Re: Tips wanted for debugging and testing Debian
On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 08:42:05PM +0100, Sascha Berkenkamp wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I want to help the debian team and I also read debian.org/devel ! So I
> think I would like to help testing and debugging the debian system in
> order to help to fix some bugs in some programs or debian sepcific
> stuff. I'm not sure if I'm able to do this with mit taks but I'll try
> and learn.
> I've never done something like this, and so I need some tips.
> I don't know how to start! Do I need a second Debian Linux for testing
> on my disk?
No. You can do that with your 'main' Debian installation. Helping out is
real simple: install the 'reportbug' package, and whenever you find
something that isn't quite right, use reportbug to report the bug.
Include as many information as you can in the bug, and be prepared to
answer any questions the maintainer may have. That's already a great
start.
If you want to take this one step further, actually trying to crash an
application in a reproducible way, or trying to narrow down a bug to a
specific set of actions can be really helpful as well; for instance, if
there's a bug that says something like 'If I run this application, it
sometimes segfaults when I close it', and you can narrow it down to 'if
you run it, and use this and this and that option and /then/ close it,
it will segfault', that's very nice.
You can browse our bug database at <http://bugs.debian.org/>. A good way
to start is to search for any bugs in software you regularly use, and to
see if you can help out.
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