User:Gala
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New BRL-CAD Linux Release Packaging Process Automation
By: Gala Taylor
Jordi Sayol recently finished automating the BRL-CAD Linux release packaging process, and he took some time out to chat with Gala Taylor about it - and some other interesting topics.
Gala Taylor (GT): How long have you been working on the BRL-CAD project?
Jordi Sayol (JS): I've been involved with the BRL-CAD project since January 2011.
GT: How much education and experience were required to prepare you to contribute to the BRL-CAD project?
JS: My experience is just as an advanced Linux user.
GT: Do you need to physically meet with the other team members in order to contribute to the BRL-CAD project, or is it sufficient to work on-line?
JS: All of my collaboration is done on-line.
GT: The BRL-CAD project is a collection of over four hundred tools, utilities and applications, with over a million lines of source code. With such a massive and complex system, how do you decide what to work on? Is it necessary to understand all that code in order to contribute to the project?
JS: My responsibility is focused on building binary packages of BRL-CAD for Linux systems.
GT: Besides the release processing work which is described in the HACKING file, can you walk me through the process of actually transforming a developer’s checked-in source code into an .rpm or .deb that is ready to be downloaded and installed?
JS: It's quite simple. I have created two bash scripts that automate this process. The "sh/make_deb.sh" script creates a deb package installable on Debian-like systems. This currently includes Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and other distributions. The "sh/make_rpm.sh" script creates an rpm package for Fedora-like systems. This includes Fedora, Centos, Redhat, and some other distributions, or OpenSUSE, depending on the system where it is built. There are separate rpm packages for Fedora and OpenSUSE because they do not share the same nomenclature on their packages. Note also that both scripts create deb/rpm packages for the host architecture where they are executed, and that the results are currently only tested on x86_32 and x86_64 hosts.
With these scripts, anyone can easily create their own deb/rpm packages as needed. This is especially useful if the user wants to install BRL-CAD on a very old system, maybe requiring special compilation for specific graphic cards drivers, etc.
GT: Thank your for your time today and your contributions to BRL-CAD, Mr. Sayol!
JS: It was a pleasure.
Jordi Sayol is the maintainer of the BRL-CAD Linux release packaging process.
Gala Taylor is a 2012 Google Code-In participant. Although she has used various Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) products over the years, and has contributed example files and tutorials to several projects, this is the first time she has actively participated in the development of FOSS code. Gala is currently in 9th grade, and her favorite computer language is Java.
