Add arm32v7 builder

[gleich]

Create a new file called arm.Dockerfile that allows you to run it on arm32v7 CPUs such as the Raspberry Pi's CPU.

[nhooyr]

Could you elaborate on what the current problem is and how this helps?

[gleich]

At the moment the docker image for code-server only works on x86 processors (desktop processor) and returns the following error when you try to run on an arm32v7 processor (such as the Raspberry Pi):

standard_init_linux.go:211: exec user process caused "exec format error"

This is due to the fact that the docker image is built on an x86 processor. In this case, we don't even need to change the base image thanks to the fact that node has an arm image already available. So, in theory, this adds support for running code-server on a Raspberry Pi!

One problem with this is that in order for it to work on a arm32v7 processor it needs to be built on an arm32v7 processor. Sadly github-actions and travis-ci both don't support you to run your CI on arm32 CPUs. There are a few solutions to this tough:

1. Run a Jenkins server on a Raspberry Pi that you or someone on the team buys. I made a docker image that comes with Jenkins and docker installed https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/mattgleich/arm32v7jenkins-docker
2. Try building it on an x86 with a CPU arm emulation tool such as QEMU

I am going to work to get this working and will submit a PR once done

[sr229]

@nhooyr we tried building it over at Drone but it keeps OOMing, we're still investigating what we can do with the build toolchain since it should work under normal circumstances since we run with 128GB RAM in Drone Cloud

[nhooyr]

That is unfortunate news. Not sure what we can do.

[nhooyr]

https://discourse.drone.io/t/drone-cloud-arm32-ooms-when-building/6622

[nhooyr]

Ah so we need to compile for ARM32 on ARM64.

[sr229]

I'll see on how to compile the project using 32-bit libs but AFAIK documentation to do it for Node.js is quite scarce but I'll keep looking.

[sr229]

@nhooyr AFAIK we should be compiling this on a 32-bit capable container, preferrably Raspbian, in a ARM64 environment (Raspbian can run 32-bit userland against a 64 bit kernel so it shouldn't be an issue).

[aptalca]

@sr229 I'm with linuxserver.io and we publish a code-server image. We use native builders with our jenkins and have a bunch of arm32v7 devices. If you point me to your specific build instructions, I'll try to build it and let you know.

[aptalca]

I tried a build on an odroid xu4, running armbian buster (arm32v7), kernel 4.14.165.
Ran in an ubuntu bionic docker container with node 12.15.0 and yarn 1.21.1
Followed the steps from https://github.com/cdr/code-server#development
yarn watch resulted in the following error:

root@3d29582a8c4c:/tmp/vscode/src/vs/server# yarn watch
yarn run v1.21.1
$ cd ../../../ && yarn watch
$ gulp watch --max_old_space_size=4095
[15:29:46] Node flags detected: --max_old_space_size=4095
[15:29:46] Respawned to PID: 8612

<--- Last few GCs --->

[8612:0x1e47950]     2561 ms: Mark-sweep 20.7 (29.5) -> 20.7 (29.5) MB, 52.8 / 0.0 ms  (average mu = 0.606, current mu = 0.001) allocation failure GC in old space requested
[8612:0x1e47950]     2614 ms: Mark-sweep 20.7 (29.5) -> 20.7 (22.0) MB, 53.4 / 0.0 ms  (average mu = 0.437, current mu = 0.001) last resort GC in old space requested
[8612:0x1e47950]     2669 ms: Mark-sweep 20.7 (22.0) -> 20.7 (22.0) MB, 54.6 / 0.0 ms  (average mu = 0.278, current mu = 0.001) last resort GC in old space requested


<--- JS stacktrace --->

==== JS stack trace =========================================

Security context: 0x35b0e235 <JSObject>
    0: builtin exit frame: compileFunction(this=0x2b042315 <JSGlobal Object>,0x2fd0a595 <JSArray[5]>,0x2fd0a585 <JSArray[0]>,0x25340275 <undefined>,0x253403bd <false>,0x25340275 <undefined>,0,0,0x2fd1f5e9 <String[#53]: /tmp/vscode/node_modules/typescript/lib/typescript.js>,0xb0580089 <Very long string[7797825]>,0x2b042315 <JSGlobal Object>)

    1: _compile [0x4407861d] [internal/modules/cjs/loader....

FATAL ERROR: CALL_AND_RETRY_LAST Allocation failed - JavaScript heap out of memory
Aborted (core dumped)
error Command failed with exit code 134.
info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/run for documentation about this command.
error Command failed with exit code 134.
info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/run for documentation about this command.

[nhooyr]

@aptalca yea thats the same error @sr229 was getting. We need to cross compile on 64bit arm for 32bit arm.

[aptalca]

Oh I see now, my mistake. I hadn't read the linked thread on drone and incorrectly assumed drone was using arm64 builders for arm32 work and that cross compile was the issue. That's why I tried on native arm32.