[Bf-committers] New Linux build environment

[Sergey Sharybin]

Hey everyone,

Last several evenings i was working on a new Linux build environment which
is now finished and hooked up to the buildbot.

The new environment is based on Debian Jessie which uses GLibc-2.19. This
libc version was released around February 2014, meaning it's 2 years old.
In theory all distros newer than that will run new Blender builds just
happily.

This environment also let us to switch from Gcc-4.7 to Gcc-5.3, which
should result in better overall Blender performance. For example, comparing
my favorite test from last week which is spatial split BVH building on the
agent scene gores down from 106sec to 84sec by just using Blender from a
newer libc/gcc.

So if your system has libc newer than 2.19 you should totally consider
switching to a new builds.

Older libc builds will still be supported for as long as there's no
technical stoppers for that or we don't have audience of those builds
anymore.

One more thing, i would love to hear if someone else can confirm measurable
speedup on his production files with new builds :)

Anyway, that's it for now,
Have a nice day!

-- 
With best regards, Sergey Sharybin