Linux Support for Compile-Only Workflows

[StefanMaron]

Currently, the CICD workflow requires Windows runners primarily for Business Central Docker container operations during testing. However, for compile-only scenarios (no testing, no
container deployment), the AL compiler can run natively on Linux via .NET, potentially offering significant performance improvements.

If there's interest, I'm willing to contribute a proof-of-concept implementation with performance benchmarks.

[lippertmarkus]

This is already supported, just set useCompilerFolder, runs-on, shell, githubRunner, and githubRunnerShell accordingly: https://github.com/cosmoconsult/Alpaca-PTE-Template/blob/main/.github/AL-Go-Settings.json

With this it runs all jobs on Linux for us.

[StefanMaron]

To change all the other steps it was enough to set this "runs-on": "ubuntu-latest"
Are you using hosted or self-hosted runner?

[StefanMaron]

I see that this is still windows "githubRunner": "windows-latest" by default.
Will it affect "real" builds if I set this to ubuntu?

[aholstrup1]

By "real" builds you mean builds that require a container?

It depends where you define the githubRunner setting. If you define it in the repository settings file it will apply to all AL-Go projects in your repo. However, you should also be able to define it on an project level. So you could have two AL-Go projects within your repository where one runs on windows and another runs on linux.

https://github.com/microsoft/AL-Go/blob/main/Scenarios/settings.md#where-are-the-settings-located

[StefanMaron]

It works now indeed. I have deployments that run compile only (same project) which I wanted to run on linux. Conditional settings do work but not based on build modes, which I tried first. But when I specify the conditional settings based on branches it does work, and the compile only does work on linux.

-- case closed --