[Bug 197762] Re: file transfers on USB flash key (pendrive) or USB HDD are slowing down with time

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 09:06:13PM -0000, Jeremy Foshee wrote:
> Ted,
>      I couldn't agree more. I'm not sure I fall into what you would
> call "someone official in Ubuntu", but I am the Kernel Bug
> Triager. My stance on these is to have reporters, with any deviation
> from the reported bug they think is affecting them, file a new bug
> while subscribing to the bug they find similar. In this fashion, they
> are able to test fixes against their reported issue for the other
> reported bugs. The difficulty is in the push to consolidate that
> seems to be afflicting some bug tragers. This is difficult to
> address, as I am sure you can imagine.

So let me suggest some technological fixes first --- not that they
will completely solve the problem, but Launchpad desperately needs them.

The first is I think we need to have a way for someone to put a
statement at the very top of the Launchpad bug.  Either right before
or right after the bug description.  This would be a place for someone
to put a message such as "for people who think that they have this
problem, please see this wiki page first, which will describe how to
do more bug-specific diagnosis --- i.e., how to collect various bits
of diagnostic data and then to suggest which of several subsidary bugs
that they can check the "this bug affects me too" box.  

One of the major problem is that Launchpad is !@#@! slow once it has
more than several hundred comments, and if people try to put helpful
information in the two hundred and seventieth comment, most users
never bother to read that far.  So you really need a way to put
information to users who are first getting redirected to the bug that
they will actually *see*.

The other thing that you really need is a way for a bug to be closed.
A bug which is closed is one which can't be used as a duplicate, and
for which no one but an admin is allowed to post further comments, or
change the state of the bug, or add some other package as being
affected by a bug.  It's basically a way of saying, "This bug is a EPA
Superfund toxic waste site, and please open a new bug if you think you
have a similar problem".  Combined with the first feature, where
someone can place a message explaining why a bug is closed, and what
people should do, would be a big, big help.

Another thing that might be useful (and which would also require some
number of triagers to have privilege bits; you can't give it out to
everyone), is some way to mark certain comments as being irrelevant.
If the bug is really about USB1 vs. USB2 detection, the last thing you
need is for someone to say, "me too!  I have a HDD performance problem
when using XFS".  When we have a vast number of non-technical users,
we ****desperately**** need a way to moderate out the crap comments.
Maybe for political reasons they are displayed by default, but if an
upstream developer is going to viewing the bug, they really will want
a way to hit a button and get rid of the irrelevant comments.  (Maybe
there would be a moderation reason where the triager can say,
"unrelated problem; please open a new bug report with full details of
your hardware and software configuration" before marking a comment
with the crap-and-should-be-hidden flag.)


Other thing which bug triagers should do is be more ready to change
the bug title.  Bug titles which talk about random performance problem
practically *invite* dogpiling.  If the problem has been localized to
a USB1 vs USB2 detection problem in the driver layer, then change the
bug description title to say that.  Otherwise, people will see
"performance probem", and say, "hey, the gross symptoms match mine,
this must be the place for me to tail about how horrible Ubuntu is and
how everyone should switch to Windows instead".

Another problem is that right now, more often than not, the vast
majority of the bugs that I see are wrongly assigned wrong package.
I've lost package of the time an init scripts or "Plymouth" bug is
wrongly assigned to e2fsprogs.  Or when a bug in dpkg is wrongly
assigned to libss.  If users aren't going to get it right, maybe they
don't get assign a package name until they pass a test that shows they
really can get it right.

Or maybe certain people can be put on a list so that they don't get
notified via e-mail until a triager verifies that a bug is actually
real, and not crap.  Right now, the ratio of valid bug e-mails coming
from Launchpad to invalid ones is easily 50 to 1 if not higher.

If we can't fix it, that's fine.  I'll write my blog posting about why
Launchpad is worthless, and I'll desubscribe myself from all Launchpad
reports, and I'll move on....

                                            - Ted

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file transfers on USB flash key (pendrive) or USB HDD are slowing down with time
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/197762
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