Comments on: what does tracemonkey feel like?

By: Paolo

Paolo — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:49:27 +0000

Great! I’m looking forward to getting it into my browser.
Thank you guys!

By: default

default — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:44:07 +0000

Tracemonkey w/ x86_64 is now enabled in Mozilla trunk. I wonder whether we’ll see it in 3.6, would be very cool.

By: WindPower

WindPower — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:08:48 +0000

+1 for Tracemonkey on 64-bit. Pretty please?

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:51:05 +0000

i was searching google wondering why my firefox 3.5 runs at the same speed as 3.0, tried enabling everything-jit in about:config, nightly builds, ubuntu ppa etc, and finally found this post. yeah, it’s 64-bit linux. seems like firefox 3.5 is the only software on my pc which doesn’t support 64-bit cpus, even freaking flash plugin has 64-bit version this days. feels like back at good ol’ 90s.

capcha says “laughs” but it’s actually sad i think.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:14:54 +0000

“In 10.4 only background processes (like server processes, database processes, and so on) could be 64 bit”
More correctly, only command-line processes could be 64-bit in 10.4.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:21:13 +0000

@ Mecki
Your arguments are valid, but what I think David is saying is that they release a 64-bit version of Firefox 3.5 when 64-bit TraceMonkey is ready, NOT when Firefox.next comes out, which is the CURRENT situation right now. The two situations are very different as we have absolutely no idea when Firefox.next comes out, or whether its going to be 3.6 or 4.0.

Also the developer mentality that you’re suggesting is exactly what’s causing 64-bit to remain stagnant and “niche”. It’s a vicious cycle, where developers don’t make 64-bit programs because there’s not enough market penetration of 64-bit OS’es, and then end users who see that there aren’t a lot of 64-bit programs hesitate to install 64-bit OS’es. Its an inherently WRONG mentality. Mozilla should at least step up to plate and provide retroactive 64-bit builds of current Firefox releases to get us out of this cycle.

And you shouldn’t bash on people complaining. Also the fact that you get so annoyed by the amount of complaining just shows that 64-bit isn’t as niche as you make it out to be.

By: foobar

foobar — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:16:10 +0000

I’ve experienced the same “lack of speedup”…
Of course on 64bit Linux.

So here’s another voice for TraceMonkey 64bit

By: Paolo

Paolo — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:24:14 +0000

I just noticed this thread and I realize now why my FF 3.5 doesn’t look any faster than the 3.0 version. Guess what, I’m on Linux 64 bit and I don’t want to install a parallel 32 bit distribution of libraries and plugins. Mozilla has lost some esteem points with me on this issue.

By the way, not to troll around but to get informed, what are the technical hurdles of designing Tracemonkey from the ground up so that it could be compiled both as a 32 bit and a 64 bit application?

By: default

default — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:40:30 +0000

Is the 64-bit support going to be backported into the 3.5.x branch?

By: morgan

morgan — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:18:44 +0000

Hi. Is 64bit tracemonkey likely to be in a point release update or are we going to have to wait till Firefox 4?

I do notice that some pages are slower in the AMD64 version – google mail/slashdot, etc.

Since Linux now has had AMD64 Flash plugin (which works much better than the 32bit version even though it is alpha) and a AMD64 version of Sun java plugin more people I know have installed AMD64 versions of Linux.

Nice work otherwise on Firefox 3.5, Can’t wait to see what future versions bring.

By: Christopher Blizzard

Christopher Blizzard — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:42:44 +0000

64 bit support is coming. We were talking about that at the development meeting a couple of days ago.

By: adriano

adriano — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:06:14 +0000

is there any development news on tracemonkey @64bit?

By: 谋智社区 » Blog Archives » 颠覆网络35天 ─ 亲身“触摸” TraceMonkey

谋智社区 » Blog Archives » 颠覆网络35天 ─ 亲身“触摸” TraceMonkey — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:26:48 +0000

[...] 原文地址：what does tracemonkey feel like? [...]

By: Javascript speeds in Firefox 3.5, Chome 2.0, and Internet Explorer 8 « Reformed Musings

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:14:54 +0000

[...] a great post called what does tracemonkey feel like? by Mozilla’s Director of Evangelism. In his post, he points to an online mini-benchmark with [...]

By: Mecki

Mecki — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:40:22 +0000

@David: Okay. Then all Fx 64 users would come here and complain that they have no Fx 3.5 and we had the same situation like now. Except that they don’t just complain about not having TM, but also complain about not having all the other features (the new CSS stuff, the HTML5 support, the video and audio tags, pretty much everything this whole blog is talking about is not there for them). So I think this decision had caused much more protests and much more upset users than the way it is now. The way it is now, they *do* have all these features, just no TM, but therefor everything else.

By: David

David — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:48:31 +0000

@Mecki: Err, how about wait with releasing 64bit FF3.5 until Tracemonkey is ready for 64 bit? That sounds like a simple solution to me.

By: Mecki

Mecki — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:21:50 +0000

@David: No, you missed my point. I totally understand that there is no TM in 64 Bit Fx. My question was, what should Mozilla have done instead. Not releasing TM at all, because 64 Bit TM is not ready? Not realy 3.5 at all, because 64 Bit TM is not ready? Why can’t you answer that question? You are now the boss of Mozilla. 32 Bit TM is ready, 64 Bit TM is not and the whole world waits urgently for TM and makes fun about Fx’s slow JS engine. So, as Mozilla boss, what had you decided? This is a simple question and not just me, I guess pretty much everyone following this thread is exited to hear your reply.

