The roads I take...

One thing is closely following after the other, now that I have synched up even the master configuration the the SeaMonkey buildbots with what Firefox has.

First I got L10n nightlies triggering again (and in a much better way, actually), then they did even gain automated updates, and after that I started experimenting with running what we call "packaged tests".

What that means is that all files for running our test suites get packaged up and uploaded to FTP, from where any machine can pull and run them. With this configuration, we can make test suites run in parallel if idle machines are available, and therefore shorten the time until all of them are run complete. Also, they show up as distinct columns on tinderbox so one test suite failing doesn't turn the whole unit test column orange but only the one for that suite, and failures indifferent suite can more easily be tracked individually.

Our only tree running tests right now is the SeaMonkey2.0 one, and I now have turned on running tests that way there - with the exception of xpcshell tests, as mailnews tests have a remaining issue that needs to be solved first. The old "unit test" columns now only do the builds, package up those and the tests, trigger the other test runs, and then run "make check" (binary tests, cannot be packaged) and the xpcshell tests. Everything else runs in different columns.

As a future step, we might be even able to not create special builds for the test runs, but have them run on builds that are done for the other columns anyhow.