question for LeslieAnn on her build server

[anon(235100)]

I was wondering if you'd ever consider an automated building system for your shiny powerhouse server you've got.
I don't know how I stumbled on this tonight but Linaro uses a system called Jenkins for building their stuff in-house. It has a web interface & offers distributed building so everyone can set up additional build bots.
Planet Linaro
Welcome to Jenkins CI! | Jenkins CI
https://launchpad.net/linaro-jenkins

I tried sending a pm because I didn't want it to be a big talk- more just a question- but I guess you're a moderator now and it won't let me pm you

 

[sellers86]

it pm's her, thats just an automated response. sh'ell get you pm

 

[anon(235100)]

Ah. I felt so humbled getting a diss message back

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[ThatGuyLurkin]

I felt the same way. I didn't know if my message was sent or not.

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[LeslieAnn]

I'm not sure it's something I'm comfortable with, but I will look into it more.
And yes, I got the PM.

 

[anon(235100)]

it piqued my interest. just thought id pass it along

 

[EarthnFire78]

The problem with a setup like is not the bandwidth cause at most would only be a 3% jump, but you would need another server to handle the web interface and needs to be setup for cross talk with the Build Server. She could use the Build Server for the Web Interface, but the workload for each build would jump from say 20 minutes to 35 minutes or a 57% increase.

 

[tdm]

I already do nightly builds on the server. I don't have any UI, it's just a set of scripts.

Generally, if you are proficient in Unix/Linux -- and you should be if you're building on this box -- it will probably take almost as much time to setup and config a buildbot than to write a script and hang it off a cron job.

And don't forget that in order to successfully build on a regular basis, you're going to need to do an automated sync and merge. I have scripts to do these as well. And spit out changelogs. And tag releases. Yeah I've been busy.

That said, if LeslieAnn wants to setup a buildbot, I can work with her to get that done.

 

[LeslieAnn]

I have serious issues with the idea.
One is the web based interface... It's just more software and risk for security issues. Second is that what happens when everyone using the server runs a job every night? The system will come to a crawl.

But that only begins to explain it.
I can also see this eating some extra cpu cycles and bandwidth as well. It might be a trivial amount, but one of the reasons this system is so much faster than it normally would be is because the ONLY thing it does is build. There is nothing at all running that isn't either OS or build related, it doesn't even have a desktop installed.

I don't really see how this would really be all that beneficial. As TDM said, you already need to have some Linux knowledge to do any of it, so who does it help? I also don't think this will eliminate a whole lot of work, like some people would expect, and I also feel that rom building is best handled with a hands on approach.The box was setup for a rather simple interface as it is, if you cannot handle the interface it has, you probably shouldn't be building on there. Not only is it just like building on your own computer, but also it was never envisioned as being something ANYONE can use. It was always meant to help serious developers. Those just getting started need to learn the basics on their own time.

Using a web interface so anyone can use it, is like driving a race car on an Xbox and thinking you can drive a real race car and win a race. The build server is a race car, and if you aren't qualified to drive it, I certainly am not handing over the keys.

 

[A-android-B]

long live the build server! Hip hip...

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