[Freedesktop-sdk] freedesktop-sdk unstable (aka 1.8, aka buildstream-based) ready for testing!

[Javier Jardón]

Hi!

For the impatients:

Install the new runtime:
> flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists --user --no-gpg-verify freedesktop-sdk https://cache.sdk.freedesktop.org/releases/
> flatpak install --user freedesktop-sdk runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk//unstable
> flatpak install --user freedesktop-sdk runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform//unstable

Build and run your flatpak app as normal:
> flatpak-builder build_folder org.app.json
> flatpak-builder --run build_folder org.app.json


Project page: [1]

For the last few weeks we have been trying to create a freedesktop-sdk
[1] based on
buildstream, so it's easier to control and make updates to the full
stack (GCC, glibc ...),
using the same tools and the same set of metadata.
Please take a look at the README to understand how the project is structured.

We reused the awesome work Valentin already did to convert the 1.6
versions of the
yocto-based BaseSDK and the current Freedesktop SDK.
We also tried to update all the packages to the latest available (help
with the continuation
of this is welcomed!)

We have also setup some CI, so every change will rebuild all the
runtimes as needed
when creating a Merge Request. For now it only checks the build and a
very basic flatpak
app but improvements on this are in the works.

As a note, we have some problems with ostree as the proces of pushing
new content to the remote repo is a little awkward;
the "official" way requires the ostree server to pull from the build
server, but that would be
difficult to implement for us because the runners are not static
machines, but created on
demand.
In the end we made use of the ostree-push tool [1] for this, which
allows a more familiar "git" workflow. (Suggestions on better ways of
doing this welcomed).

Also, although we build all the runtimes, take in account we are only
pushing the x86_64 version of:
- org.freedesktop.Sdk
- org.freedesktop.Platform

for now. Builds for i586, aarch64 and armv7 will come shortly.

That's all, please test your flatpaks and give us feedback in
#freedesktop-sdk in freenode or in the bug tracker [3].

You can take a look at the issue tracker if you are curious about what
we are working on at the moment.

Thanks to everyone who helped to reach this milestone:
- Valentin
- Adam Jones
- Sam Thursfield
- Ben Brown

And Codethink for sponsoring the time for some of us to work on this

Cheers,
Javier

[1] https://gitlab.com/freedesktop-sdk/freedesktop-sdk/
[2] https://github.com/ssssam/ostree-push
[3] https://gitlab.com/freedesktop-sdk/freedesktop-sdk/issues