Is Hosted Continous Integration Suitable for C++?

For reasons that will hopefully will apparent in future posts, I became interested in using a hosted service to perform continuous integration of my C++ projects. There are many offerings out there, in fact the sheer number can become bewildering (Travis-CI, Circle-CI, drone.io, just to start). After trying a couple of them it became apparent that most, if not all, of them provide virtual machines based on Ubuntu 12.04 (aka Precise Pangolin).

A reasonable platform choice for most purposes, but an unfortunate one for me. Most of my code uses C++11, which was poorly supported in that version of Ubuntu. I also tend to use recent versions of the boost libraries, and the GNU auto configuration tools.

I will probably be discussing soon whether the choice of automake is a poor one. But the choice of libraries and compilers I will defend, not on any technical basis, simply because my hobby projects are supposed to be fun. That usually involves not limiting myself to use well-proven, and stable platforms, as I often argue professionally.

With this in mind, the next posts will describe my failures (and successes hopefully) trying to use hosted environments for a small C++11 project. I will be writing them as I try different solutions, so do not expect polished and well reasoned conclusions soon. Instead, join me in a journey of toil, suffering, failures, successes, and ultimately discovery (gulp, I hope).