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SourceForge Announces Compile Farm
HeUnique sent us the NewsAlert press release regarding SourceForge's new compile farm. For the projects hosted there, it means that they will be able to do test compiles on both Linux and *BSD systems.
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But has anyone else noticed that the advertisements are gone and that Linux servers Slashdot runs off of are flaking out? Typical Linux.
I would find a Linux PowerPC box for compilations to be useful.
va linux systems stole the idea for sourceforge from a group of volunteers who had been working on it for months and left them out in the cold. `giving something back` to the community you say? yeah, giving them the shaft !!rud3D0g!! #linuxwarez
bowie - you fucking loser
http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/pkgsrc/mk/
what about SIRIX?!! Huh????
A non-x86 machine would be good, so people could check for things like endianness issues.
Yeah, you're right. If they don't offer NetBSD on old VAX systems, or TurboLinux running on a Psion palmtop, the whole idea is stupid and not worth the effort.
I really can't believe that someone would be as arrogant and demanding as your post seems to indicate you are. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.
He does have a point though. It would look extremely tacky if the only computers they have running are based on the hardware they sell. It would look like a marketing gimmick.
Liberty for all...
Free Software is considerably less valuable if it can't be used to become independent of OS or hardware platforms. Being locked into Linux on intel hardware blows just as badly as being locked into Windows on intel hardware.
The great value of Unix in general is the ability to take code from Unix and spread it around. I personally LIKE VERY MUCH the idea of taking a Linux Oracle client tool and running it on the deployment Unix of my choice. I also very much like the idea that I could pretty much at will decide to dump kludge clones altogether.
An 'open source' or 'free software' project of any kind needs to avoid being stuck in an x86 only mentality.
Duh!
C.Lee -- I nominate you the most insane slashdot user that bothers post under your own name.
Congratulations, your wacko trolls take the cake, if only because they are apparently sincere!
One only can wonder what you post anonymously.
Anyone else notice that /. is messed up today? No advertisement banners at the top (yea!) and moderation on AC's aren't taking?
don't count on it. This is VA Linux - they sell intel hardware, and it's in their best interests to get more people using different flavors running on hardware they sell. i'm not faulting VA Linux, this is a great step, but i really don't see them trying real hard to get support for stuff they don't sell.
OK, let me throw an idea here..
MS could contribute a Windows NT terminal server, and SCO could contribute Tarantella (Tarantella works well even if you have 9,600 baud modem - I tried that) - that way you'll get a windows screen with your browser, and you can do stuff remotely with other users..
I really don't know if MS, nor SCO will pick the glove here, and I donno how much an NT terminal server can hold users who are compiling stuff on 1 or some machines..
Again - just an idea.
Hetz (Heunique)
I believe he was referring to glib, the low-level portability library for GTK (and gimp), not the GNU libc libraries.
From what I understand, it is a very nice, generalized, portability layer. (IANAC ;)
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
--
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Increasingly, the quality of applications can be linked to the number of supported platforms and the number of geeky libraries required. The more platforms and fewer libraries, the better.
I'm sorry, but that's simply untrue. Libraries are there so everyone and their mother doesn't have to include the same freaking code in their programs. Libraries are to simplify things and allow code sharing. Maybe you're thinking about libraries from hell which enforce a particular coding style on the users (you know what I'm talking about.) I'm sorry, but I like to see my programs that use JPEG imaging linking with libjpeg, just as I like to see programs using compression streams linking with zlib. You cannot say anything about a program's quality because the author linked it with important support libraries.
1. The GNU version of tar
2. The GNU version of make
I think you meant to say here that programs shouldn't be using GNU extensions of anything. I can agree with that for the most part, but...
3. Any particular kind of C compiler beyond specifying ANSI compliance or other standards compliance
The only real standards for inline assembly usage are in GCC. You're also kidding yourself if you think that most C compilers are nearly as closely standard-compliant as GCC is with ANSI. When something requires machdep code, it has to be done reasonably.
