improving -proposed (was #1 Complaint about Ubuntu: Updates break things)

[shirish]

Reply in-line :-

On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 05:37, (``-_-´´) -- BUGabundo
<ubuntu at bugabundo.net> wrote:
> Olá Kees e a todos.
>
> On Saturday 20 December 2008 17:50:25 Kees Cook wrote:
>> Regressions are avoided by a larger variety of people doing testing.
>> Not enough people currently give feedback on -proposed.  Adding tiers
>> to -proposed would reduce the number of people testing each tier.  I think
>> this would result in a net loss.
>>
>> I would propose that increasing the number of people giving feedback on
>> -proposed would be the better solution.  I don't have a specific plan
>> for how to implement that, but it seems that a tighter communication loop
>> between people using -proposed, LP, and a log of what they've installed
>> and when (some kind of additional bug-filing wizard) could reduce the
>> technical knowledge needed to provide useful feedback on proposed.
>> And let them revert/blacklist an update easily.
>
> Kees the way I see it, most users that *actually* enable and upgrade packages from -propose dont even know what bugs they are supposed to test, or even understand what -proposed is for.
> From my own experience if I was to enable -proposed on a Stable Release I couldnt easily find what bug I was supposed to check for...
> My best guess would be that Update-manager could exhibit some extra detail of the LP bug for those packages (and any bug fix from -upgrade). I guess (that at least for a starting point and for -proposed only) apt-listchanges or similar could be installed once backports was enable and -proposed packages descriptions include some extra details made to be shown on apt-listchanges.

I love the apt-listchanges approach but the only query I have is, is
it able to differentiate the differences between updates,
security-updates, proposed and backports for the user to take a call.

Also I'm not on Intrepid now, but from what I recall the
apt-listchanges didn't work well either for -proposed or backports
(don't remember which one)

> That way an user could at least have (even if just a one time) change of seeing the bug, and subscribe to it. sugar on top, if it had a button to take the user to the subscribe page immediately.

Another interesting package which perhaps people could talk about is
apt-listbugs where one can debian bug-reports.

http://packages.debian.org/sid/apt-listbugs

If I'm not mistaken packages like python-launchpad-bugs and the
various launchpad  is a move to that direction as well ?

A simple "aptitude search launchpad" tells what I mean to say.

>
> Even better, and making my life *WAY* easier would be to have in jaunty+1 UM telling me[1] that a bug that I selected the "Affects me too" was fixed/testing with that update.
> I some time dont read all my bug mail so I can loose the email about Fix Release, or I can even not be subscribed to it via mail, and just by feed, or with "Affects me too".
> Do you guys think I should open a Blueprint for this?

I see atleast couple of problems with that scenario.

a.  When one does a upgrade say from say jaunty to jaunty+1 say 300
packages (a conservative estimate) how are you going to keep track.
Also how are you going to know the number of new bugs/regressions
which have been released by the new upgrade as there will always be
some possibility.

b. How should it tell/define which of the bugs were fixed. Should it
be by giving the bug number or should it give bug number and the
subject line.

c. What if this particular release fixes an issue which was fixed 2-3
or even 5 releases back, how should it tell that? Should it be showing
those differently or not.

Its a good idea but somebody would have to write a blueprint and some
sort of mockups may generate some interest.

 > [1] a new field in UM preferences and associated to the user where
the username/email/OpenID (wink) for LP would be inserted. Each user
in that machine could insert his own login.

On a single machine you would have only one administrator or do you
have some other use-cases?

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          Regards,
          Shirish Agarwal
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