Re: Build and run gnome-shell in a Docker container

[Tristan Van Berkom <tristan vanberkom codethink co uk>]

Hi !

On Sun, 2017-09-24 at 16:55 +0200, Reto Kaiser wrote:
> > On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 3:34 PM, Sébastien Wilmet <swilmet gnome org> wrote:
> > It will normally be possible to use BuildStream in the near future (or
> > does it already work?) for running gnome-shell built from git.
> >
> > https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/BuildStream/
> >
> > BuildStream is the future!
>
> Wow, very nice! Having a pre-built environment available will make
> everything much easier.
> Maybe BuildStream could also be used to create a container filesystem
> to be imported and run with docker or systemd-nspawn.
> Thanks for sharing the link, I will try it out!

So things are in a bit of a state of flux at the moment, while there is
reasonable documentation about BuildStream itself, there will need to
be a go to wiki page for a quick getting started experience for using
it to build GNOME, but we have to iron out a few kinks first.

Currently, it is possible to build a "project" which was converted from
the current jhbuild modulesets (these are converted continuously on a
cron job, but it's a bit fragile, sometimes I have to slap the server
and make sure it keeps converting :)).

That is currently available here:
   https://gnome7.codethink.co.uk/gnome-modulesets.git


In terms of running built software, it is already possible to run
simple application in a `bst shell` environment, but this is merely a
bubblewrap sandbox shell and is not really suitable for testing deeply
integrated things like the GNOME session or GDM.

Ulitmately we will have an option for generating a bootable image which
you can boot in a VM or on hardware (we've tested this before, only not
yet on the said converted modulesets above, probably there will be a
couple of kinks in the integration to make a booting system).


Regarding generation of container filesystems, you could probably put
it together now using `bst checkout` and adding any extra frills that
might be needed... but if there is something more convenient we can do
for specific technologies like Docker (such as automatically generating
any metadata that the target tech might enjoy), we will be interested
in creating plugins to help automate these things.

Cheers,
    -Tristan