Re: [BuildStream] Switching to buildbox-run for local builds

[Chandan Singh <chandan chandansingh net>]

Hi Jürg,

Thanks for the write up, and more importantly for your efforts towards
making buildbox-run work nicely.

Definitely +1 from my side.

One question comes to mind - have you observed any differences in
performance using the buildbox backend compared to the bwrap one?

> Shall we immediately drop the bwrap backend or shall we have a period
> where the bwrap backend is still available with BST_FORCE_BACKEND=bwrap
> in case we discover temporary issues? I don't think such parallel
> support is crucial as, in the case of a blocking issue, users could
> switch back to an older master commit until the issue has been
> resolved. However, I also don't see a problem keeping the bwrap backend
> around for a short while and dropping the related code in a few weeks
> if that would ease the transition.
>
> Any users of BuildStream master are welcome to give it a try right now,
> of course, by setting BST_FORCE_SANDBOX=buildbox-run. Let me know if
> you encounter any issues.

I'd be in favor of keeping the bwrap backend around for a little
while. This is mostly to allow for a smoother fallback in case there
are any issues, and for performance comparisons. I understand that one
could fall back to an older version, but it'll be slightly nicer to be
able to compare master branches in both cases. This is not a big issue
but given that it doesn't cost us much to keep it for a while, I'd be
in favor of that.

Time-wise, maybe we can give it a month or so?

Cheers,
Chandan