Questions about Linux Mint and this list

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Thu, 21 Jul 2022 20:56:15 -0400, Little Girl wrote:
>Peter Flynn wrote:
>>Little Girl wrote:  
>>It's a hassle because it's a complex business: there are a lot of 
>>different angles, and you have to deter the casual user who can't go 
>>beyond "it doesn't work". Unfortunately, in the process, it
>>sometimes asks for information which cannot logically exist.

Hi,

Ubuntu's attempts to make bug reporting easier for noobs backfired
spectacularly. The explanation how to report a bug and the usage
of the bug tracker are by far the worst I'm aware off.

Actually it can be very easy to report a bug. From power users I expect
more, but from a noob the only thing to do is the following:

Describe what you are doing.
Describe what happens.
Describe what you expect to happen.
If possible for the noob, she should mention what flavour and release of
Ubuntu is used and if any third party repositories are involved, also if
possible for the noob, to ensure that all packages are up to date.

The only additional explanation is where to sign up and to sign in.

No explanation how to use fine software to report crashes, since
nothing does crash at all, if it just doesn't print and I don't want to
learn how to use software to report whatsoever.

If there should be no option to report it against an unknown package,
file it against a random package. Heck, Ubuntu does split software
from upstream into zillions of packages, so even for a power user
it's not easy to track down the package, let alone to be aware that
software Foo does use webkit and what fails isn't Foo, but webkit.

The experts can reassign a bug report against another package. IOW the
noob files the bug against Firefox and the expert reassigns it against
libcups2.

If it's a known issue, the expert reassigns it as duplicate of #1234567
or something else. If a log file is needed, an expert explains the noob
how to hand it in later and eventually how to remove private data from
the log file.

Oh, and the experts tells if it is a bug or something else, maybe a
feature or user error.

There is one thing that Ubuntu should at long last simplify now. After
logging into the bug tracker, there should be a very conspicuous "add
new issue" button. Hiding such a button and to expect that noobs or
power users study how to report bugs the indirect Ubuntu way is idiotic.

>I think they don't mind tests that are done on older hardware.

The experts decide if the hardware is or is not supported by Ubuntu.

FWIW those interested in using hardware as long as possible instead of
littering this planet, see
https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/civilinfrastructureplatform/start . So
e.g. even if kernel.org drops an LTS kernel, they continue with
SuperLTS. At least power users can maintain old hardware. For my old
hardware I'm building LTS kernels that are still supported by
kernel.org. I expect that the hardware is borked, before there
is the need to make use of the CIP SuperLTS, but it's good to know that
a power user can still use old hardware.

Regards,
Ralf