Bug#886264: firefox-esr: FTBFS on ppc64el

[Mike Hommey]

On Wed, Jan 03, 2018 at 03:45:45PM +0000, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> Package: firefox-esr
> Version: 52.5.3esr-1
> 
> This is the second version of firefox-esr in a row which has a
> build-failure on ppc64el, meaning that this package cannot migrate to
> testing.  There was a security fix in 52.5.2esr-1, so it would be very
> good to attempt to address this.
> 
> Sadly, I don't have any idea how the firefox build works or what might
> be causing the problem, so I don't know how to help fix this one.

The part of the build that's broken is running parts of Firefox. That
suggests firefox would not work even if the build succeeded (like, if we
skipped that part).

Now, there hasn't been code changes in Firefox since the last time it
built successfully that could explain this. However, the two failures
are with a newer version of GCC, which apparently touched PPC codegen.

IOW, this could be a legitimate GCC bug. Or this could be a legitimate
GCC bug fix that breaks Firefox somehow. I'm trying to reproduce on a
porterbox to try and see which it might be (sadly can't install older
versions of GCC, though).

Mike