RFC: Build on older versions of Ubuntu for GLIBC compatibility

[cprecioso]

The Docker container for ubuntu:20.04 does include the old glibc version. So in theory we could just run the compilation steps for the CI in that image (GitHub Actions allows you to set a Docker container as an environment for a step: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/writing-workflows/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions#jobsjob_idcontainer

Workaround until we fix #2705

[cprecioso]

It seems like it is working in some capacity. But, running in a container is quite a different environment and we need to add many dependencies manually, it feels kinda bad doing apt-get install bla in a GitHub action like we'd actually do on a Dockerfile. It feels like, if we need reproducibility and pinning environment versions, we'd be better off doing so in an environment designed for that (buy into Docker/Dagger/Nix).

Also, getting it to run tests and e2e scripts would be a quite big investment of time. Maybe we can split our approach and do a build step in the container, and then test in a regular runner.

[sodic]

@cprecioso I don't have much experience with GH actions, so I'll let you call the shots.

From what I got, we can't adopt the change because the Ubuntu 20 setup works for building but does not work for e2e tests, and our CI currently does those in the same job.

Also, getting it to run tests and e2e scripts would be a quite big investment of time. Maybe we can split our approach and do a build step in the container, and then test in a regular runner.

Is this time investment large enough to justify exploring with Musl right away?

[cprecioso]

justify exploring with Musl right away

I think we're kind of in the same situation though. Building with Musl would mean either
a. Build GHC in our CI (maybe too much?)
b. Use an alpine or alpine-based docker image in our CI (back to minimal images in which we have to install a lot of stuff)
c. Use Nix (feels like a black hole of hours)

So I'm a bit of at a loss on which next step to recommend

[cprecioso]

RFC at https://www.notion.so/wasp-lang/RFC-Building-binaries-with-wide-libc-support-1f818a74854c809e93f8eddfd2d618b8?pvs=4

[cprecioso]

Closing as done in favor of the PRs #2768 and #2773