Check system libraries build with CI/CD

[dawkagaming]

Hello,

I am a CI job to check whenever the usage of system libraries break the compilation, it might get useful when doing some bigger changes with dependencies.

Thanks,
Dawid Kulas
SP9SKA

[aethersdr-agent]

Hi @dawkagaming — thanks for putting this together! Adding a dedicated check-system-libs-linux job to guard the USE_SYSTEM_* build paths is genuinely useful, so it's worth getting this green. 🙂

What failed

CI failed on the new job this PR adds (check-system-libs-linux), at its very first step — Install main dependencies. Because that step errored, every later step (Install system library replacements, Checkout, Configure, Build) was skipped, so none of your actual CMake/rtmidi wiring was even exercised yet. In other words: this isn't a compile error in the code — it's the workflow YAML in .github/workflows/ci.yml that needs a fix.

Why the dependency step fails

On GitHub-hosted ubuntu-latest runners, apt has to run as root via sudo, and the package index isn't guaranteed to be fresh. The current step:

- name: Install main dependencies
  run: apt -U install -y \
    cmake \
    ...

has two problems:

1. No sudo → apt can't acquire the dpkg lock and bails out with a permission error before installing anything.
2. apt -U install → -U isn't a valid apt option, and there's no apt update first, so the index can be stale.

Suggested fix

Update the index once, then install with sudo. A run: | block also sidesteps the line-continuation issues below:

- name: Install main dependencies
  run: |
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install -y \
      cmake pkgconf \
      qt6-base-dev qt6-multimedia-dev qt6-serialbus-dev qt6-websockets-dev \
      qtkeychain-qt6-dev libfftw3-dev libopus-dev qt6-shadertools-dev \
      qt6-base-private-dev libhidapi-dev libonnxruntime-dev libpipewire-0.3-dev

- name: Install system library replacements
  run: |
    sudo apt-get install -y \
      libmspack-dev librtmidi-dev libasound2-dev zlib1g-dev \
      libmosquitto-dev libliquid-dev

Two things you'll hit right after (once the install is fixed)

Since Configure/Build were skipped, CI hasn't reached them — but a couple of spots in the diff will bite next:

• Trailing space after a \ line-continuation in the Configure step (run: cmake . \ — note the space after the backslash). A backslash only continues a line when it's the last character, so this breaks the continuation. Using a run: | block (as above) avoids the whole class of problem.
• run: make -C . — the tree uses an out-of-source build elsewhere in this workflow. Prefer cmake --build . (or cmake -B build + cmake --build build) to match the rest of ci.yml and stay generator-agnostic.

None of this touches your rtmidi change itself — it's all in the new job definition, so it should be a quick turnaround. Once Install main dependencies succeeds, we'll finally see the USE_SYSTEM_RTMIDI=ON configure/build actually run, which is the whole point of the job. Thanks again for contributing this! 73

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_{🤖 aethersdr-agent · cost: $4.8387 · model: claude-opus-4-8}

[dawkagaming]

Okay, it works as expected now.

[jensenpat]

Holding for next week's release.

[ten9876]

First-pass triage review (not exhaustive — surfacing blockers to keep this moving):

Great idea — a system-libs build guard is genuinely useful. A couple of things to sort before this can go green:

Blockers

• No apt-get update before the installs. The official debian:sid image ships with an empty /var/lib/apt/lists, so apt install will fail with "Unable to locate package …" until the index is refreshed. Please add an apt-get update (or apt update) as the first step, or fold it into the install commands.
• apt -U install — -U isn't a recognized option for apt install (it's not --update/--upgrade); as written apt is likely to reject it. Did you mean to run apt update first and then a plain apt install -y …? Please confirm the intent here.

Have you seen this job pass on a fork run? If it's green somewhere, I may be wrong about the base image's apt state — a link to a successful run would settle it.

Secondary notes

• cmake --build build has no -j; consider -j$(nproc) to match the other jobs and cut CI time (this config builds liquid-dsp etc. from source).
• The job isn't path-gated, so it runs a full from-source build on every PR. That's fine as a safety net, just flagging the cost — could gate on build-system/dependency paths if it proves heavy.
• Nit: trailing whitespace after - name: Checkout.

Thanks for adding this!