Newbie questions

[Jeff Lane]

On 03/18/2011 03:49 PM, Joseph Areeda wrote:
> There are so many things to test that using Natty anyway I can is
> helpful to some extent. To test the installation uses the live CD, to
> test the packages update regularly, to test the hardware drivers use
> real hardware.
>
> Is that close?

Yep...

Also keep in mind that the BIG thing for natty that needs a LOT of 
testing and bug filing is Unity... Natty itself isn't too much of a 
departure from Maverick in general terms, but Unity is the BIG thing for 
Natty and it needs a lot of testing.

The second biggest thing is uTouch, but that only works if you have 
touch devices... I still need to buy a MagicTrackpad to do some touch 
testing with... but a touch screen netbook or a tablet would be even 
better :)

Unfortunately, to use Unity, you need 3d, so that means either running 
on bare metal that supports it or running on a VM that includes that 
support (VirtualBox doesn't without addon stuffs, so getting Unity in a 
VBox VM requires some extra work).

But yeah, you got it figured out ;-)

> Some of my questions weren't clear but your discussion was useful. My
> first question would have been better phrased "Should I start with a
> live CD install every time?". And the answer is yes, if I'm testing
> installation procedures.

Yep...

Consider this... I do installer testing in VMs and I maintain a local 
mirror of cdimages.ubuntu.com for doing so.

I run Natty on a netbook (Lenovo S-10) and on a Laptop (Thinkpad x201) 
and keep those up to date with package updates (except when I'm doing 
something special like my recent Lucid -> Maverick -> Natty upgrade 
test).  But that's my setup, and I'm weird like that :-)

> As a newb in qa and bug squad (not development or unix) I have to say my
> biggest frustration is the proper answer to "where do I start?", "what
> do I do now?" seems to always be "start anywhere you want and do
> anything you want". Not knowing what I want yet makes that weird.

Unfortunately, that is the correct answer.  Perhaps there's a better way 
to address it, but it is what it is... the things I did when I first 
started mucking about with Linux are certainly not the things you're 
going to want to do (that was back when you had to compile most drivers 
on your own, compile your own kernels for everything, and use keyboards 
carved out of stone using primitive tools).

But just go where your interest lies... if you enjoy fixing bugs or 
writing code, learn to use Launchpad and Bazaar and start contributing code.

If you like working with bugs in general, triaging and even testing and 
filing bugs is a great way to start.

ISO test days are always pretty fun if you enjoy doing test cases and 
trying to break things.

And that's just three examples from a QA point of view... You could also 
help writing translation strings if you speak other languages and want 
to help make sure Ubuntu is translated properly.  I only mention that 
one because it recently became a little more important to me by 
happenstance...

> I'm keeping notes with a wiki page in mind for the new guy. Like so much
> in this business things things seem incomprehensible and overwhelming
> one minute then trivial and obvious the next. That makes it real hard
> for those of you who know what you're doing to communicate to those of
> us who haven't had that AHA moment.

That's cool... but be sure you check around the wiki first as a lot of 
info may already exist (however, centralizing wiki information is always 
a good idea, IMO, and I really am NOT a fan of wikis in general). 
Speaking of which, writing and editing things on the wiki is yet another 
way to help out if editing and writing is your cup of tea...

Welcome to the party!

Cheers
Jeff

-- 
Jeff Lane - Hardware Certification Engineer and Test Tools Developer
Ubuntu Ham: W4KDH
Freenode IRC: bladernr or bladernr_
gpg: 1024D/3A14B2DD 8C88 B076 0DD7 B404 1417  C466 4ABD 3635 3A14 B2DD