

Mac: OS 8.5 or later.  Will not work on earlier releases.

Linux:
- libjpeg (6.0.1?), for which I've found these sources (I don't know how good
these are):
http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/rawhide/1.0/i386/RedHat/RPMS/libjpeg6a-6a-4.i386.html
http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/suse/6.3/i386/suse/gra1/libjpeg-6.0.1-105.i386.html
http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/openlinux/2.3/install-tree/col/install/RPMS/libgr-2.0.13-2.i386.html

- libgtk (1.2 or better?)

- is there a libpng requirement?

It would also be nice to have minimum and/or recommended processor speed, memory
requirements, etc.

I hope someone can fill in the gaps here.
I'll need a source of information about these requirements. Can someone point me 
in the right direction?
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Vera, Simone asked the Mail team about requirements---you might want to check 
with her. They apparently recommended 64MB of RAM, with a 166 mHz processor or 
higher.

Maybe query dp or someone in jevering's organization about this? Or query 
seamonkey leads (or some mozilla list)? The requirements for the commercial 
version will probably be different than for mozilla.
As i said in email, I would ask on the mozilla.build newsgroup
and see what people's experience has been. 64mb and 166mh seems
pretty high. http://www.mozilla.org/community.html
This is going to be a big PITA for mozilla's binaries, since they are built on a 
lot of different kinds of systems. I think the best thing we can do is describe 
what kind of system (the linux distribution, in this case) the binaries were 
built on, and provide a disclaimer that other systems might not provide the 
libraries necessary to run the binary. 

As we get reports of what other systems can run the particular binary, we can 
add it to the list.

Of course, we could just run nm on the unix versions and list those libraries.
It's very easy to do this from a packaged rpm since rpm will tell you all of the
logical packages that you say you need and all of the .so libraries that are
required to get it running.  This includes .so files required by binaries and
.so dependencies that are created by the dozens of .so files in mozilla.
Ignore the libjpeg I gave above; turns out that none of them actually provides
the libjpeg.so.62 that mozilla requires, and I've been unable to find a pointer
to an RPM which actually does provide that (the packages I found through rpmfind
create libjpeg.so.6.0.1 but don't make the links to .62).

It would be great if we could just have an RPM package for linux that contained
the needed libraries.
This is what I have on my system:

[blizzard@idoru blizzard]$ rpm -qif /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62.0.0 
Name        : libjpeg                      Relocations: (not relocateable)
Version     : 6b                                Vendor: Red Hat Software
Release     : 9                             Build Date: Sun 21 Mar 1999 11:02:07
AM EST
Install date: Mon 01 Nov 1999 05:24:54 PM EST      Build Host:
porky.devel.redhat.com
Group       : System Environment/Libraries   Source RPM: libjpeg-6b-9.src.rpm
Size        : 245517                           License: distributable
Packager    : Red Hat Software <http://developer.redhat.com/bugzilla/>
Summary     : A library for manipulating JPEG image format files.
Description :
The libjpeg package contains a library of functions for manipulating
JPEG images, as well as simple client programs for accessing the libjpeg
functions.  Libjpeg client programs include cjpeg, djpeg, jpegtran,
rdjpgcom and wrjpgcom.  Cjpeg compresses an image file into JPEG format.
Djpeg decompresses a JPEG file into a regular image file.  Jpegtran can
perform various useful transformations on JPEG files.  Rdjpgcom displays
any text comments included in a JPEG file.  Wrjpgcom inserts text
comments into a JPEG file.

This looks like it will take some careful thought. I'll draft a requirements and 
*recommendations* addendum to the release notes, and circulate it for review 
before adding it to the M14 release notes. (I'll add it to the M13 release notes 
too, as soon as it's ready.)
Nominating for PDT status. System requirements are an expectation people have of 
beta software documentation (perhaps the only beta expectation). As the first 
comment in this bug notes, we'll piss a lot of people off by not providing the 
info.
Keywords: beta1
Agreed.  We'll generate lots of horrible press and ill will if we encourage
people to waste time downloading something they won't be able to run.
One of the linux requirements is glibc 2.1 or greater.
For redhat, this means you need 6.0 or greater. I'm not
sure if our linux package runs on suse or what version
it needs. Debian has been providing their own milestone
builds since m12 or so. Maybe a link to their mozilla
page would be helpful for people with problems.

