git-annex

[imzMember]

git-annex for Android — http://git-annex.branchable.com/design/assistant/blog/day_195__real_android_app/ :

When installed, this will open a terminal in which you have access to git-annex and all the git commands and busybox commands as well. No webapp yet, but command line users should feel right at home.

 

http://git-annex.branchable.com/install/Android/ on installing and building it yourself.

 

[daithib8Member]

Needs a chroot to build which would need to be created as root (according to the instructions).

[imzMember]

Needs a chroot to build which would need to be created as root (according to the instructions).

So, in future, it might be reasonable for F-Droid to make the default building process like this, isn’t it? (I.e., make a chroot, drop privileges, setup there the specific build environment for this very app, and then build it).

This reminds me of the tools I’m familiar with at ALT Linux: to build the packages for the package repository Sisyphus, the hasher tool is used which prepares the chroot with a privileged helper, then creates the build environment according to the build deps from the spec-file (RPM), and then build the package.

Of course, this tool or another similar one can be adapted to be used to build APKs for the F-Droid repository: it just needs to extract the build deps of the app being built (hopefully, they can be formally written down, say, as a set of Debian packages, or Sisyphus packages), and then run the build process.

I’m writing this down in the hope that these ideas might be implemented in future by those who’d like to develop F-Droid further.

[CiaranGModerator]

So, in future, it might be reasonable for F-Droid to make the default building process like this, isn’t it? (I.e., make a chroot, drop privileges, setup there the specific build environment for this very app, and then build it).

It already does (and has for years) go way beyond that, by creating a completely clean virtual machine for each build.

[imzMember]

It already does (and has for years) go way beyond that, by creating a completely clean virtual machine for each build.

Oh, I see. Thank you for telling this, and I’m sorry I hadn’t learned this before writing down those idea of mine.

I thought that if creating a custom build environment (in a chroot) is a problem, all things must have been built in the same build environment.

Hmm, so then I’m curious what exactly is missing in F-Droid’s build system which makes it impossible to build git-annex. Perhaps, it’s not possible–in the F-Droid package metadata–to specify the custom deps that should be installed in the build environment from Debian or Hackage? (Yes, I see, it could be that installing from Hackage could be disallowed in order to be sure that everything gets built from the source code..) Or perhaps patching the Haskell libs can’t be specified in the package’s metadata?.. (But, if I have understood the build instructions correctly, the patching doesn’t require root, and hence can be done during a normal unprivileged build procedure.)

[lkmlMember]

i’d like to second that idea to integrate git-annex into f-droid.

i’m not yet familiar w/the build procedure within f-droid. following this thread it seems i’m not the only one. any doc pointers or intro from an insider? that’d be highly appreciated.

thx

[krtModerator]

See https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

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