Thoughts on bug reporting course
Hi
Just sharing some thoughts on the bug reporting process for Debian and
therefor some input for any related courses.
Last time I tried to do this, I found the process complex, I got tripped
up by seemingly getting the e-mail subject wrong. My 2nd attempt was
more successful.
Would it be possible for any courses to include:
Searching for existing bugs, perhaps an activity to search for a known
bug, maybe we create an example bug that people know it is there for
'training purposes'. so the dev team just in effect ignore it, but the
Academyteam make use of.
So in terms of the actual bug report e-mail, as I said earlier I tripped
up with the subject header, perhaps also the first line(s) of the e-mail.
provide the actual template as part of the course (it is text file anyway)
dissect this to explain what is required and or expected at each section
Perhaps provide a few examples, (linked to the example bug mentioned above)
I think also some sort of explanation on how to include relevant information
Program versions
hardware info
there are probably specific programs we need to use for this,
so programname -v may give info on version
uname -a
neofetch (people can install, but it is not default, as far as I know)
What seems a plethora of other programs give just hardware information,
if we strip this down to a specific set of tools that come by default
in debian that way we can just do for example.
uname -a > kernelinfo.txt
If when reporting we can create a folder say
userinfo ( one of the apps that comes with debian)
Then put all the required info, including a offline bug report in there,
collate everything together, including screen shots) then submit the
report in the correct format, it may make it more successful and
reassure people they have provided the correct information.
finally as another activity we can reply to the bug (which seems to be a
simple e-mail) in a specific way to demonstrate we understand that part
of the course.
Just a thought, hope this helps. We cannot change the bug reporting
process, just explain the process, so it is easier for people to
understand and is more accessible to people.
Paul
--
Paul Sutton, Cert ContSci (Open)
https://personaljournal.ca/paulsutton/
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsutton2019/
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