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

[Kostas Nakos]

Hello All,

Max Horn wrote:
> Indeed, we are guaranteed 512 MB, and temporarily can get up to 1024 to
> "handle load peaks". I was not sure whether that is enough; Eugene and me
> thought it should be OK in general.

One of my concerns is the available processing power, including both CPU
and RAM resources. We all know that building scummvm is an exercise for
both these things, considering that the machine will build an array of
ports besides the basic win32/linux/mac executables (Note: on my old
athlon xp 1800+ + 1GB ram it took 45mins for a full wince release build,
on the new Quad Intel 3.33 2 GB, 3.5 mins real with all the cores
running in parallel). Granted that we can schedule less important ports
to build less frequently.

Anyway, seeing that they offer "VPS" (
http://www.hosteurope.de/produkte/VPS-Linux ) and "servers" (
http://www.hosteurope.de/produkte/Server-XL-XXL ) I am wondering if the
"VPS" solution can take the beating it will take when we use it as a
build server. Also granted that since it's got a processor, ram and disk
we can use it for building, but will it really cope?

If we can move up to more expensive solutions in the "VPS" range
effortlessly (ideally with no intervention from us), we can start with
the lower end but I anticipate that we will have to change sometime. 50
Euros for top of the line is not bad at all, if we come to it.

About Ubuntu: I would go with debian etch as well: It's got a great
record on the server I use it. But since they offer the nice admin web
front end with ubuntu it seems like a good all around choice for the
whole team. I am indifferent to these frontends; I assume that they must
be choking when one fiddles with config files directly. Also, choosing
the distro which they can support mostly themselves (and relieve us of
such duties) is a good way to go here (Note: hosteurope has done a
remarkable job in keeping our stuff running so far, so they're a good
choice).

About security: It seems like a workaround for me to have the builds
done there then upload them somewhere else for distribution (note also
that for "VPS" we also get a lot of traffic allocated to the box). If
the server is always up to date with the more stable kernel and the
users have all *strong* passwords, it is difficult to get malicious
access into the machine. And if we get data backup for free it is really
no problem if someone knocks the server out. Further, if we can keep a
self contained scummvm build system inside the scummvm svn, so that
minimal tweaking has to be done on a fresh machine to get the ball
rolling, installing from scratch need not be a pain.

And I vote for lechuck.scummvm.org, the pirate with snapshot build
responsibilities :-)

Best Regards,
Kostas