recently the dDevelopers of the AlmaLinux distribution presented a new build system called ALBS (AlmaLinux Build System), which already has been used in the formation of The versions AlmaLinux 8.6 and 9.0 prepared for x86_64, Aarch64, PowerPC ppc64le and s390x architectures.
The build system Presentado is based on CloudLinux developments, which develops its own commercial distribution based on the base of the RHEL package.
Here at the AlmaLinux OS Foundation we believe that making it easy for community members to build packages and images is a critical part of growing and ensuring a healthy enterprise Linux ecosystem. AlmaLinux is completely open source and is supported by a growing list of members who help improve each release. To that end, we started working a long time ago to make sure that our build system is also transparent and open for use by any organization that is interested in building a better Linux distribution.
Today we are pleased to announce the first fruits of our efforts, ALBS, The AlmaLinux Build System.
For those unaware of CloudLinux should know that he founded the AlmaLinux Project and is a founding member of the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, a nonprofit organization designed to thrive in a neutral, community-driven environment using a governance model similar to the Fedora Project.
To confirm the commitment to the fully open and transparent development model initially declared for the community, the build system code is now fully open and all AlmaLinux build stages are controlled by the community.
About AlmaLinux Build System
The system ALBS focuses on automating distribution build, package building, package testing, digital signature generation, and publishing compiled packages to public repositories. The system is aimed at processing all stages of the formation of the distribution as a whole to eliminate errors caused by human factor. The build system continues the evolution of CloudLinux's internal build system, which has been in use since 2012.
In addition to RPM packages, the DEB format is supported and tools are provided to automate the rebranding and modification of rebuild packages. Including the system can be used to create arbitrary distributions based on Ubuntu and Debian.
Today we are adding the next stage of transparency to our build processes by freeing up anonymous read-only access to our build system. This allows anyone to see what packages are currently being built, when a particular package was built, when a package build failed, and all logs associated with the build process for each and every package..
Builds are tested using the Jenkins continuous integration system. The source code of the packages that are created is downloaded from the Git repository.
For all, anonymous access to the AlmaLinux build system is open, which allows you to track all stages of the distribution build. Through the interface provided, it can be determined which packages are currently being built, when the package of interest was created, and which packages could not be built.
A full build log with details is available for analysis. at the level of individual packages. Currently, access is limited to monitoring the system, but the plan is to release role-based access control (RBAC) in late July and allow community contributors and maintainers to build their own ALBS packages.
In the future, it is also expected to support build verification through the CodeNotary service, support for the COPR build service, support for namespaces to provide projects and organizations with the infrastructure to build their packages, and preparation of tools to automate the build and publish virtual machine and container images.
In addition to building the distribution, ALBS is also used to generate and release corrective updates (errata) and digitally sign packages.
Finally, if you are interested in being able to know more about it, you can consult the details in the following link