[tor-dev] tor-browser-build : any way to get it to use system packages for building?

[Richard Pospesel]

So the purpose of tor-browser-build is to two-fold:

1. Providing a system which can reproducibly build tor-browser for all of our platforms, this 
necessitates ensuring every builder is building using the same toolchain, libs, dependencies, etc 
(which does necessitate downloading and validating lot of git repos/source archives/etc).
2. easy cross-platform builds (otherwise devs would need to figure out how to get together all of 
the relevant per-platform toolchains).

You *can* do local Linux dev builds, see this guide:

- https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/wikis/Hacking

That said, tor-browser-build can definitely be more performant (in terms of both space and time) and 
patches are definitely welcome. For a space and time win see this recent issue:

- https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/issues/40186

A good intro document for working on tor-browser-build can be found here:

  - 
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/team/-/wikis/Development-Information/Tor-Browser/Building

We're also happy to help out on IRC, come find us in #tor-browser-dev on OFTC.

best,
-Richard

On 6/14/22 00:47, Jason Vas Dias wrote:
> Good day -
> 
>    I recently attempted to check-out and build tor-browser-build -
>    MUST it download ALL the gits, if system packages
>    are found to satisfy version dependencies ?
> 
>    I just don't have enough storage / network bandwidth .
>    Why am I downloading the llvm source when I already
>    have llvm and clang 13 (-devel packages also) on my
>    Fedora 36 system ?
> 
>    Is there any interest in producing a version of tor-browser-build
>    to use installed system packages if they meet version requirements
>    instead of checking out GITs & building for ALL dependencies ?
>    It could be enabled with a USE_SYSTEM_PKGS=1 make
>    option or something.
> 
>    I'm going to have to develop this if I want to work on tor-browser,
>    which I do want to do.
> 
> Best Regards,
> Jason
> _______________________________________________
> tor-dev mailing list
> tor-dev at lists.torproject.org
> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-dev
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