Open Build Service 1.7 released

by Adrian Schröter posted on 9th Feb 2010

Today the team released the latest version of the Open Build Service, a tool that provides software developers with the ability to create and release software for openSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise and other Linux distributions, including Fedora, Red Hat, Mandriva, Debian and Ubuntu. The Open Build Service allows developers to create packages, software stacks or even whole distributions as well as use and integrate them with other open source components.

This release brings beside bug fixes also some new features back ported from master branch. The new features makes the initial setup easier and offers optionally also authentification against a LDAP server.

Users can download the OBS Appliance as USB, hard disc -, VMware image or Live CD. The new administration interface allows the intial setup via your web browser with this release.

Key features of the 1.7 release:

  • A new attribute system - A flexible system that stores information related to projects or packages. This gives a good overview and enables teams or individuals to use the Open Build Service as database for their information.
  • Faster build speeds – The SAT Solver speeds up the dependency calculation by factor of 1,000, which means a package change submitted to the build service starts building in seconds instead of minutes.
  • Customized branding - For local instances of the openSUSE Build Service, this release offers the ability to add custom branding and the Web user interface (UI) now supports individual themes.
  • An Open Build Service server appliance - Built as hard disk image and live CD, this appliance allows users to run the system from a USB stick and just replace it with a new version on update without losing the data they have submitted to the server.
  • In addition to bug fixes, other improvements include a request system that now offers a review mechanism, improved status information (package build dependencies, repository status, etc.), and improved merge handling of sources for automated conflict resolution.