Re: kdebug defaults/build options
On August 19, 2011 02:28:39 AM Diggory Hardy wrote:
> > [sorry for the late response]
> >
> > If the only symptom was the huge log file then it could be argued that:
> > had debug messages been disabled, there wouldn't have been a problem...
> > :D
>
> That makes sense, but
I was just joking around... it is much better, imo, to get rid of the source
of the messages (fix the buggy code or turn off messages by default) where
feasible than toss them into the bit bucket via redirection to /dev/null or
logrotate.
> (a) I disabled everything in kdebugdialog and truncated .xsession-errors to
> 100kB a few days ago, and now it's 16MB so still some traffic (over half
> from kio_xxx). That size of log file isn't an issue (for me at least),
> though most of the entries appear pretty uninteresting (e.g. HTTP
> requests).
That's good to hear. The box I was having .xsession-errors trouble with has
been pretty well behaved during the current 13 day KDE session. The log file
is only 1.2M and a large chunk of it is:
QSslSocket: cannot resolve SSLv2_client_method
QSslSocket: cannot resolve SSLv2_server_method
true
(which appears to be a consequence of SSHing to the box and running kmail).
While that is much better than having to restart the session every couple of
days, one can't read too much into it thought since during the last 13 days
the only KDE apps started have been 4.6 Konqueror and Kate locally 4-5 times
each, K3b from KDE 3.5.10 (local build of 3.5.10+qt-copy) a few times, and
Kmail remotely about a half dozen times. A more useful number may be 116k in
4hrs for the current pure Unstable KDE session on this box, comprised mostly
of one-time startup messages.
> (b) many debug options are active by default, so new users are going to
> keep coming across nuisance messages (either in terms of .xsession-errors
> size or output on command-line when running things like kwrite).
So, turning off everything in kdebugdialog didn't silence kwrite on the comand
line? It doesn't for Kate, but all messages appear to be a result of actual
bugs.
> Any more thoughts on how much debug output is reasonable? Obviously it
> makes some sense for errors and warnings to be reported, but a lot of the
> output is only "trace" type debug output which is often only useful to
> people debugging or optimising applications so IMO shouldn't be enabled by
> default (although feel free to disagree if you have a use for such
> output). Of my current 160000 line log file, 2600 lines are matched by
> 'egrep -i warn' and another 800 by 'egrep -i error'.
Turn off everything. :)
> Where does that leave us? Put up with it as is? Rebuild without debugging
> output enabled? Just disable all entries in kdebugdialog by default (this
> solves my issues anyway)? Ask KDE devs what their intentions are (maybe
> there are some KDE devs on this list)?
Debian should default to disabling all messages via kdebugdialog.
To accommodate any desire for packages to have different behaviour depending
on a Unstable, Testing, or a Stable based box, it may be beneficial to adjust
the kdebugdialog settings at install-time. Simply putting "DisableAll=true" at
the start of /usr/share/kde4/config/kdebugrc, or not, depending on the
contents of /etc/debian_version and admin input (requiring the use of dpkg-
reconfigure if they ever want to change the default) is probably good enough.
- Bruce
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