Compiling for RPM distros

[Geoff the Medio]

Note that it is uncommon now for any Linux distribution to have you download packages directly - they just have you hook into the repository through a central package management system. This system then figures out all your dependencies for you automatically and knows which RPMs you'll need to download.

What about for development snapshots, between the numbered releases? We post those builds on sourceforge somewhat more frequently, and I'd guess that distro repositories wouldn't want a flood of arbitrarily chosen unstable builds...

[raptor]

What about for development snapshots, between the numbered releases? We post those builds on sourceforge somewhat more frequently, and I'd guess that distro repositories wouldn't want a flood of arbitrarily chosen unstable builds...

I see development snapshots in distribution repositories if: 1. They are part of a project that is known to go a long time between actual releases, and 2. If a particular snapshot is known to be stable.

You are correct in that they usually don't want frequent arbitrary builds.

[Geoff the Medio]

You are correct in that they usually don't want frequent arbitrary builds.

Is there a way to make more frequent development snapshots for your Linux distro like Vezzra has been providing for OSX and Windows?

[raptor]

Is there a way to make more frequent development snapshots for your Linux distro like Vezzra has been providing for OSX and Windows?

Oh yes. The Open Build Service (build.opensuse.org) can be used to build RPMs for openSUSE locally on your own machine as well. It would be easy to set up a script that checks out from SVN, compiles, and packages. However, openSUSE isn't the most popular distribution and I doubt there are many people around who would use it - not to mention packages from one distribution rarely work on another.

You would probably want some automatic way to build a static binary for Linux instead - probably against a common version of glibc, and with all the crazy stuff like ogre and boost compiled in. Then it could be archived up into a self-contained 'install' and work on most modern Linux systems. I sadly don't have too much experience with this (yet), and freeorion would be quite complex with its long list of dependencies.

[Geoff the Medio]

You would probably want some automatic way to build a static binary for Linux instead...

There used to be someone providing such a binary for Linux, but he stopped doing so after v0.3.15. Finding someone else willing and able to do so again doesn't seem likely.

[raptor]

Finding someone else willing and able to do so again doesn't seem likely.

Well, I am currently attempting to do this. My current approach is to use a virtual machine of an older system and statically compile things on it (I'm using openSUSE 11.4 [glibc 2.11]). This way I can just give the VM to someone as I doubt I'll be able to commit long-term time to this.

However building on Linux looks a little unmaintained, and I may need to apply a few patches. I also need to figure out precompiled headers - boost is killing my compile times; FO takes unacceptably long to compile...