[Scummvm-devel] About announcing backend changes & build machine

Travis Howell kirben at optusnet.com.au
Wed Jan 2 00:28:08 CET 2008


I have CCed to Claudio Matsuoka for comments, since he provides our current 
daily builds service.

From: "Max Horn" <max at quendi.de>
> So, wouldn't it be cool if we had a build server on which we setup
> cross compile chains for as many systems as we can?
>
> This would allow multiple things:
> * Generate automatic daily builds for all these platforms (with some
> extra work, the resulting binaries need to be "packaged) after all)
> * a nice build status web page (like e.g. <http://www.kegel.com/
> crosstool/crosstool-0.43/buildlogs/>)
> * optionally, a "trigger rebuild now" feature, which one can use to
> get an immediate build test (password protected, of course).

We already have an automatic builds service provided by Claudio Matsuoka at 
http://www.scummvm.org/daily/
Maybe it could be expanded to cover more platforms? BeOS, Cygwin, Debian, 
and RPMs packages were provided in the past (2002/2003) too.

BeOS builds were dropped in July 2003 (See 
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_name=Pine.LNX.4.55L.0307141423160.31541%40damien.distro.conectiva ) 
due to no suitable cross compiler.
Cygwin builds were no longer required, when I took over the Windows 
releases/snapshots.
I'm not sure what happened to the Debian and RPM packages, as the links are 
still there, but currently broken.

> Things required for this:
> * Getting a server: should not be a major issue: we have some money,
> and maybe we can even find a sponsor for this.
> * Setting it up: This would probably require some help from the resp.
> porters (at least to test the build chains, ideally also to help
> setting them up).
> * Maintain it: If a porter switches to a new tool chain, we'll have
> to update, but my hope is that otherwise, this machine would not
> require that much maintenance, and that we could find some members of
> the team willing to have an eye on it.

Considering we currently have a daily builds service provided, I'm not 
convinced it is worth paying for server or renting a server.

There are disadvantages to an automated build system too:
-It tends to break down more easily, when unexpected changes are made.
-It relies on a remote system, which we might not have full control of.
-It relies on a different compiler enviroment, which we might not be able to 
keep as up to date.
-If developers build via different methods, it can be more difficult to 
track down problems caused by the specific compiler enviroment used for 
snapshots.

For Windows builds I will stick with manual snapshots, which are usually 
updated a few times daily anyway. So users don't have to deal with automated 
system breaking down, and are provided with Windows binaries based on most 
recent releases of tools. 





More information about the Scummvm-devel mailing list