Support for "make dist"

[yanosz]

Hello,

is:

• Gluon Builds are done using make world with some parameters
• Doing a gluon build is hardly done calling make world only once
  • Different architectures require sucessive calls
  • Different site-configuration require sucessive calls - esp. for minor-changes - (i.e. different batman-adv-versions), that cannot be implemented in a multidomain setup

As an effect, different communities are creating different, elaborate build configurations.

Should:

• Gluon should support an additional target "make dist"
  • This target should build all available platforms (selecting explicit ones should be possible though)
  • This target should accept multiple site-configurations. Validation should be done before anything else (esp. sth. with effort) is done
  • The target should create a folder called ./dist including the full tree of all images and packages

[christf]

I think it would be helpful to standardize the builds on a gluon-project level instead of community level. Another idea was to specify a Jenkinsfile and have the parameters in place to customize.

For the make dist approach - how would parameters be stored?

[yanosz]

In general, there are no paremeters to be saved. Everything can be provided using the environment (i.e. exports or variables when calling make).

Thinking about a re-usable jenkins file I'm still struggeling with the steps (i.e. pipeline) in there. What's the common denominator for building gluon? Is convention over configuration a way to go? What's the convention, then? What has to be configured, though?

[yanosz]

Ok, thinking about this for a while, I think, that theses features are missing in Gluons Makefile

• [ ] Build more than one platform
• [ ] Use Envirnomental variables (i.e. yielding envsubst) for things, that cannot be hardcoded in the config.
• [ ] Validations before build

If make dist boils down to that, a jenkins job should be easy.