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Dev Week -- Bug Triage -- Pedro Villavicencio -- Thu, Feb 21

(02:02:52 PM) dholbach: Next up is Pedro Villavivencio, member of the QA and the Desktop mafia!
(02:03:00 PM) holloway_ is now known as holloway
(02:03:16 PM) dholbach: He promised to plug https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day a couple of times, thanks a lot for that pedro_ :-)
(02:03:21 PM) dholbach: pedro_: the stage is yours :)
(02:03:24 PM) pedro_: thanks dholbach!
(02:03:30 PM) ***mruiz waves
(02:03:32 PM) pedro_: hello everybody
(02:03:40 PM) Iulian: Hi there!
(02:03:44 PM) pedro_: how many people we have here, can you raise your hand?
(02:03:45 PM) sourcercito: howdy
(02:03:46 PM) phoenix24_: Hi pedro_ !
(02:03:51 PM) phoenix24_: +1
(02:03:54 PM) Iulian: I am
(02:03:54 PM) mruiz: _0/
(02:03:54 PM) fvenegas_: hi pedro!
(02:03:55 PM) forsaken_: +1
(02:03:59 PM) barcc: raise
(02:04:02 PM) Grazieno: +1
(02:04:05 PM) soneil: hand
(02:04:06 PM) daishujin: +1
(02:04:20 PM) pedro_: good! ok i'll going to introduce you into the triage world
(02:04:38 PM) rzr: \o_
(02:04:40 PM) pedro_: Iulian: offered himself to moderate the questions
(02:04:54 PM) pedro_: he's also a member of the bugsquad :-)
(02:05:04 PM) pranith: +1
(02:05:12 PM) pedro_: ok so what's "TRIAGE" all about
(02:05:30 PM) andres: _o/
(02:05:32 PM) InsClusoe: +1
(02:05:50 PM) pedro_: we often explains that the "triage" is very similar to the process that people do at the hospitals and i'm referring to the process of separating the very badly wounded from those who are lightly wounded
(02:06:21 PM) pedro_: for us it's the process of separating and identifying bugs that are most severe and useful for the developers to fix
(02:06:43 PM) rzr: does this mean separating the injured part of body  ?
(02:07:21 PM) pedro_: a bug became "triaged" when it have all the information required and it have an status and an importance
(02:07:50 PM) pedro_: one of the teams that do this at Ubuntu is the BugSquad team
(02:08:26 PM) pedro_: https://launchpad.net/~bugsquad
(02:08:34 PM) pedro_: it's an open team and everybody can join
(02:09:25 PM) pedro_: and you may also want to have a look to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad/GettingInvolved if you have a doubt about it
(02:09:42 PM) pedro_: we also have a mailing list (ubuntu-bugsquad) and a channel #ubuntu-bugs
(02:10:21 PM) pedro_: ok, how the bugs are get reported into Ubuntu
(02:10:54 PM) pedro_: One of the ways of reporting a bug to Ubuntu is using the "Help-> Report a problem" menu  entry on the application you're having issues with
(02:11:09 PM) pedro_: for example if you going to gedit now,  you'll see that menu there
(02:11:36 PM) rzr: what about command lines applications ? can't we use reportbug like on debian ? I tried once on ubuntu
(02:11:59 PM) pedro_: rzr: yes you can i'm going to there
(02:12:03 PM) rzr: ok
(02:12:12 PM) pedro_: rzr: questions at #ubuntu-classroom-chat please :-)
(02:12:27 PM) pedro_: ok if you want to report a bug with the command line you can use this command:
(02:12:47 PM) pedro_: apport-cli -f -p PACKAGE , where PACKAGE is the name of the package you're having problems
(02:12:58 PM) pedro_: example : apport-cli -f -p gedit
(02:13:33 PM) pedro_: if you don't know the name of the package and the program is running you can try to report the bug with his PID like:
(02:13:39 PM) pedro_: apport-cli -f -P PID
(02:14:10 PM) pedro_: Both process will collect information about the version of Ubuntu the reporter is using, the application and the version of it
(02:14:25 PM) pedro_: both ways are extremely recommended :-)
(02:14:40 PM) pedro_: Another way of report bugs to Ubuntu is trough the Launchpad website
(02:15:29 PM) pedro_: if you go to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ you'll see a red button that say something like "report a bug"
(02:16:18 PM) pedro_: then you'll be asked for a summary, a description and you'll be asked to select a package if you know it
(02:16:47 PM) pedro_: most of the time the people that report bugs this way, don't really know which package is the one containing the bug
(02:16:52 PM) pedro_: so they select "Ubuntu"
(02:17:25 PM) pedro_: which leads to having lot of reports without a package; you can see a tiny list here http://tinyurl.com/32l4gd
(02:18:15 PM) pedro_: When you Don't have to file a bug report:
(02:18:45 PM) pedro_: when it's a support request, like "i don't know how to do this", you can ask that at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu
(02:19:51 PM) pedro_: when it's a policy discussion or you have development ideas, this should be discussed at the ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list
(02:20:44 PM) pedro_: and of course when the bug is already filed
(02:21:20 PM) pedro_: Since we most of the time didn't get too many good quality reports, we need to improve them
(02:21:45 PM) pedro_: There's a few things you can do for improving a bug report
(02:22:27 PM) pedro_: as i mentioned we get a lot of reports without a package and this is a really good task for new brave triagers
(02:22:40 PM) pedro_: because most of the time those bugs are easy to reassign to the right package
(02:22:54 PM) pedro_: we also have a documentation about it here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage
(02:23:13 PM) pedro_: so if you want to start triaging that's a really good first step
(02:24:06 PM) pedro_: another way of improve a bug report is asking or documenting the steps on how to reproduce the bug
(02:24:35 PM) pedro_: sometimes you'll find reports with a summary that say "I clicked here and it doesnt work"
(02:25:22 PM) pedro_: what we need is they to answers questions like:
(02:25:43 PM) pedro_: How can the problem be reproduced?
