[Desktop12.10-Topic] Awareness of existing user configurations in software feature upgrades

[Shahar Or]

Dear Bryce,

On 5 April 2012 03:13, Bryce Harrington <bryce at canonical.com> wrote:
>
> Back when everyone had an xorg.conf and a lot of the X bugs were due to
> malformed config files, we would collect the files and run them through
> checkers.  Brian Murray ran a bot that'd test xorg.confs in bugs posted
> to launchpad for instance.  Found quite a few issues that way.  These
> days xorg.conf's are rare and hardly anyone hand-edits them so we don't
> do this anymore (although maybe we should...)
>
> But the concept could be applied more generally for config files of all
> sorts.

This would be great. Promoting the use of Apport hooks is also generally good.

> The most effective thing you can do (IMHO) is create apport hooks for
> every application that installs a config file, that looks for and
> attaches that file when a user files a bug via 'ubuntu-bug package'.
> The hooks are trivial python scripts, basically just:
>
>    from apport.hookutils import *
>    from os import path
>
>    def add_info(report):
>        if ui.yesno("Would you like to include your ~/.myconf?"):
>            attach_file_if_exists(report, path.expanduser('~/.myconf'), 'MyConf')
>
> [You can omit the yesno prompt if you're absolutely certain there's no
> chance of sensitive info in the config file, or if you programmatically
> strip out or hide that info.]
>
> Copy your hook to /usr/share/apport/package-hooks locally, and test it
> out yourself.  Once you have it working the way you think it should,
> post it to the package's bug tracker (ubuntu-bug <package>), and make
> sure to mark it as a patch.  A package maintainer will review and
> incorporate it into the package.
>
> Next, wait, and let a nice database of config files accumulate in
> launchpad.
>
> Then, run a launchpadlib script to download all the configs.  Weed out
> all the dupes.  Keep track of the package version.
>
> Now make a test that iterates through all the config files, launching
> the program, and testing if it successfully loads or exits/crashes.
> If the app has a test suite, bonus, run that too.
>
> Finally, go file bug reports (both in launchpad and upstream) for the
> failures that occur.

Thank you for the idea and example, Bryce. I've added it to the wiki[1].

  1. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ConfigurationUpgrade#What_can_be_done.3F

Many Blessings,
Shahar

> Bryce
>
> On Wed, Apr 04, 2012 at 11:30:09PM +0300, Shahar Or wrote:
> > Dear Friends,
> >
> > There is a problem, in my opinion, a conceptual one, with user
> > configurations -those that are in home directories-, and, well, their
> > software's upgrades.
> >
> > In some scenarios, this problem, which I will better define below,
> > causes crashes. In others, it causes missing features in the software.
> >
> > I'm sure that there are many problems that this can cause and indeed
> > causes in practice. I have personally experienced bugs that arise from
> > this issue and I won't be surprised if every single one of you had
> > such encounters, as well.
> >
> > I'll give you the most common proof of this problem. Do you ever get
> > the feeling that if you'll make a new user account for yourself then
> > everything is going to be so much nicer in your UX? I bet that KDE
> > users are jumping up and down within themselves now because in KDE
> > there's so much configuration options that this is exacerbated.
> >
> > Let me give you one recent example[1], which is such a serious one,
> > albeit in a non-critical software, but it stands in it's own right.
> > (Please note that I've not tested this one yet but it does demonstrate
> > one aspect of the problem and even if it turns out to be a different
> > bug, it would demonstrate the idea.)
> >
> > And do you ever get the feeling that there are too many configuration
> > files in your home directory, anyway? "Did I really create all that
> > configuration datum?" I ask myself.
> >
> > And let me ask you another thing to demonstrate the issue. The
> > commonality of it. Have you ever fixed a bug in a software, or rather,
> > worked around it, by removing it's configuration entirely? Does the
> > phrase 'rm -r .config/<rampant-software>' look familiar?
> >
> > Here's another example which I solved quite exactly in this way[2].
> > Worked around, rather.
> >
> > I'm not a software developer. I'm an avid user of Ubuntu and a Free
> > Software Ideologist. I won't tell you, developers how to write your
> > software, or, rather, our software.
> >
> > I'm just here to point out something that's been bothering me (us, I
> > hope) for a while and I hope that we can start to put an end to this
> > at the current development cycle and that it would make a standard and
> > echo this standard outside into the Free Software Stratosphere.
> >
> > So, I suggest two things as a start. One, is to find a pattern in
> > this, or a pattern of patterns because this is a multifaceted problem.
> > And to be precise, I'm not talking about system software
> > configurations, like in '/etc'. I'm only talking about what's inside
> > our homes.
> >
> > In order to find patterns, I suggest that we first start to tag these
> > bugs as 'configuration-upgrade' such as in this list[3].
> >
> > Then, we can categorize them according to the type of mistake that was
> > made by the developer ("oh my gosh, he didn't really say that!"). We
> > need to admit that there's a problem here, OK?
> >
> > For this purpose, I've made the Wiki page ConfigurationUpgrade[4]. In
> > it, I'm currently writing some more guidelines which I'm making up.
> >
> > This research will help bring the awareness of the subject into the
> > God-given, electronic minds of the developers.
> >
> > The second thing that I suggest is testing, testing and you know what
> > else. Testing. The fact that so many of these bugs "get away with it"
> > and flow into our releases is staggering. Perhaps "after-upgrade"
> > testing and not only ISO testing is required.
> >
> > Please chime in with your thoughts but keep in mind that there might
> > be some old configuration files lurking, so be careful!
> >
> > Thanks and Blessings,
> > Shahar
> >
> >   1. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/byobu/+bug/973638
> >   2. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-2d/+bug/963125
> >   3. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs?field.tag=configuration-upgrade
> >   4. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ConfigurationUpgrade
> >
> > --
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