A follow up.

[J]

On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 11:48, Gary Mellor <mellor.gary at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I've just checked the activity list for testing and I am interested in
> the following test areas:
>
> [1]. ISO testing (laptop)
> [2]. Laptop testing
> [3]. General testing (laptop)

Cool... get to it ;-)

1:  ISO testing is a great and easy way to start, IMHO.  Download the
isos, put them on disk or on USB sticks and just boot and go.  Most of
the ISO testing is geared toward testing the ISO itself, and the
installer.  You'll find test cases here:

http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com

and more specific cases (sometimes) as needed here:

http://pairwise.qa.ubuntu.com

2: Laptop testing info can be found here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/Laptop

It's nice to have as many laptops as possible tested, given the vast
differences in hardware across brands, and the fact that laptops can
often have a lot of weird "half-chipsets" built into them.  Cases like
some video cards that may have the GPU from the video card family, but
none of the onboard RAM...

3:  General testing:  My best advice, pick something and try it out
and write bugs if it doesnt work.  But pick something that's
interesting to you, not just something at random.  Otherwise, you'll
get bored ;-)

Good examples:  if you like music, then test Rhythmbox a lot...  if
you like watching DVDs, then try the different codecs, and video
players and test that they play DVDs and integrate properly into the
desktop.

Bugs are filed via Launchpad (http://launchpad.net) and here's an
intro to reporting them:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

> I can only test on laptops as I do not have any desktop hardware.

Nothing wrong with that...  I do all my testing on an Alienware M15x
(in virtual machines) and on a Lenovo S-10 netbook.

> My 'junker' is a HP 510 with 4GB RAM and an uprated hardrive (7200rpm as
> opposed to 5400rpm). This is x86 architecture. Other than the changes
> mentioned in terms of RAM and hardrive, everything else is standard.

Your junker sounds like mine (4GB, Quad Core i7, 500GB SATAII, etc)...

Given the size of your system, you could also do testing in Virtual
Machines (look into KVM or VirtualBox).  I do a LOT of ISO and
Pairwise testing in VMs.  It lets me run tests in parallel instead of
one at a time.  Plus I can create scenarios like multiple hard disks
and NICs if I wish.

> My 'stable' laptop is a Lenovo G550 with 8GB RAM and a smaller but
> faster hardrive (320GB @ 7200rpm as opposed to 500GB @ 5400rpm).

Sheesh...  you people and your toys ;-)  I need to bump mine to 8GB...
one of these days, I suppose :)

> I'm happy to test on either really but would prefer to do General
> Testing on my stable machine and ISO and specific laptop testing on my
> junker.

Well, remember what I said about virtualbox and KVM (that's
kernel-based virtual machine, not keyboard-video-mouse).  You can
certainly do all sorts of ISO testing that way, in addition to doing
it on real hardware.  The real hardware tests are always better, as
that helps get a bigger spread of hardware tested during any given
cycle, but you'll find bugs just as quickly in a VM as you will on
bare-metal.

Cheers,

Jeff