Also, you really need to note that many things won't compile on some extremely esoteric operating systems because they are simply not a good enough facsimile of the Unix API. Don't pretend for one minute that anyone's going to stop using the Unix API for portable software.
--
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
It's a place where they do eieio . . .
:)
>I really can't believe that someone would be as arrogant and demanding
>as your post seems to indicate you are. Talk about looking a gift
>horse in the mouth.
Dude, this bullshit came from a Microsoft Astrotufer. If SourceForge only accomplishes 50% of it goals, you're talking about a major boost to software for machines running Linux,BSD and other flavors of Unix. Notice how the jackass basically demaned that SourceForge offer/include support for Microsoft products? Why? Microsoft hasn't done a damn thing for the OSS/Free Software movement except try to rip it off.
Here is an introduction to automake/autoconf.
--
Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.
****Gfx Scrollbar Special case hit!!*****
Accually we are working on getting some other platforms (sparc, alpha, ppc, etc..)
- U
This is VERY true.
:-)
:-)
When we had 'free software' it compiled on pretty much everything that smelt of Unix and often on things that didn't.
Now, much of the latest and greatest 'open source' software seems to think that cross platform means RPMS for Red Hat AND SuSE. It really annoys me. I see shit like "This was designed as a cross platform project, so it should work on Linux and *BSD".
Increasingly, the quality of applications can be linked to the number of supported platforms and the number of geeky libraries required. The more platforms and fewer libraries, the better.
My definition of cross platform does NOT include requirements such as:
1. The GNU version of tar
2. The GNU version of make
3. Any particular kind of C compiler beyond specifying ANSI compliance or other standards compliance
At work I have a very well looked after Sparc-solaris 2.7 box. Free software that doesn't build on it, and whose readmes only talk about Linux goes straight in the bin. Yes, I do email the authors so they can fix it. No I don't immediately sign up as the official Solaris porter for the project and fix it myself. Yes I do like to point out that if they'd written it in Perl* they wouldn't have these problems
The traditional argument has been that the developers don't have access to the wide range of platforms to test on. Cynics like me might point out that SHURELY wonderful amazing open source software will never suffer from such problems because it has 2.6 billion potential developers who have every known flavour of every hardware to test it on. Sure...
So, it would be nice to see a place with some HP-UX machines, some RS/6000 gear, and some Irix boxes so that people can actually write cross platform code. Or, to be more accurate, so that people would no longer have an excuse when they didn't write cross platform code.
*Substitute Java for Perl if you feel that way inclined
-----
After doing investigation of several companies
that sell linux boxes, I have come to the following conclusion.
VA is worth the premium*.
I say this because they have the best product support for hardware/software computability, the sales staff is wonderful and they give back to the community.
What other company can claim to provide such a strong base and also be generous and give back to the
movement that enabled them to be?
Thanks VA.
*note: These are my views, not necessarily that of my manager or my company.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
Umm... last I checked they didn't sell boxes with any OS other than RH, so while the BSD and Debian boxes are probably VA hardware, they aren't boxes you can buy from VA, which is a big and important difference.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
That's why C was invented in the first place? That's why _every_ standard language was invented in the first place. Frankly, C is an awful example, considering that many places still don't
have a compiler that can compile the standard that's over 10 years old. The only other language
I know of that still caters to pre current-standard stuff is Fortran. Ada, Eiffel, Perl, most other languages just don't have the porting problems that C does.
Working with anything other than the standard C libraries is unacceptable, so glib is out. But more to the point, how do I make sure that if I use a construction that say, works on FreeBSD but not on SunOS (in this case, pthreads are a problem) works out all around?
It is not that glib is evil (well, okay, it is, but that is not my objection here). The problem is that it is a small program I am working on and having to pack around a standard C library is not exactly cool. Now, creating a library of those functions I use from the FreeBSD C library is possible and much finer grain control. Which is nice.r ty.html) and just need some native support. Another problem is the overly complicated license to Cosm (which looks like it is about on par with the Artistic license, correct me if I am wrong). I would also prefer dealing only with BSD licensed programs as far as things I need to ship. I am a bit disturbed that the configure script is GPL'd but I think I can handle that. On the other hand, if I could avoid it, I would. I will not go into the details here, but the GPL is simply morally wrong and I do not wish to support it any more than I have to.
