[Scummvm-devel] The new Buildbot: what’s happening, what needs to happen

[Tarek Soliman]

On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 01:58:54AM -0600, Colin Snover wrote:
> and that the new Buildbot worker images are
> identical to the “build environment used by the porter” as they *are* to
> be the build environments created and used by the porters.

This might not be immediately obvious so I will try to clarify:
The "buildbot worker" docker images *are* the porter's toolchain.

- Those docker images can be run anywere, including on the local development
  machine.
- By default those containers will start a buildbot worker but one can set them
  to run an interactive shell instead.
- You can "mount" any local directory inside the container and the container
  will read and write to it.

So, if I wanted to build a port (say android) I would:

1. Pull the "scummvm/buildbot-android" docker image
2. Point it at my local scummvm git working directory and set it to run an
   interactive shell
3. ./configure --host=android-v7a (and whatever other options I wanted)
4. make
5. Grab the binary from my local folder and install it on my android device

The only downside is the initial effort to create the docker image. But once
you have that, it is a portable toolchain. Its benefits are automatically
inherited by buildbot too. e.g. if it can make a package instead of just a
binary then buildbot suddenly aquires the power to create packages too.

Thanks,
Tarek