[SOLVED] Thunderbird 8.0-r1 fails to link on 32 bit system

[ese002]

Is it no longer possible to build Thunderbird on a 32-bit system?

Merge is failing at the link step LD reports "failed to set dynamic section sizes: Memory exhausted". This is on a system with 1GB ram, 12GB of swap, and less than 100MB in use by other agents. I'm not sure what value swap beyond the reach of 32-bit addressing is but at least I'm sure the issue is not that I haven't allocated enough swap!

Top shows that ld reaches just under 1GB when it dies. That's odd to me because there is still plenty of swap remaining at that point and at least another GB of address space *UNLESS* ld wants to allocate a huge chunk all at once.

All my tools are up to the moment.
* sys-devel/gcc Latest version installed: 4.5.3-r1
* sys-devel/binutils Latest version installed: 2.21.1-r1


/usr/bin/python2.7 ../../config/pythonpath.py -I../../config ../../config/expandlibs_exec.py --uselist -- i686-pc-linux-gnu-g++ -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wcast-align -Wno-invalid-offsetof -Wno-variadic-macros -Werror=return-type -march=athlon-xp -Wno-return-type -w -mno-avx -fno-strict-aliasing -fshort-wchar -pthread -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -pipe -DNDEBUG -DTRIMMED -g -O2 -fPIC -shared -Wl,-z,defs -Wl,--gc-sections -Wl,-h,libxul.so -o libxul.so nsStaticXULComponents.o nsUnicharUtils.o nsBidiUtils.o nsRDFResource.o -lpthread -Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed -Wl,-rpath-link,/var/tmp/portage/mail-client/thunderbird-8.0-r1/work/comm-release/mozilla/dist/bin -Wl,-rpath-link,/usr/lib ../../toolkit/xre/libxulapp_s.a ../../staticlib/components/libnecko.a ../../staticlib/components/libuconv.a ../../staticlib/components/libi18n.a ../../staticlib/components/libchardet.a ../../staticlib/components/libjar50.a ../../staticlib/components/libstartupcache.a ../../staticlib/components/libpref.a ../../staticlib/components/libhtmlpars.a ../../staticlib/components/libimglib2.a ../../staticlib/components/libgkgfx.a ../../staticlib/components/libgklayout.a ../../staticlib/components/libdocshell.a ../../staticlib/components/libembedcomponents.a ../../staticlib/components/libwebbrwsr.a ../../staticlib/components/libnsappshell.a ../../staticlib/components/libtxmgr.a ../../staticlib/components/libcommandlines.a ../../staticlib/components/libtoolkitcomps.a ../../staticlib/components/libpipboot.a ../../staticlib/components/libpipnss.a ../../staticlib/components/libappcomps.a ../../staticlib/components/libjsreflect.a ../../staticlib/components/libcomposer.a ../../staticlib/components/libjetpack_s.a ../../staticlib/components/libtelemetry.a ../../staticlib/components/libstoragecomps.a ../../staticlib/components/libjsctypes.a ../../staticlib/components/libjsperf.a ../../staticlib/components/libgkplugin.a ../../staticlib/components/libunixproxy.a ../../staticlib/components/libjsd.a ../../staticlib/components/libautoconfig.a ../../staticlib/components/libauth.a ../../staticlib/components/libcookie.a ../../staticlib/components/libpermissions.a ../../staticlib/components/libuniversalchardet.a ../../staticlib/components/librdf.a ../../staticlib/components/libwindowds.a ../../staticlib/components/libfileview.a ../../staticlib/components/libplaces.a ../../staticlib/components/libtkautocomplete.a ../../staticlib/components/libsatchel.a ../../staticlib/components/libpippki.a ../../staticlib/components/libwidget_gtk2.a ../../staticlib/components/libsystem-pref.a ../../staticlib/components/libimgicon.a ../../staticlib/components/libaccessibility.a ../../staticlib/components/libremoteservice.a ../../staticlib/components/libspellchecker.a ../../staticlib/components/libzipwriter.a ../../staticlib/components/libservices-crypto.a ../../staticlib/components/libxpautocomplete.a ../../staticlib/components/libmailcomps.a ../../staticlib/components/libmail.a ../../staticlib/components/libmsgsmime.a ../../staticlib/components/libimport.a ../../staticlib/components/libmozldap.a ../../staticlib/components/libmork.a ../../staticlib/libjsipc_s.a ../../staticlib/libdomipc_s.a ../../staticlib/libdomplugins_s.a ../../staticlib/libmozipc_s.a ../../staticlib/libmozipdlgen_s.a ../../staticlib/libipcshell_s.a ../../staticlib/libgfx2d.a ../../staticlib/libgfxipc_s.a ../../staticlib/libxpcom_core.a ../../staticlib/libucvutil_s.a ../../staticlib/libchromium_s.a ../../staticlib/libmozreg_s.a ../../staticlib/libgtkxtbin.a ../../staticlib/libthebes.a ../../staticlib/libycbcr.a ../../staticlib/libangle.a -L../../dist/bin -L../../dist/lib -ljpeg -lpng ../../gfx/qcms/libmozqcms.a /var/tmp/portage/mail-client/thunderbird-8.0-r1/work/comm-release/mozilla/dist/lib/libjs_static.a -lffi -Wl,-R/usr/lib -L/usr/lib -lssl3 -lsmime3 -lnss3 -lnssutil3 -lcrmf -lcairo -lpixman-1 -lfreetype -lfontconfig -L/usr/lib -lXrender -lcairo -lX11 ../../gfx/harfbuzz/src/libmozharfbuzz.a ../../gfx/ots/src/libmozots.a -L../../dist/bin -L../../dist/lib -lldap60 -lprldap60 -lldif60 ../../dist/lib/libmozsqlite3.a -lz -lhunspell-1.3 -L/usr/lib -levent -L/usr/lib -lvpx -lasound -L../../dist/bin -L../../dist/lib -Wl,-R/usr/lib -L/usr/lib -lplds4 -lplc4 -lnspr4 -lpthread -ldl ../../dist/lib/libmozalloc.a -ldbus-1 -lpthread -lrt -L/usr/lib -lX11 -lXext -pthread -lpangoft2-1.0 -lfreetype -lfontconfig -lpangocairo-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lcairo -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lrt -lglib-2.0 -pthread -lgtk-x11-2.0 -latk-1.0 -lgio-2.0 -lpangoft2-1.0 -lfreetype -lfontconfig -lgdk-x11-2.0 -lpangocairo-1.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lpango-1.0 -lcairo -lgmodule-2.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lrt -lglib-2.0 -lXt -lgthread-2.0 -lfreetype -lz -lbz2 -lstartup-notification-1 -ldl -lrt
/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.5.3/../../../../i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: failed to set dynamic section sizes: Memory exhausted
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[4]: *** [libxul.so] Error 1

[Aquous]

Apparently ld needs to actually use more than 1 GB of memory. Swap works by temporarily writing unused memory to the disk so that other applications can use the RAM that those bits were occupying; however, if none of that 1 GB is actually unused, it can't be swapped, eventually resulting in OOM.

Get more RAM

[ese002]

Adding more ram will make it run faster but, unless there is something heinously broken in the virtual memory system, it wouldn't make any difference whether a program will run or not. Except for locked pages, which are few and only used in the kernel, any page can be swapped out. There is no concept of memory being "in use" or "not in use". Pages not accessed frequently are better candidates to be swapped out because they won't need to be swapped in again soon. But, if there are no better choices, even frequently accessed pages can be swapped out. That is called "trashing". It makes the system really slow but it doesn't result in "out of memory" errors.

[ese002]

Got it.

I can't seem where it was set but somehow, somewhere, the default ulimit for virtual memory was set to 1000000. Once I changed that to 2GB, I was able to build successfully. Peak usage was just under 1.2GB. It was miserably slow, of course, but that's what virtual memory is all about.

[AgBr]

Ran into this right now.