By: David

David — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:00:18 +0000

@Mecki:
I think you missed the point. The problem was FF3.5 64bit being released without Tracemonkey. If I’m wrong, then by all means, correct me, and everyone else who’s annoyed with 64bit FF not having Tracemonkey. If I’m wrong, then yay, if not, then quit trolling.

As for Konquerer vs Firefox market share, please, by all means show me some stats that support your argument. Going by Net Application’s stats, Konquerer doesn’t even show up. That gives Konquerer a market share of <= 1% on Linux (unless my math sucks, which it very well might). So either there aren’t many KDE users, or most KDE users aren’t using Konquerer. Probably more the latter.

By: Mecki

Mecki — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:08:59 +0000

@Cliff: Firefox is the primary browser of Linux? Says who? I think pretty much every KDE user disagrees, after all KDE comes with an own browser (Konqueror) and its anything but bad (the underlying library is the same as Apple uses for Safari. KHTML is the base of WebKit). And the fact that the 32 Bit Flash plugin seems to be crappy is hardly the fault of Mozilla or Linux; the question is rather why can Adobe write a decent 64 Bit plugin but fails so badly at their 32 Bit version. Further Fx is how old now? About 5 years? So you could happily use this browser for 5 years without Tracemonkey and now, just because you’ll have to wait a couple of extra months to get Tracemonkey for 64 Bit Linux, your whole world breaks apart? You cannot be serious.

I’m a developer myself and as a developer I would always first implement something 32 Bit, then port it to 64 Bit. Never ever the other way round. Not in 20 years. Not unless there will be *only* a 64 Bit version of course. Why? Easy. Porting 32 Bit code to 64 Bit code is extremely less work than porting 64 Bit code to 32 Bit code. That’s very logical. Porting from more limited to less limited is always easy than porting from less limited to more limited.

So what do you people really want? Yes, TraceMonkey for 64 Bit Linux. That was not my question I mean what do you really want of Mozilla in their development. Here are your choices:

1) Mozilla releases TraceMonkey only if they have a 32 Bit and a 64 Bit version of it. -> Result: Either 3.5 had no Tracemonkey enabled by default at all (and it would ship with 3.6 or 4.0 in who knows how many months/years) or the 3.5 release had been delayed another couple of months, leaving Fx for all users with slow JS and maybe causing Fx to dramatically lose customer base, becoming a big loser of the browser war. Is that what you want?

2) Mozilla first makes the 64 Bit version, releases and adds the 32 Bit version later on. IOW more than 90% (maybe more than 95%) will have no TraceMonkey support (most Windows users are still XP and not XP64, Vista is still rather rare where I live and Vista64 is almost exotic; Mac version is only 32 Bit anyway and Linux 32 Bit base still outnumbers 64 Bit base by a lot). -> Result: See above. As most users have slow JS and must wait for TraceMonkey, for all these users it is the same as if TraceMonkey is not part of the release at all. So Mozilla must fear to lose the browser war, lose customer base and could as well have released 3.5 without TM support for anyone. Again, is that what you want?

By releasing TM as soon as possible and thus releasing 3.5 as soon as possible Mozilla made a lot of users happy (all 32 Bit users and that is far more than 50%! Far more…), Mozilla is fighting again in the upper class of the browser war (before the release the world was laughing at Fx’s slow JS support). This is a much better tactic than the two above and that’s why Mozilla made exactly that.

And all you 64 Bit Linux guys have to do is wait a couple of months more to get this feature of the browser you love. If I see how hard you argue against Mozilla here, I honestly think you should chose a different browser, at best one that is 64 Bit only, and be happy for life. As trying to force Mozilla down a road that is absolutely destructive for them and for the Fx market share, just that *you* personally can be happy, is so extremely selfish, that I think the Mozilla community and the Fx user base can lead a prosper life without you.

By: Cliff Wells

Cliff Wells — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:59:26 +0000

The issue here isn’t just about 32-bit Linux vs 64-bit Linux. It’s about a little loyalty for the platform that helped launch Mozilla to where it is today (how many Linux users spent hours convincing their Windows- and OSX-using friends to switch to Firefox?). Firefox is the primary browser on Linux, and the secondary browser on Windows and OSX. There’s a definite feeling that perhaps Linux users’ loyalty is being taken for granted and I venture that this is where some of the complaining is really rooted. It’s not so much about feature X as it is that there is a definite sense (and one that appears to getting some confirmation here) that Linux has been getting much less attention than the commercial platforms from the FF team.

I personally don’t have any issues installing 32-bit software on my 64-bit Linux distro. Unfortunately, if I switched to 32-bit FF, I’d also have to switch back to the crappy 32-bit Flash player and suffer through endless FF crashes. Not a winning choice.

I expect that the loyalty of Firefox’s Linux base will be truly tested when Chrome for Linux is final. I also expect that much of the proselytizing previously done by Linux users on FF’s behalf will shift to Chrome. Therefore I predict that losing Linux users will ultimately mean losing Windows and Mac users as well.

Linux users are nothing if not zealots