http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/web/mozilla.html
Putting on PDT+ radar for beta1.
Whiteboard: [PDT+]
Blocks: 15970
Bug http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27135 indicates that libgtk 
1.2 is required for Unix installations. From that bug: "The installation of the 
binary package of M13 for Solaris 2.6 fails
when it can't locate libgtk-1.2.so.0.  The Installation Instructions
do not mention libgtk-1.2 as a prerequisite.  (This bug probably 
applies to Linux and *BSD releases as well.)" Could direct users to 
http://www.gtk.org/ to obtain the library.
ftp.gtk.org has the source as well as binaries for a handful of platforms
(debian, aix & linux ppc).  Assuming the user wants binaries, their best bet
would be to look in some of the more common binary repositories for their
platform.  Whether or not we want to hunt down these repos and document them is
another story. 
For Solaris, it would be http://www.sunfreeware.com/ .
For BeOS, it'd be http://www.ninemoons.com/GG/ . And so on and so forth.
  
*** Bug 27135 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Summary: Need runtime requirements in release notes → Need runtime requirements in release notes 2/24
I'll also put the requirements in the Read Me (the Read Me button in the build 
only showed up in last week's builds)---will probably appear in 2/22 build.
Summary: Need runtime requirements in release notes 2/24 → Need runtime requirements in release notes
Whiteboard: [PDT+] → [PDT+] 2/24
If bug 19468, "Mozilla won't load on Win95 OSR1 w/o IE 3.0", M14, beta1, PDT-, 
slips from that Milestone 14, there will be a requirement for an MS DLL not 
included in the original Win95. Quoting from 19468:
  > ----- Additional Comments From leger@netscape.com  2000-02-14 17:34 -----
  > Putting on the PDT- radar for beta1.  Won't hold for beta.  We can 
  > release note.
There shouldn't be any problem distributing the correct DLL once it is 
identified, but for now it may make sense to require Win95B (OSR2) or later.

On the Mac, for MacOS prior to MacOS 9, Mozilla needs 80 files open if VM is on, 
out of the 384 possible, so if other apps are using many files, it may fail
to start. See bug 26659, "Mac: Too many files open triggers startup crash",
waiting on bug 27750, "Number of open files used by mozilla approaches OS 
limit", P1, M16, for a partial solution. 

There may be stiffer memory requirments for installing beta1 than running it; 
I'll try to track down the bug I saw a while ago about that.

My mistake, bug 27510, "Too much read from disk on startup", has nothing to
do with Installation, just the performace bog that happens with re-registration
and other repeated activities at each startup.

There are three reports that Mozilla does not work with "Wingate" internet
connection sharing software. See bug 26493, "Install crashes, browser doesn't 
browse web", M14, beta1, PDT- and bug 18304 and bug 22298. Quoting from 26493:
  > ----- Additional Comments From rickg@netscape.com  2000-02-11 16:56 -----
  > Marking PDT- due to marketing factors; we can release note this.

If there is any sort of CD distribution of the beta, then it may not be 
reasonable to assume all users are going to read the release notes. The obvious 
spot to document runtime requirements is in the Read Me, especially now that 
there is a Read Me button in the installer. The Read Me is in the build, so we 
need the info sooner rather than later. It would be unfortunate if we had to 
release note the Read me.   
Oop, now my mistake. I read the daemon message quickly and saw Rick G's comment, 
and I thought that was applied to this bug today. Still planning on placing 
runtime requirements in release notes AND read me.

Thanks to sidr for comments/info.
Please update the status whiteboard with an estimated completion date.
Thanks,
Jim
Whiteboard: [PDT+] 2/24 → [PDT+] 3/10
Poking around with ldd in today's commercial build, I came up with this
list (I tried to edit the mozilla libs out, but may have missed a few):

        /lib/ld-linux.so.2
        /lib/libNoVersion.so.1
        libX11.so.6
        libXext.so.6
        libXpcs.so.1
        libXprt.so.1
        libXptl.so.1
        libc.so.6
        libdl.so.2
        libgdk-1.2.so.0
        libglib-1.2.so.0
        libgmodule-1.2.so.0
        libgtk-1.2.so.0
        libjpeg.so.62
        libm.so.6
        libnsl.so.1
        libplc3.so
        libplc4.so
        libplds3.so
        libplds4.so
        libpng.so.2
        libpthread.so.0
        libresolv.so.2
        libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2
        libutil.so.1
        libz.so.1

