> On May 26, 2025, at 5:12 PM, Bernd Böckmann via Freedos-devel > <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > Thanks Jerome,
You are welcome. > I pushed a build of the current kernel to the unstable branch [1]. As there > is no official version 2044 yet, I changed to package version number to > 2043.99.1, with .99 indicating an unstable release, and the .1 indicating the > revision. Hope this is ok. Sounds like a reasonable version number to me. Thank you for creating it. > Must this have a git tag to be included in the interim release? Nope. > > [1]: > https://gitlab.com/FreeDOS/base/kernel/-/tree/945fe8a676bd9c7ac56ac1c599fb7fe100baa376 > > Greetings, Bernd > The following is just a general reminder to everyone who may not be aware of some information regarding OS Builds. At present, the RBE (Release Build Environment for FreeDOS) is what creates OS Release media. There is a completely new version under development that has been put on pause while I work on other more pressing matters (Like FDRepo). The current “in use” version of the RBE is Edition 3. It is fully automated and creates the various release files and reports. While not perfect, it has reduced the process of creating everything required for a complete release to simply running one build script, waiting a little while and finally uploading its output. It is what makes monthly builds possible and consistent. I have the RBE use three different configurations Interim, Candidate and Release. Interim - monthly test builds, labeled Tyymm. For example, next month the Interim build will be for June of 2025 and called T2506. These are almost always released on the 1st of the month. These builds also use a different theme for the Primary FreeDOS Installer (FDI) which is used on CD and USB install media. This theme is used to assist in calling attention to the fact that a test version of the OS is being installed. Candidate - These builds are the final test builds prior to an OS release. They are labeled with the upcoming OS release version plus an RCn. The RC is short for Release Candidate and is followed by an incremental number for each RC created. It uses the normal theme that will be used on the actual final release of the new OS version. With few exceptions, these are basically frozen from any but critical updates and are meant to verify all works as intended for a new release. Release - when an RC is deemed satisfactory, the RC is removed from the version identifier and it becomes the Final Release for the new OS version. When the RBE creates one of these three builds, part of the process involves assembling all of the packages. For Edition 3 (the currently used RBE version), it fetches the lists of what packages to include on the different media from the FDI project. After those lists have been processed, it clones all of the relevant packages from the FreeDOS archive on GitLab. When creating an Interim build, the RBE will check if the project contains an “unstable” branch. If one exists, it will use the files in that branch to generate a package for the build. If an “unstable” branch does not exist, it will use the master branch. For a Candidate build, it will look for and prefer a candidate branch of the various projects. For a Release build, it will only use files in the default branch of the projects. Generally, the default branch is called the “master” branch. Other types of builds are possible by assigning a different branch to prefer in the configuration for the RBE. However, only the there mentioned are currently in use to determine what branch is preferred for a build. Plans are for version 4 of the RBE to also support the ability to use tags and build specific previous versions of the OS release media. Of course, this will be limited to the tags in the various projects. In other words, (maybe) 1.3, (definitely) 1.4 and later. Tags related to the versions of the OS release were added on mass to all of the projects in the FreeDOS GitLab Archive using FreeDOS Version Control System utility (aka FDVCS). FDVCS is a utility whose primary function is preserve file timestamps when using a git repository. This utility also performs other tasks related to working with Git. Such as simplifying the process of adding a specific Tag to hundreds of projects on mass. Anyway, while the RBE is cloning all of the relevant branches for the build, it will perform some validation and turn them into packages. While this does not even come close to scratching the surface of the actions performed by the RBE during a build, it is a reasonable generalization of what files are used for the different types of OS builds. :-) > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
