report on testing "lib" toolchain

[wildcat_paris]

Hello Igor, hello buddies,

[ o.k. ] Create and sign [ Armbian_4.5_Lamobo-r1_Debian_wheezy_4.2.3.zip ]
[ o.k. ] Runtime [ 43 min ]

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 306M oct.  19 01:16 Armbian_4.5_Lamobo-r1_Debian_wheezy_4.2.3.zip

(VM host : amd64 Ubuntu 15.10 8 GB 4 cores)

it looks I made it, well, not me, the 'Armbian team' scripts The base of the Armbian "toolchain" is a very serious work/process.
 
1/
 
I guess 8 GB of RAM is a minimum for the VM. All my other tries (4GB) ended with a failure when applying "Armbian" on top of the "distro".
note : other failure reported "upstart" as a problem (or a memory issue as the VM was beginning to fill the swap), otherwise the terminal to run "compile.sh" was killed (missing memory? gnome WM issue?)
 
- The more cores to compile, the more RAM needed (unsure if it applies to applying "Armbian" on top of "distro")
- Probably, logs are needed to trace any issue (see below)
 
 
2/
 
One of my tests was on a VM with "netinstall" (very lightweight distro) jessie.
 
some prerequisite deb packages for the scripts to work: I needed to add to the VM : device-tree-compiler (of course), ntpdate, dialog, looptools
 
with Debian jessie host, I needed to add the repo for the cross compile (Ubuntu 14.04 already has the cross tools)

### cross tools for debian jessie host VM (not in standard repo)
deb http://emdebian.org/tools/debian/ jessie main

3/
 
In case of a failure: I needed to unmount the loopback device and wipe "rm -rf lib/ output/"
if the case the loopback is locked, my only chance was to reboot the VM.
(the Gnome WM just popups a file manager window with the loopback device files when the loopback is created, might be a lock and a failure cause; otherwise, more "lsof" investigation needed if I have time to get the lock reason)
 
4/
 
the shell scripts are well formated, easy enough to understand.
My idea: adding a logging in the script to understand the issue with more fine grain, in case of a failure. Would you need it?
 
 
Arr! Monday already... paid work.
@allbuddies: Nice week
 
Guillaume