Pitfalls of the Ubuntu bug tracker - Was: volume past 100% and vol control

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 08 Feb 2016 13:25:54 +0100, Oliver Grawert wrote:
>[1]
>https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Reporting_an_application_crash_in_the_stable_release
>[2]
>https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Reporting_non-crash_hardware_and_desktop_application_bugs
>
>[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport#Per-package_Apport_Hooks

Hi Oli,

ok, this are two approaches in one.

1. Collect log data for newbies who experience an issue and don't know
how to troubleshoot, not aware that some of us spend time to write
Ubuntu and Ubuntu flavour help pages how to troubleshoot, how to search
log files using command line.

2. Report a bug.

An issue not necessarily is a bug, so I prefer an approach to separate
this two subject. I guess not everybody considers the Ubuntu tools as
spyware, but several projects likely dislike to mix two subjects, so
they wish to have another approach.

An example from this month:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-studio-users/2016-February/010568.html

and follow-ups, so I decided to provide a script. Since I'm short in
time the script needs to be improved. To grep the driver from the X log
perhaps should be removed, but checking if the user has got an
xorg.conf or not might be useful, what graphics related packages are
installed etc.. It's just a start. Perhaps the scripts should provide
links to the troubleshoot pages and in this case to the graphics pages
too, so that the user could decide to learn more, if wanted.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-studio-devel/2016-February/007400.html

The follow-up shows that the project lead of this Ubuntu flavour
already works on a user-friendly solution. The next project lead is an
email-penpal so we likely will discuss it soon or later more detailed.

The two in one approach not necessarily will lead to the affected
package. Troubleshooting is more promising.

After that reporting a bug directly (assumed the issue is a bug)
without a tool is more personal and allows easier to even explain how
to test a patch by a novice.

The way "promoted" by Ubuntu assumes a non-existing "averaged user"
and is common for proprietary software, but unusual for FLOSS.

That's just an opinion. However, IMO the bug tracker at least should
provide a button to report a bug on the main page. It doesn't make
sense that a button with the same name links to the help page on the
main page and after selecting a bug or project it allows to report a
bug, since it's not only the same name of the link, it's the same
layout, IOW the same button not always does the same, it's an
inconsistent design.

2 Cents,
Ralf