As for Cosm, interesting concept but I do nto think it will help. I am working with a chat clone (http://www.james-howard.com/display.html?page=pa
ACK! That is evil.
Doh! I made a mistake. I thought the configure scripts were GPL'd. Well, that solves that problem but I still don't know how to use it :)
This leads me to an interesting problem. I am developing a program. I am using FreeBSD as my development enviroment but my target environments are BSD/OS, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, SunOS, and possibly UnixWare. Obviously, anything else would be great on top of this. But how does one write code that will compile without problems across so many different architectures and platforms? Is autoconf the way to go? Is there a decent manual on autoconf? The standard documentation that comes with it is a bit lacking in how to make it work with a new project. Ideas?
Compaq offers a test account on several of their systems. Go to http://www.testdrive.compaq.com and register. Digital Unix (eehhh Compaq tru64) is a good test to see how portable a program is, IMHO.
Depending on how important performance is, you may want to just write it in a portable language, like Java, Perl, or Python. Possibly using C at some key places to speed things up...
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
This means that anyone can execute arbitrary code on their compilefarm servers by including it in the build scripts. They need to make sure they have really good local security.
Another problem is that some software packages assume that "make install" will always be executed by root and include things like "install -o root" which will fail for non-root users. This is the most common reason for source RPMs which cannot be built by a non-root user.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
If anyone read that article on IBM porting linux to the S/390 would know this is a PERFECT solution.
If you missed it here is a quick overview. The S/390 runs virtual machines. You can run (I think 14000 linux machines) on a S/390.
All machines are indepent of each other, and if you mess one machine up, just install from a image file. (Sweet)
The S/390 was a perfect solution to someone that runs a server farm. (Hint, CompileFarm)
Its also cost effective when you consider 1000 i386 boxes or 1 s/390. (Hint, 5Nine anyone?)
Missed the S/390 being used in the article, but sounds like a good idea.
-Brook Harty
If I remember correctly, this was something that Compaq was doing. You might want to head over to www.compaq.com and see what you can dig up. Good luck...
"I'd like to live in theory, because everything works in theory, in theory." - Can't remember who said this.
What a dork!
There's already efforts to make some open source programs available on Solaris here. Make the commitment to at least a few platforms that VA Linux does not sell, so we know you are serious and that this is not just a scheme to market your hardware and that you actually intend to make this the thing you claim it to be. Also, will you commit to having SourceForge on early Itanium machines as soon as you can get them from Intel?
I'm sure there are a lot of issues you have to work with, security being the most critical. For example, what if the project requires root access (some programs need to be SUID root for users, and some are tools for system administration). I know it won't be easy. So get a few Sparc and Alpha boxes, put them behind a tight firewall which prevents people from getting out execpt via their own SSH tunnel, put BSD, Linux, and Solaris up as appropriate, and just let it go as a little "glass world" experiment so you can at least see what the issues are you'll have to deal with.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Actually, I'd love to buy from VA Linux, but I also want, if I stop building my own and buying pre-built machines, to get all my needs from one source. Unfortunately, VA Linux doesn't have enough of a product line to suit my needs, yet. I want something from VA Linux that competes with IndyBox's 1U servers.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I'll say "Thank you" when there is something to give thanks about.
Lost of people and lots of businesses can put together several machines and run a few different Linux distros and a few BSDs. Far fewer can make a true universal platform farm (the better term is "lab"). A company like VA Linux has the resources to not just to the corner cases, but also fill in all the gaps. If they are true to their word they will, and they won't have any doubts about it up front.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
X can be sent through an encrypted ssh tunnel. Security is no more a concern than for the shell access (terminal line) itself.
.com's netlink to its knees.
