[maemo-developers] Clean build environment

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Wednesday 08 July 2009 18:07:03 Ed Bartosh wrote:
> 2009/7/8 Graham Cobb <g+770 at cobb.uk.net>:
> > Is there somewhere to discuss sbdmock?  Or, at least, to find out more
> > about it?
>
> Unfortunately not. We can discuss it here.

OK.  Is there any documentation or even a usage page?

> > I thought it was just a build tool -- can it also be used to provide an
> > environment where the developer can sit in a scratchbox target which has
> > been cleanly created and test things out from a command line (e.g. try a
> > build, then look for the missing files configure is complaining about,
> > try manually installing something and see if that fixes the problem, etc,
> > etc?).
>
> It is a build tool. Environment is provided by scratchbox. sbdmock
> creates scratchbox target(or uses already created target), unpacks SDK
> rootstrap and build package. build logs and build directory are also
> available for the users, so it's quite convenient to debug build
> problems. If build files user can go to the build directory, fix the
> problem and restart or continue the build by running dpkg-buildpackage
> or even debian/rules build.

Presumably sbdmock handles installing build-essential.  Can we create a 
community rootstrap (or a devkit or something -- I don't know much about 
scratchbox) which has build-essential already installed so that sbdmock 
doesn't end up re-downloading and re-installing those packages every time we 
want to create a clean target?

Can I use sbdmock to create the new target and then do nothing (so I have a 
clean SB target in which I can try out various things before I actually have 
a buildable package to build)?

Can I use sbdmock to create the new target and then run a script instead of 
trying to build a package (my build environment runs a script which does a 
lot of stuff specific to my daily builds and also uses MUD to create the 
buildable package)?

> > It may be that all we need to do is to create a Wiki page telling people
> > how to install and use sbdmock for testing and debugging their build
> > problems. Or it may be that some additional scripts and packaging would
> > be useful.
>
> Wiki page would be good to have. I'm not sure about additional
> scripts. Let's start with wiki page and then will see.

OK.  I might try sbdmock out when I have more time at the weekend.  If I 
succeed I will create a Wiki page.

Graham