We need help getting Mozilla up and running on Irix!
There are two initial goals for getting Irix up to the level of Linux: getting the autoconf build working, and getting the window to display on an SGI visual.

I have created a mailing list, mozilla-irix@netscape.com, for discussing Irix issues . Note that this is not an official Mozilla.org list at this point. To subscribe, send mail to mozilla-irix-request@netscape.com with "subscribe" in the body of the message. If that doesn't work, mail akkana@netscape.com and I'll add you manually.

The Autoconf Build

Update: we're almost there getting the autoconf build to work! I just checked in some changes which make the build work, if you change one thing: edit mozilla/configure.in and insert a "dns " in front of the AC_C_INLINE line (i.e. comment it out). The inline problem is that CC on Irix supports inline, but cc doesn't; the autoconf system can only check one compiler, and for some reason it checks the C rather than C++ compiler. I think this is wrong (it should use the C++ compiler, since that's where inline is used!) so maybe there's a straightforward way to fix it.

Autoconf/Gtk build requirements

1. autoconf
You will need autoconf, GNU m4, and texinfo (these links courtesy of Victor Riley of SGI):

ftp://ftp.uu.net/archive/systems/gnu/texinfo-3.9.tar.gz

ftp://ftp.uu.net/archive/systems/gnu/m4-1.4.tar.gz

ftp://ftp.uu.net/archive/systems/gnu/autoconf-2.12.tar.gz

just unpack them run ./configure; make; make install to build and install them. I built them in /MozROOT so that I could package that into a tar file and give to others trying to build this without requiring them to do this all over again.

Automake, ftp://ftp.uu.net/archive/systems/gnu/automake-1.3.tar.gz, was another package that was up there that might help.

Also the documentation on autoconfig will be useful - http://www.lns.cornell.edu/public/COMP/info/autoconf/autoconf_toc.html.

2. gtk
The autoconf build uses gtk by default. It is recommended that you use gtk instead of Motif; the Motif viewer will build, but is no longer being maintained and is far less functional than the gtk viewer. However, if you really want to use Motif: setenv MOZ_TOOLKIT motif

To use gtk, you will need to download and build version 1.1.5 of the gtk and glib packages from gtk.org.

3. Compiler
Gcc doesn't work to build nglayout on Irix, because nglayout uses static constructors. G++'s "collect2" program doesn't gather the appropriate symbols to send to the native loader, and GNU ld apparently hasn't been ported to Irix. This may eventually turn out to be a big problem, since gcc is the only compiler actually supported by Mozilla, and all the other Unix platforms are using it. If you find a solution and get gcc working, please contact us! Post to netscape.public.mozilla.unix, or mail akkana.

So you have to tell configure to use the native compilers:

setenv CC cc
setenv CXX /usr/bin/CC

but client.mk overrides that for nspr for some silly reason, so if you're using client.mk you have to over-override that:

setenv NSPR_OPTIONS NS_USE_NATIVE=1

With these, you should be able to build.

Getting the Window to Display on an SGI Visual

Once we get these build problems ironed out, the work isn't over; neither the viewer nor the xpviewer display on Irix, apparently because they can't handle the unusual SGI visual. Help is needed to track down the rendering problems and get the nglayout engine rendering properly on Irix!

Tue Nov 24 13:44:24 PST 1998

akkana@netscape.com