What would pose some problems, however, is bandwidth. I don't doubt VA has reams of it, but several hundred simulataneous X sessions (particularly of fancy Gnome/KDE apps with heavy high-color graphics) could bring even a
There will probably have to be a bandwidth policy, to keep things working smoothly. It would be completely reasonable.
(And as an aside, to VA: THANKS!!! The Compile Farm is an excellent idea! I look forward to testing and building my apps there. HP/UX and Alpha binaries, here I come!)
iSKUNK!
Because even if VA is doing this to help move more hardware, they still deserve the kudos. The compile farm (even if all x86) will allow developers to catch subtle bugs brought on by distribution quirks, as well as allow them to create RPM's *and* DEB's easily from one spot. It's a win-win situation, and one of those wins is ours.
But I definitely agree that other architectures in the farm, including a plethora of non-free Unices, will be a boon to everyone. Each non-GNU system has its own eccentricities and bits of brain-deadness; testing code in such enviroments provides first-rate insight into its robustness and portability. The disadvantage to Linux/gcc is simply the sheer quality and capability of the platform. When you write for it, you're writing for a better Unix than "Unix" itself. (Hence you see all these apps that won't build on commercial Unices, and-- in the worse cases-- even *BSD).
I know when I compile stuff under IRIX (for example), the compiler gives me warnings I don't see under gcc, some header files (libintl.h for one) are nowhere to be found, the paths for X binaries and libraries are completely different, etc. You have to be aware of things like that to write solid configure scripts, and design the code accordingly. Myself, I'm lucky enough to have access to computer labs lined with Sun and SGI workstations. But many developers don't. And even I can't build/test anything on HP/UX, Tru64, AIX, etc. MIT doesn't support those {:-(
What you're saying, however-- having each and every Linux/BSD/etc. on each and every platform that they runs on-- is not worthwhile. Sure, that covers a lot of possible end-user setups, but keep in mind:
- Do you want to test and build for 30+ slightly different OS/platform combos?
- Heck, forget using; who here wants to administrate that??
- Is it even necessary? Sure, Linux distros have some incompatibilities, but IT'S NOT THAT BAD!!! This isn't UNIX, after all...
- In the end, when you're building something with gcc, the platform doesn't make all that much of a difference anyway. The GNU libraries are well-designed, and work around a lot of those issues. (Endianness isn't even that much of a problem, if you code things the right way)
IMHO, it would be much more sensible to add in a group of machines widely spread across the spectrum of platforms. Corner cases, if you will. If your app can build on three weird platforms, it'll probably build on a fourth. But you can write an app that will compile on every Linux distro in existence, yet fail horribly on any commercial Unix system you can name.And let me emphasis the need to shun gcc and test using vendor-native compilers. If you're on a non-x86 platform, and gcc isn't the only compiler available, you have to cater to people who don't have gcc installed. And more important, the compiler warning messages tend to be a lot more interesting, simply because they're different from gcc's (and gcc's are almost always the same)
But putting an S/390 into the farm is overkill. Far and beyond. Those machines are waaaaay too expensive for something like this. (Seriously; the only thing to top it would be a Cray supercomputer!)
iSKUNK!
E.g. older libc5 Linux systems don't have strtok_r() -- autoconf can detect this, tell automake to build strtok_r.c, and add strtok_r.o to @LIBOBJS@. Some systems don't quite agree on what the argument types to select() are -- autoconf can determine those, and put them into handy macros you can use for casting. Etc., etc.
The point being: Yes, write your code The Right Way(tm). Anything less is a hack. But use autoconf so that folks with less-than-perfect operating systems can compile it.
iSKUNK!
Nahhh . . . Windows systems are easy to come by, and if you really wanted to build Win32 binaries, you can always grab Mingw32/Lccwin/etc. and use that. I don't think there are too many folks interested in supporting Win32, however. (We'll have to see-- things might change when the Windows-capable GTK+ 1.4 comes out)
As for Microsoft contributing anything: you have got to be kidding. Those boys not only don't have to encourage anyone to write stuff for their platform, they happily charge an arm and a leg for VC++ and all the MSDN program junk....
iSKUNK!