The ones which seem to cause a problem on non-redhat linux distributions
are glibc (does libc.so.6 ensure that we'll only get glibc 2.0?),
libjpeg.so.62 (I have not been able to find an RPM package which
actually creates a file by this name, but if you make a symlink from
another version of libjpeg, mozilla will usually work), libpng.so.2,
and, perhaps, libgdk-1.2.so.0 and libglib-1.2.so.0 (though I think most
modern linux distributions will have those).
So, for linux (using a binary built on a RH6.0 system), your requirements are:

glibc   - 2.1.x
libjpeg - 6b	
libpng  - 1.0.x
libz    - 1.1.x
libgtk  - 1.2.x
libglib - 1.2.x
XFree86 - 3.3.x ? (Not sure if this one even matters)
libstdc++ 2.9.0

Where x is the latest bugfixed version of each package, of course.


Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple -- not all RPMs by those names install
the needed libraries by the names mozilla needs.  At least, I have not been able
to find a libjpeg-6b RPM (there are lots of different versions listed on
rpmfind.net, I've only tried about 3 of them) which creates the needed link to
libjpeg.so.62.
Actually, it is that simple.  libjpeg-6b comes with Redhat 6.x distributions.
rpmfind won't let me download what it finds as the latest rpm because it claims
I already have it (I'm running RedHat 6.2).  Going to http://rpmfind.net/ shows
that several rpm based distributions contain this library.

You probably won't find any rpm that explicitly contains /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62
as that is just a symlink that is created by ldconfig.  libjpeg.so.62.0.0 is the
name of the real library.  libjpeg.so.62 is just the major version number that
everyone links against so that they don't have to recompile all of their apps
for each minor version change.



There's an additional one for Solaris that's documented in bug #10498.  You need
to update the number of shared memory segments available on Solaris machines for
GTK.
Just a note: In my C++ experience on Linux, libstdc++ is always the biggest
hurdle. My main system is a Mandrake 7.0 system, but I also have a RedHat 6.1
system. I have to play "libstdc++ symlink hell" to get binaries compiled on one
to run one the other. Also, since (almost) each version of egcs/gcc has a
different format for the C++ symbols, it's an added complexity.

The C++ vtable formats and library versions won't change in a Red Hat 6.x
release.  I don't know about Mandrake, though.
Cls found a url for a package that does indeed install libjpeg.so.62.  Here are
the instructions for anyone who can't run mozilla because they lack that library:

> rpm --force -i
>
ftp://ftp.freesoftware.com/pub/linux/redhat/old-releases/redhat-6.0/i386/RedHat/RPMS/libjpeg-6b-9.i386.rpm>
> (or, for older versions of rpm, download that url and install it with
> rpm -i.)

The --force is because libjpeg-6b has some files (executables, not libraries)
which conflict with files from libjpeg-6a (which is what SuSE 6.3 installs).  I
don't expect that replacing these files with the newer ones should cause any
problems for anyone.

Jan, I'm re-assigning this to you, based on advice from  jar ... can you add the 
minimal system requirements for all three platforms, based on the testing? Then 
we can close this out.
Assignee: verah → leger
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
Whiteboard: [PDT+] 3/10 → [PDT+] (need documentation entry, no checkins)
These will be the requirements for beta1:
Win32 - Win NT 4.0/95/98/2000, Pentium 133/32MB RAM
Mac - Mac OS 8.5 or above, 200 MHz PowerPC 604 or a G3, 32MB RAM with VM on 
                              (or 48MB of dynamic RAM)
Linux - Redhat 6.1, Pentium 133/32MB RAM
Assignee: leger → verah
Keywords: relnote
Marking FIXED -- the beta 1 release notes and the M15 release notes now contain 
the minimum requirements. Waiting for verification when the release notes are 
posted for review. Thanks for all the information!
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 24 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Release notes were posted.

Marking verified.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Bug 1227781 - Fix crash with bogus STUN parameters. r=bwc
Attachment #8693688 - Flags: review?(docfaraday)
Attachment #8693688 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #8693688 - Flags: review?(docfaraday)
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.

Attachment

General

Creator:
Created:
Updated:
Size: