Re: I want to help.
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On Tuesday 01 June 2004 07.27, Thomas Shea wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> Well I want to help out Debian, but I several problems.
[...]
> I also tend to be very good at
> finding workarounds for software and hardware issues.
Well, you could certainly look at the bugs, then.
<http://www.debian.org/Bugs/> is the bug database, and you can use
search criteria to find books that need help.
Perhaps you may want to start with bugs that the maintainer of a
software package does now know what to do with:
<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?which=tag&data=moreinfo&repeatmerged=no>
<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?which=tag&data=help&repeatmerged=no>
<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?which=tag&data=unreproducible&repeatmerged=no>
But before you start, if you haven't done so already, read up about how
Debian works (<http://www.debian.org/devel/> is a good starting point
and should keep you busy a week or so. The most important documents
from a technical view are the policy manual, the Developer's Reference
and the New Maintainer's Guide. To understand what Debian is about, you
should read the ideological documents, especially the Social Contract
and the DSFG. And, of course, if you're going to help out with bugs,
read the documents about the bug tracking system.)
IMHO, it is better if you concentrate on one issue and track it down
until the bug can be closed (or at least, until you have submitted a
patch which you think fixes the bug, or you can confirm that the bug
report is bogus and should be closed) instead of trying to cover as
much ground as possible. Do your research - if a bug is tagged
'moreinfo' or 'help', it is probable that the 'obvious' solution (if
there is one) does not work for some reason. Use the mailing list
archive (<http://lists.debian.org> - but google is a good search tool
for this, I've found), since sometimes relevant things don't make their
way into the bug report.
Another thing you could do is ask on the #debian-bugs IRC channel
(Freenode network) if there's a bug that needs attention. Some Debian
developer may hang out there and hope that an innocent comes by
offering some work...
greetings
- -- vbi
- --
get my gpg key here: http://fortytwo.ch/gpg/92082481
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