Support data gathering tool

[Joseph Miller]

2009/5/31 Andrew SB <a.starr.b at gmail.com>

> 2009/5/31 Przemysław Kulczycki <przemekkulczycki at gmail.com>:
> > Ubuntu needs a data gathering tool for user support and bug reporting.
> > Currently when filing bug reports users have to manually run lots of
> > commands (dmesg, lspci, lsusb, lsmod, alsa-something...) for
> > troubleshooting their issues.
> >
> > Ubuntu should have a tool to gather all necessary system logs for
> > reporting bugs and asking for support on answers.launchpad.net.
> >
> > I work for Sun and I find their Explorer tool very handy.
> > It collects many system logs and outputs of system commands to show the
> > system configuration and issues to the support team. It also has some
> > options to skip some logs when the customer feels if it will violate his
> > privacy.
> > Red Hat has something similar, though not as developed as Explorer.
> > Their sos (son of sysreport) tool is GPLed and could be tweaked to run
> > on Debian/Ubuntu.
> >
> > Suse used to have Siga, now they have supportconfig, but I'm not
> > familiar with it.
> >
> > There is also an independent distro-agnostic tool called Linux Explorer
> > but it may be a bit outdated now.
> >
> > Having an explorer-like tool in Ubuntu would benefit both desktop and
> > server users.
> > Bugreporting would be much easier. You would only have to run one
> > command, maybe with some options, to provide all the data needed for the
> > bug troubleshooters.
> > Example options could be:
> > toolname -audio
> > toolname -usb
> > toolname -kernel
> > toolname -all
> > toolname -xorg
> > toolname -network
> >
> > Appropriate options would be used for relevant problem types (ie. -audio
> > for sound problems).
> >
> > Links:
> > Red Hat: sosreport, earlier: sysreport
> > https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/sos/
> > Suse: supportconfig, earlier: Siga
> > http://en.opensuse.org/Supportutils
> > Sun/Solaris: Explorer
> > http://sunsolve.sun.com/explorer
> > Independently developed Explorer-clone for Linux:
> > http://www.unix-consultants.co.uk/examples/scripts/linux/linux-explorer/
> >
> > Check out the Explorer page and its documentation to see how it's useful.
> > http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-9-82329-1
> > --
> > ## Przemysław Kulczycki <<>> Azrael Nightwalker ##
> > # jabber: azrael[na]jabster.pl | tlen: azrael29a #
> > ### www: http://reksio.ftj.agh.edu.pl/~azrael/<http://reksio.ftj.agh.edu.pl/%7Eazrael/>###
>
> Ubuntu already uses a tool called Apport along with the command-line
> tool ubuntu-bug. [1] How do these tools differ?
>
> Apport already has the ability to be extended through the use of
> per-package hooks. [2] Most relevant information that should be
> provided with a bug report for a specific package can be retrieved
> using them.
>
> Maybe we should have some sort of wizard for when a user attempts to
> use apport and they don't know the package. E.g. If they know the
> problem is in the audio stack but not exactly where. There's still a
> lot of relevant information that apport could collect.
>
> I think the real issue is: how do we better encourage users to use the
> tools that already exist?
>
> [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport
> [2] /usr/share/doc/apport/package-hooks.
>
> - Andrew Starr-Bochicchio
> Ubuntu Developer
>
> --
> Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list
> Ubuntu-devel-discuss at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
>


This is a good question.  I have been using Linux for 10 years now and
Ubuntu since Dapper.  I did not know which tools to use to gather relevant
debugging information.  I have seen many times in forums around the web the
same thing.  Users will report a problem and someone knowledgeable in the
forum will request log files.  Most of the time everyone asks for lspci
output log files, etc, but no tool designed for error reporting.  That
doesn't answer the question, but rather affirms it.  I don't know what tools
to use to give me error output other than straight log files.

-Joseph
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/attachments/20090531/22f04f67/attachment.html>