Well I must say I had a few bumps here and there but after following the instructions from Mozilla it all ended up well. Following these steps should result in a nice compile of Firefox Minefield.

  1. Run the following command to install any missing packages, all packages are required. (Note that I’ve included some packages that you may already have, therefore this command “should” work on any recent Linux install. This is all one line.)

    2. sudo apt-get install gcc g++ perl make cvs libxt-dev libidl0 libidl-dev libfreetype6 fontconfig

  2. Next, check out a single file using this command. It will be used to run the main checkout/build. (note that this is all one line, thanks to Ian for pointing that out)

    3. cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:/cvsroot co mozilla/client.mk

  3. Change directories to the new checkout.

    4. cd mozilla

  4. Proceed to checkout Firefox with the following command (Note that this will likely take some time)

    5. make -f client.mk checkout MOZ_CO_PROJECT=browser

    To check out different projects from source simply change the MOZ_CO_PROJECT variable to the desired project. They are all listed here.

  5. You will now require one more items to make it all work (at least well). For a start you will need a .mozconfig file (note the dot in front). This file will input command line options for you so you won’t have to. The Mozilla Build Configurator website will automatically generate one for you with any of the options you wish for. I’ve also made a generic file that you can use below. If you’re using the Mozilla directory for your CVS checkout like specified above then create the .mozconfig file there and paste the following:

    6. #
    # See http://www.mozilla.org/build/ for build instructions.
    #
    # Options for client.mk.
    mk_add_options MOZ_CO_PROJECT=browser
    mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/obj-@CONFIG_GUESS@
    # Options for 'configure' (same as command-line options).
    ac_add_options ­­­––enable-application=browser

  6. Now you can finally build it! Change to your mozilla root directory (this how to uses the default: mozilla) and run the following:

    make -f client.mk build

    Note: To time your compile add time to the front like so:

    time make -f client.mk build
  7. You can now run Firefox “Minefileld” edition by going to the obj-something directory. this will change according to what your computer is. So as long as it says obj- in front its the right one. Therefore the path should be something like

    mozilla/obj-i686-pc-linux-gnu/dist/bin
    Afterwards simple run the “firefox” script (not the file) to use ff3!!!

    Note: Please inform me of corrections if needed. Full how-to can be found on Mozilla’s Build Documentation
    website.