>> 5. Official bug reporting is still far too hard and complicated.
>
> Now that’s an interesting statement.
>
> - Getting an account in bugzilla is the same procedure than getting one
> here in the forum
>
> - When opening a new bug, one is asked with easy to select options on
> what product and part of the OS (kernel, YaST, networking, etc.) one
> wants to file a bug
>
> - After that one gets automatically some search results matching the
> last bugs related to your choice before, so searching is done for you
> without you having to do anything yourself
Which is a good thing because the search page that you’re supposed to use
before submitting a bug is really off-putting and comes up with mostly
worthless results. I find it really annoying when I submit a search
specifying 11.2 and find most of the results are not for 11.2. To cap it
all, a little while after submitting a report which seems to be entirely
new, you get an e-mail to say it’s related to another report and has been
added to it. From that, you find another load of reports that never appeared
in the initial search.
>
> - On entering your description, you get an extra field with “steps to
> reproduce” and a field for the actual behavior and the expected one
>
> Apart from that, entering your description of the problem is exactly
> the same, so I don’t see how reporting bugs is more difficult.
The main problem I see with the bug-reporting system is the layout,
particularly to the search page I’ve already mentioned. A phrase springs to
mind that I heard someone use years ago to describe a dodgy software system
“about as user-friendly as a cornered rat.”
Also, why are some fields available for bug-owners to change but, when you
do make use of them, you’re given a good ticking-off as they’re only
supposed to be set by the software team. Any half-way decent system would
check your userid and set certain levels of activity available to you and
close off others.
Bugzilla has been around for a long time and looks it. Novell’s version is
even more antique in appearance than some others. It’s well past time that
it was redesigned. Perhaps I should raise a bug report?
Maybe it should be “pinned” as a sticky acting as a role model on “How NOT to do it”, at best next to another one as a role model on “How to actually DO it and what can happen then”, which brings me back to your strange CPU problem.
Just read the thread developing in kernel bugzilla and you now have a real expert answering you (Thomas Gleixner is one of the subsystem maintainers for the x86 architecture IIRC).
And you just see the difference between a -maybe somehow- experienced user and somebody actually working on this stuff.
We both found this “nolapic” suspicious, the maintainer tells you directly that it is the cause of missing SMP and now we will see, how it can (and I am quite sure it will) be fixed.
Yes, I also googled a bit about that nolapic. It is definitely blocking SMP. The question being now, why did the install think it nessecary to put it there. And it is nessecary in that I can not boot without it.
And I am now more or less to stay at home because I do not want the guru let waiting for me to long when he asks something
But this is now in the wrong thread. Let us stay on topic.
RE: The OP
I largely agree. The Beta/Pre-Release forum is largely not about testing with an eye to improving the distro or upstream projects, rather it often seems to be about finding workarounds to bugs and leaving it there. We can do better.
RE: Propriety drivers & patented codecs
Again, I absolutely agree. If a user cannot find out how to install NVidia drivers manually (and actually do it) then there are probably legitimate questions to be had about whether using a pre-release is appropriate. The posts about how people are somehow “owed” codec package ABC or propriety graphics driver XYZ in order for Factory or a Milestone to be ‘usable’ miss the point (to be fair the similar posts have shown up in the mailing lists).
RE: Bugzilla
Bugzilla is going to be upgraded this coming Saturday (2009-11-14). One of the improvements is a simplified version of the bug reporting page. You can read a summary of what will happen here: openSUSE News » Project Bugzilla Update Planned to Version 3.4
Despite these changes I do agree with the OP that if users can’t be bothered to file a bug report (or even add useful information to existing bug reports) then why are they using a pre-release? More importantly why are such users coming to the forum to start fresh threads? In the case of openSUSE the login for the forum works for Bugzilla so the whole “too many sites, too many passwords” issue is moot here.
RE: Improvements for the future
There are some bright spots here. The first is that people are actually using pre-release versions! The problem is converting those users’ forum posts into useful bug reports.
Here’s what I propose…I’m on the openSUSE Testing Core Team (TCT), something that was just started in the last few weeks, and I’m really focused on a knock-out run leading up to openSUSE 11.3. What I will do - and ask the rest of the Testing Team to do - is to watch the Pre-Release sub-forum for issues and see if we can reproduce them to either improve bug reports filed or to file fresh bug reports.
Although I feel somewhat conflicted in doing this - I do fear that the TCT might get overwhelmed covering for users who opt for the easy route rather than filing bugs since they know what we’re up to - I think it is a practical way to get something positive done. We cannot guarantee that others will file bug reports, even if they come to the forum…but we can leverage what is in the forum for bug squashing purposes.
Naturally everyone (TCT member or not) is welcome to help in the effort to convert complaints into bug-reports!
