severity 236519 grave
reassign 236519 xfree86
close 236519
merge 235687 236519
thanks
[The following is a form letter.]
Hello,
You recently filed a duplicate bug report against a Debian package; that
is, the problem had already been reported.
While there is often nothing inherently wrong with doing so, the filing of
duplicate reports can cause Debian package maintainers to spend time
performing triage and maintenance operations on bug reports (e.g.,
instructing the Debian Bug Tracking System to merge the duplicates) that
could otherwise be spent resolving problems and doing other work on the
package.
One very good way to file bugs with the Debian Bug Tracking System is to
use the "reportbug" package and command of the same name. A very nice
feature of reportbug is that, if the machine where you run it has network
access to the World Wide Web, it can query the Debian Bug Tracking System
and show you existing reports. This reduces the chance that you'll file a
duplicate report, and offers you the option of adding follow-up information
to an existing bug report. This is especially valuable if you have unique
information to add to an existing report, because this way information
relevant to the problem is gathered together in one place as opposed to
being scattered among multiple, duplicate bug reports where some facts may
be overlooked by the package maintainers. The reportbug program also does
a lot of automatic information-gathering that helps package maintainers to
understand your system configuration, and also ensures that your message to
the Debian Bug Tracking System is well-formed so that it is processed
correctly by the automated tools that manage the reports. (If you've ever
gotten a "bounce" message from the Debian Bug Tracking System that tells
you your message couldn't be processed, you might appreciate this latter
feature.)
Therefore, I strongly urge you to give "reportbug" a try as your primary
bug reporting tool for the Debian System.
One way to install reportbug is with "apt-get"; for
example:
# apt-get install reportbug
The "reportbug" command has a few different modes that cater to different
levels of user expertise. If this message has contained a lot of jargon
that is unfamiliar to you, you likely want to use reportbug's "novice"
mode; here's one way to do that.
$ reportbug --mode=novice
Please enter the name of the package in which you have found a problem,
or type 'other' to report a more general problem.
>
If you're more sophisticated, or if you are not using the released version
of Debian ("stable"), but instead Debian "testing" or "unstable", you
should use reportbug's standard mode.
$ reportbug
Please enter the name of the package in which you have found a problem,
or type 'other' to report a more general problem.
>
The reportbug command is extensively documented in its usage message and
manual page. Commands to view these pieces of documentation are:
$ reportbug --help | more
$ man reportbug
(The output of the above commands has been omitted from this message.)
Thanks for using the Debian system!
--
G. Branden Robinson | Kissing girls is a goodness. It is
Debian GNU/Linux | a growing closer. It beats the
branden@debian.org | hell out of card games.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein
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