Ol' Sourceforge had a compiler farm..
E- I/O I/O.
And on this farm they had a cluster..
E- I/O I/O.
With a make make here,
And a make make there..
Make make make make everywhere!
Ol' Sourceforge had a compiler farm..
E- I/O I/O.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I think this is why you would still keep a local copy of your code and have md5 checksums for the packages on your personal distribution site. This is more along the same lines as the compaq testdrive program. If you just want to test a compile on another platform and do some debugging.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
That's actually a really good question. If I write some GUI thing for Linux b/c I have a Linux box at home, but I want to make sure that the *BSD build works too, then it would be really nice if I could just compile it there and then fire it up over X. Otherwise, I would need to get my hands on a *BSD box to test the build, which would be a lot more of a pain than enabling X tunnels.
Of course, there certainly may be security issues. Not sure how to handle that well...
This is a good start, but it really needs other Unices than the free ones to be included. Have you tried compiling a C program under SunOS 4 recently? Or HP-UX 9? These are where the real compatibility issues are revealed, IME.
(Of course, compiling under Windows/Mac/BeOS/etc. too would be even better, for programs which are intended to be used there.)
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
It's a service by Compaq which you'll find right here http://testdrive.compaq.com/
BTW, it wasn't posted a few years back, just 1-1.5 year ago...
Enjoy
Then again, just because your average redhat x86
box happens to compile your app, doesn't mean
that it does on a similar alpha or sparc redhat
box, since the endianess/64bit issues still may
bite you.
Sure, you go a big step towards portability
if you get it to compile cleanly on some linux
and some *BSD, but I still feel that different
platforms would be preferable.
-- I'm as unique as everyone else.
I didn't have a look at SF.net yet to read about this, but I'm already wondering if it will be a i386-only farm or Sparc, Alpha, PPC, etc. will be available.
Many bugs in the Debian Bugtracking system are "fail to compile under foo arch" bugs, so it would be very cool to be able to test the code under various archs to avoid this. That would make SourceForge a unique environment to squash these types of problems, as many programmers can be aware their code does not compile on Sparc but they can't do anything about it as they don't have access to a Sparc machine.
About being able to execute binaries, and X and all... that sounds a bit more difficult here, imagine what hardware you need to allow that number of X sessions?
Heh, yes well, we can't all have the (most excellent) Ports System. :)
I've built (pre 1.0) xmms from unmodified source and used it on FreeBSD without any problems.
I plan on letting SF know that they can send people to the various BSD Ports Collections (Available via FreeBSD's CVSWeb) so they can incorporate the various OS specific patches into their source.
(Such changes would exclude items that are specific to the Ports system, like overriding PATHs and make variables, etc. These items would remain in the Ports patches.)
I'll be having articles in the FreeBSDZine about FreeBSD's Ports system in the near future.
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
It's about time an organized effort was made to keep source code portable across the free OSs.
/proc) code, and won't build anywhere but on Linux (maybe even specific distros?)
This is why C was invented in the first place, but too many people forget it.
Many programs already compile on multiple OSs, and kudos to their respective authors for writing good code. Other programs only require minor changes, which is where autoconf makes it easy. Then there's the occasional code that assumes Linux only (kernel or
</RANT>
Then there's the whole "Linux" software phenomenon. It's sad when people don't realize that the programs they use in Linux aren't "Linux" programs, they're Unix programs. I don't just mean grep, etc. I mean programs like XMMS, GNOME, KDE, etc. This stuff compiles, unmodified, on the *BSDs as well. Even some authors call their software "Linux" software when it's portable *as is*. This is misleading, both towards the Media, who pick up on it, but to new free Unix users as well, who might be deciding between Linux and a BSD. This new offering from SourceForge will not only provide a place for authors to test their code, it will help educate people as to the true nature of Open Source as well.
`./configure && make install` shall set you free.
<RANT>
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
Is a compiler farm a place they do egcs?
:-) = I am happy
:^) = I am happy with my big nose
C:\> = I am happy with my OS
try http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=98 27
They refer to "...two Web-based tools that make it easy for project administrators to manage code submissions..."
Evidently, there is some web development going on. It's not clear, however, just how extensive the web based support will be.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
anyone have the sourceforge or va linux url for this? I can't seem to locate it on either site.
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
will they distribute compiled programs like RPMS ?
They could easily put down a plethora of checkboxes and have a make button. You could probably upload all of your makefiles too, which would be easier. Anyone out there used it and could let us other pundits know? :)
What may be more interesting, and have serious ramifications, is the fact that you're storing your data off site on SourceForge's servers. A coordinated DOS attack to keep you from your source? Crackers going in and modifying your files perhaps?
"May the Code bless you and keep you until the day of your Compiling." ~Requiem
---
SourceForge Programmer Type - http://sourceforge.net
---
Drew Streib, dtype.org
I see a lot of questions regarding what is available on the Compile Farm, and a lot of great ideas as well. I'd like to dispel a couple of myths and offer some insight as to where this is going as well.
First, this is not a web-only service. We do like to provide web interfaces to as much as possible, but we do realize that for some things, program compliation and testing included, nothing can substitute for shell access.
A lot of people are asking about other hardware architectures and OS's. For now, the Compile Farm is i386 based, and contains several Linux distributions and FreeBSD. This does not mean that we have ruled out other possibilities. This is just another step in what we hope can be an expanding feature set for Open Source developers on SourceForge.
There is a lot of setup involved in something like this Compile Farm, not the least of which is having thousands of skilled Open Source developers with shell accounts on a set of boxes. We're attempting to keep things as secure as possible while also offering enough features to make this thing useful. One reason for the limited number of distributions/architectures/OS's now is the limitation of variables in a very complex system. Hopefully, we can work out the kinks in this system soon so that it can become a valuable resource to developers who might not otherwise have the capability of getting their hands on so many different machines.
We're also working on giving users the advantages ot having a cluster of machines available. Uriah Welcome worked very hard to provide parallel make capability to projects, and this is being tested now. (Parallel makes will allow you to take advantage of multiple dual-processor machines simultaneously in your compiles.)
Please be patient as we test this new system. We're definately open to criticism, but please also be constructive with it so that we can continue to improve these services. Thanks to all of the SourceForge users who have contributed patches, criticism, and helpful suggestions. Every day my confidence in the Open Source model increases...
---
SourceForge Programmer Type - http://sourceforge.net
---
Drew Streib, dtype.org
The two web based tools they refer to are "Other new features." The Compile Farm will apparently be a shell.
Semper Ubi Sub Ubi
If anyone could remind me where that was, I'd be much obliged!
ICQ: 49636524
snowphoton@mindspring.com
Got Rhinos?
I wonder if they'll turn on tunneling X-Windows over ssh? or if this is mainly just for compiling, not necessarily testing/debugging...
I wouldn't call Linux and BSD mere different distros. And as far as I see it, the main problem with writing portable software is to get it running on different OSes - not to get it running on different hardware platforms (taken that they are supported by the OS that is).
I wonder if you have shell access, or a web based interface which excutes a set of commands like configure, make, and so forth. Hmm! Interesting stuff!
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
As an owner of a Sun Sparc ELC, I think it would be more useful to provide different architectures rather than different distros. This is a great move for VA.
Sheepdot: Open Source good, Closed Source baaaaaaad!
I understand that the primary target of open source projects these days is open source OS's, but once we get over the 'cool' factor of open source, then maybe we can start developing for mainstream stuff so that the average joe with his win98 machine can take advantage of it.
Now I also realize that it is difficult to provide remote access to windows and macs. Perhaps a better solution to that would be a network of developers who each would be willing to compile other people's source on their machines, and send back bugs, screenshots etc.