Refactoring min-dep tests

[ericspod]

Description

This PR is an experiment at refactoring the CICD tests to reduce code volume in the yaml files and possibly test with a Github-hosted GPU runner. Branch rules will have to be temporarily changed to not expect job by names which are no longer used, and once accepted changed again to add the jobs with the new names back in.

Types of changes

• Non-breaking change (fix or new feature that would not break existing functionality).
• Breaking change (fix or new feature that would cause existing functionality to change).
• New tests added to cover the changes.
• Integration tests passed locally by running ./runtests.sh -f -u --net --coverage.
• Quick tests passed locally by running ./runtests.sh --quick --unittests --disttests.
• In-line docstrings updated.
• Documentation updated, tested make html command in the docs/ folder.