[Binary releases] Create a script that will containerise the DEB build process

[paulkatsoulakis]

Feature idea summary

Document the required activities that will generate a DEB package for a distribution, then create a scriptlet that will establish a container and execute the workflow within the container environment.

The scriptlet will determine the architecture and distro details, that will then determine the distro the DEB package is for.

References #5963

Expected behaviour

[paulkatsoulakis]

The mechanism for containerising the build process is ready and under testing since last week.
What we did is take advantage of Travis CI and automate the process of:

1. Create an LXC container, for the distribution we wish to build RPMs on
2. Setup all required packages on that distribution
3. Run build process and generate contents for DEB package
4. Publish the resulting DEB package to packagecloud.io

Currently we intent to support packages for the following distributions:

• Ubuntu
  disco - amd64 / x86
  cosmic - amd64 / x86
  bionic - amd64 / x86
  artful - amd64 / x86

• Debian
  Buster - amd64 / x86
  Stretch - amd64 / x86
  Jessie - amd64 / x86
  Wheezy - amd64 / x86

At the moment the CI workflow has been implemented, we are still in the process of fine tuning the build process. The idea is to reuse the currently available configurations from contrib and then there will be another iteration to get these files up to date

[gvengel]

It would be awesome if you'd support all the Ubuntu releases currently under maintenance support by Canonical, particularly the LTS releases as these see heavy adoption. Many users will stay on an older LTS release waiting until it's no longer supported before upgrading to the next LTS.

Supported LTS releases:
bionic
xenial

Supported interim releases:
disco
cosmic

For more details see the Ubuntu Release Cycle.

[paulkatsoulakis]

Hello @gvengel, thanks for your info.
I totally agree with you, you should actually check out the refined list mentioned on issue #6036

We mention:

Ubuntu (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases)

Ubuntu 14.04.6 LTS (Trusty Tahr)
Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS (Xenial Xerus)
Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (Bionic Beaver)
Ubuntu 19.04 (Disco Dingo) **latest

and

Debian (https://www.debian.org/releases/ and https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/)

Debian 7 (Wheezy)
Debian 8 (Jessie)
Debian 9 (Stretch)
Debian 10 (buster) **Not released yet

Let me know if that covers your comment or if i miss anything