add end-to-end test for running EasyBuild in different Linux distros using containers

.github/workflows/end2end.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+name: End-to-end test of EasyBuild in different distros
+on: [push, pull_request]
+jobs:
+  build_publish:
+    name: End-to-end test
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    strategy:
+      matrix:
+        container:
+          - centos-7.9
+          - centos-8.5
+          - fedora-36
+          - opensuse-15.4
+          - rockylinux-8.8
+          - rockylinux-9.2
+          - ubuntu-20.04
+          - ubuntu-22.04
+      fail-fast: false
+    container:
+      image: ghcr.io/easybuilders/${{ matrix.container }}-amd64
+    steps:
+      - name: Check out the repo
+        uses: actions/checkout@v3
+
+      - name: download and unpack easyblocks and easyconfigs repositories
+        run: |
+          cd $HOME
+          for pkg in easyblocks easyconfigs; do
+              curl -OL https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-${pkg}/archive/develop.tar.gz
+              tar xfz develop.tar.gz
+              rm -f develop.tar.gz
+          done
+
+      - name: Set up environment
+        shell: bash
+        run: |
+          # collect environment variables to be set in subsequent steps in script that can be sourced
+          echo "export PATH=$PWD:$PATH" > /tmp/eb_env
+          echo "export PYTHONPATH=$PWD:$HOME/easybuild-easyblocks-develop:$HOME/easybuild-easyconfigs-develop" >> /tmp/eb_env
+
+      - name: Run commands to check test environment
+        shell: bash
+        run: |
+          cmds=(
+            "whoami"
+            "pwd"
+            "env | sort"
+            "eb --version"
+            "eb --show-system-info"
+            "eb --check-eb-deps"
+            "eb --show-config"
+          )
+          for cmd in "${cmds[@]}"; do
+              echo ">>> $cmd"
+              sudo -u easybuild bash -l -c "source /tmp/eb_env; $cmd"
+          done
+
+      - name: End-to-end test of installing bzip2 with EasyBuild
+        shell: bash
+        run: |
+          sudo -u easybuild bash -l -c "source /tmp/eb_env; eb bzip2-1.0.8.eb --trace --robot"