Re: Is there any issue with reportbug in unstabl or bugs.debian.org?
On Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:21:30 -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
I will try to be very brief to avoid getting you extenuated ;-)
> Camaleón wrote:
(about Flash Player support in ARM platform...)
>> (although it seems that ARM already supports Flash Player¹)
>
> I did not know that ARM now had closed source proprietary binary blobs
> for it. As you can see ARM truly is a first class architecture. :-)
Glad you finally feel like a first class citizen :-)
(here comes more about the ability of browsers to send computer
information via http and thus exposing a possible hole for threats...
omitted because is not relevant at all for the main issue of this thread)
>> But this is not about "Debian" but "bug reporting" for Debian.
>>
>> And reporting bugs can happen on any platform. You can be running
>> Debian but having the system at a completely unbootable stage nd you
>> need to report a bug in a windows/macos/solaris machine... what to do
>> then if reportbug is not available under those systems? Manually gather
>> the required data and write an e-mail?
>
> Yes! That is exactly correct. You are expected to write an email.
(...)
And _I do know_ how to do that and _I do know_ about that's a possibility.
(this was exposed by me in my first post on this thread)
But this is no about _me_ (I _do know_ how to do these things and to do)
but all of the users that come to Debian and have to deal with the
current system for reporting bugs which translates into reportbug or e-
mail. Reportbug is nice but it has to be installed on the system you are
reporting against and manually composing a preformatted e-mail to report
a bug is not an easy task. If we want users do not report bugs, failures
or wishes I'd say we are on the right track: the current system is
discouraging :-)
(about using a centralized web-based bugzilla-alike system for bug
tracking)
> I reject the argument that whatever is most popular, whatever is used by
> the most people, is the best method just because it has the most users
> using it.
I did not say that, it's you that interpreted in such a way.
I think that a bug reporting system that works for other "big" open
source projects (like kernel.org, gnome, kde, mozilla, SuSE, RedHat/
Fedora, Ubuntu, Archlinux...) can be also of our interest. And I don't
want to put the focus specially in Bugzilla but any other tracking system
that is centralized and accesible via http (i.e., track, mantis, fossil
or even Launchpad that seems to integrate well with our debbug system).
> And since Debian isn't the most popular operating system on the planet I
> dare say that all of us Debian users have also rejected that too.
> Otherwise we would not be running Debian but would instead be running a
> more popular operating system.
I am not aware of any poll asking debian users for their preferred bug
reporting tools and that would be a great idea >:-)
(mixed stuff...)
>> > To be clear I have never opposed having a web interface to submit
>> > bugs to the BTS. I however think the best part of the BTS is the
>> > ability to use email to interface to it. Email is so simple and
>> > pervasive that I can't see ever wanting to use any other method.
>>
>> Maybe you did not read well what I said before.
>
> I was reacting to and disagreeing with the premise that a web form can
> run processes that access the local filesystem.
(...)
I did not say a word about "web forms" but the possibilities it provides
the use of http protocol by any means.
> Along the way there was discussion about reportbug crashing. I believe
> the standard reportbug to be rock solid. You believe it to be terrible
> unreliable and buggy.
(...)
Hey, stop here.
I say it crashes very often (it does, and that's not something I have
dreamed, there are bug reports on crashes and in this list you have seen
posts stating so), don't put in my mouth something that I did not say.
> Through the discussion it was revealed that
> invoking reportbug through the GNOME menu system starts it using a
> graphical GUI system. That graphical GUI was previously unknown to me.
It seems there many things that you were not aware they existed (first,
the ARM support for Flash player and now the GUI option for reportbug).
That's fine but you should not make claims for things that you have to
even tried! ;-)
> I have only ever launched it from a shell prompt. Who would have
> thought that someone would have written a GUI for such a simple tool?
Who...? Debian devels? ;-)
And why having a GUI to manage an application is something bad? If you
are on a X session, that's the expected.
> I find that unfathomable. I daresay that you believe the GUI to be the
> standard interface to reportbug and probably the only way you had ever
> seen it. Apparently that interface is unreliable. I believe the text
> interface to be the standard interface. Apparently that interface is
> reliable.
But again, this is not about _you_ nor _me_ as we are specific use cases.
And no, you are wrong, I did not even think reportbug had a "default"
manner to be run (gui or ncurses), but I have eyes (that's something I
can't avoid...) and can see what's under the menus and there you have, a
small icon with a whirl named "reportbug". What would that be? I launch
it and oh, surprise! It's a GUI tool! It could have been launched on a
terminal but nope, it is launched with a nice wizard.
Once the aplication crashed I read the man page and discovered it can be
also run from command line. With the second crash I switched to the
ncurses interface to see if the situation improved a bit. And it did.
>> I wouldn't like to see reportbug dissapearing nor losing the
>> possibility to send bug reports by e-mail , that would be terrible.
>> What I said is I would like to have *an alternative* way for bug
>> reporting. You like reportbug? You use it. You like the http interface?
>> You use it. You like plain based e-mails? You write them. It's all
>> about possibilities.
>
> You are drifting off topic.
(...)
Me? I only argued about the possibility of having another (paralel)
system to report bugs?
>> > Does that mean that when you were experiencing crashes you were using
>> > a graphical GUI interface?
>>
>> Yes, the GUI crashed more often than ncurses.
>
> Does reportbug have a curses interface? Until you proved to me that it
> had a GUI I had only ever known about the command line text interface.
> So now I am shy of talking about a curses interface.
Launch GNOME and you will see it.
>> > If so then that is not the default and must have been customized that
>> > way. If so then that explains the problem.
>>
>> You mean the GUI interface is known to be problematic?
>
> After your report and Disc Magnet's report corroborating it I would say
> yes there is a problem. Someone experiencing the problem should report
> it. Once reported then it will become a known problem.
There are a couple of bugs at BTS about this issue.
> It was not known to me because I didn't even know it had a GUI. I
can't
> report it since I don't use it and have never experienced the problem.
That you had not been aware (nor even tried) about a possibility does not
eliminate the problem.
>> Then you should launch it from time to time and see how/if it works for
>> you ;-).
>
> I did. Wow. I can't imagine using that interface a second time. It
> didn't crash for me. But it was unwieldy and extremely ugly.
Didi you opened a full bug report with it?
Use it more than just one time and see if it is still that reliable...
>> The GUI is an option and it's indeed _the default_ when you launch
>> reportbug from the GNOME menu ("reportbug --exit-prompt --ui gtk2").
>
> To be clear that isn't the reportbug default. That menu item seems to
> be new in Squeeze. I don't see it in Lenny. The menu system is shared
> among desktop systems including GNOME, KDE, and others.
Yes, so it seems, it was added later.
But you say you were running reportbug under Sid not in Lenny, right?
> In any case this thread has exhausted me. I think I will let it expire
> and die here.
Arguments is what often people lack and so they get exhausted very
soon :-)
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
Reply to: