Ever since releasing the AstLinux Development Environment several years ago the AstLinux Developers have spent a significant amount of time supporting new users who are (in many cases) building their first image with only minor customizations - slightly different hardware support, different Asterisk versions, etc.
The trouble is, cross compiling anything is an extremely complicated task. To be honest I'm surprised it works as often as it does. When you step back and really look at what's going on it all starts to seem like magic. Many people working in this space will openly admit to being practitioners of vodoo or one of the other dark arts.
After a brief e-mail exchange last week Lonnie Abelbeck and I decided to do something about this. What if we could host a system with a web interface to build custom AstLinux images for users on demand? What if this system could cache previous image configurations and save them for future users? What if this system could be easily adapted to meet future configuration needs?
Amazingly, barely a week later, Lonnie has provided all of these features and more. Available immediately, the AstLinux Custom Build Engine is online to build custom AstLinux images that meet your needs.
In an effort to keep bots, crawlers, and robots in general out we've added simple username and password authentication. The secret is out and the username is "admin" with a password of "astlinux". AstLinux users will recognize these credentials from the default administrative web interface provided with AstLinux. These users will also recognize the familiar tabbed interface.
Go ahead and give it a try!
These interfaces look alike because they share the same DNA. Lonnie Abelbeck has done a great job creating a build system to serve our users now and in the future. Thanks again Lonnie!
P.S. - Lonnie just found this post from me, dated 8/25/2005, where I talk about something that looks a lot like build.astlinux.org. If only Lonnie were around back then to help me actually create such a beast!