(02:25:51 PM) pedro_:  What actually happens when you follow these steps?
(02:25:58 PM) pedro_: What would you expect to happen when you follow them?
(02:26:09 PM) pedro_: All of them in much detail as possible
(02:26:35 PM) Iulian:  <mirrado> QUESTION: Is there any command line utility to list all bugs related to a especific package? I mean something that could help in identifying duplicated bugs, etc
(02:26:57 PM) pedro_: mirrado: yes, there's bughelper, bdmurray and thekorn gave a talk a couple of minutes ago about it :-)
(02:27:52 PM) pedro_: Another thing that we should worry about is to see if the bug report has a descriptive summary
(02:27:58 PM) pedro_: if not we should edit it
(02:28:23 PM) pedro_: as i said , we find a lot of bugs with things like "Doesn't work"  or " I don't know what i was doing"
(02:29:15 PM) Iulian: <eddyMul> QUESTION: can any registered LP user change a bug's title/summary?
(02:29:28 PM) pedro_: so if we ask for steps on how to reproduce we can improve a lot the summary and the developers can read it and have a really good idea of what's going on
(02:29:56 PM) pedro_: eddyMul:  yes basically anyone
(02:30:08 PM) pedro_: for change the summary and the title you have to do the following
(02:30:47 PM) pedro_: on the launchpad page of a bug for example https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/194052
(02:31:16 PM) pedro_: on the left side there's a column that say "Edit description/tags"
(02:31:30 PM) pedro_: if you click there you'll be redirected to the edit form and there you can edit all that
(02:32:09 PM) pedro_: if you're editing the summary or the description please make sure it's really consistent
(02:32:28 PM) pedro_: for example a description like "rhythmbox hangs when click on a previous podcast"
(02:32:38 PM) pedro_: is way better than one like "just hanged"
(02:32:55 PM) pedro_: it doesn't matter if it's too long :-)
(02:33:40 PM) pedro_: another thing you should take care of when you do triaging is the status of the bug
(02:33:55 PM) pedro_: all the status on Ubuntu are described here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status
(02:34:20 PM) pedro_: and currently we have 9 status New, Incomplete, Invalid, Confirmed, Triaged, In Progress, Won't Fix, Fix Committed, and Fix Released
(02:34:46 PM) pedro_: some of them may confuse people but i'll try to explain them and if you have a question about them just ask
(02:35:24 PM) pedro_: New: When a bug is first reported the status of it is New meaning that no one has touch it yet and these kind of bugs are a good candidates for new triagers
(02:35:45 PM) pedro_: Incomple: means that the bug is missing some information, like steps to reproduce the bug
(02:35:52 PM) pedro_: s/Incomple/Incomplete
(02:37:18 PM) pedro_: Confirmed: means that someone than the original report has the same issue (was able to reproduce the bug) or the that the bug has a minimum of debugging information on it
(02:37:38 PM) pedro_: triaged: means that the bug has enough information for a developer to start working and fix the problem
(02:38:05 PM) pedro_: the Triaged status can only be set by a member of the ubuntu-bugcontrol team
(02:38:41 PM) pedro_: Progress: means that a developer or another person is working on a fix for it
(02:39:32 PM) pedro_: Fix Committed: means that there's a fix for the bug committed on a development branch but it's not yet available on a Ubuntu official package
(02:39:52 PM) Iulian: <InsClusoe> QUESTION: So many people log bugs saying functionality is this way. Should be that way. What would be correct status for such 'bugs'?
(02:40:10 PM) Iulian: <InsClusoe> QUESTION: (continue) Should status be invalid or should it be new and have importance set to 'wishlist'?
(02:40:59 PM) pedro_: InsClusoe: it depends if that functionality is not working as it should it's a valid bug
(02:41:43 PM) Iulian: <eddyMul> QUESTION: does the bug status suggest an "evolution" of the bug? Can I start filing with a bug with "Work In Progress" instead of New? (e.g when I'm submitting a patch)
(02:42:00 PM) pedro_: InsClusoe: if they're asking for a new one , it should be Wishlist , but Wishlist is an Importance not a bug status :-)
(02:43:26 PM) pedro_: eddyMul: no, better to set it as New and select the "patch" check box when you submit the patch to it
(02:43:32 PM) pedro_: then a developer will take a look to it
(02:43:41 PM) Iulian: <InsClusoe> QUESTION: Who can edit importance of a bug?
(02:43:44 PM) pedro_: if the patch needs work he'll set it as "In Progress"
(02:44:21 PM) pedro_: InsClusoe: any member of the ubuntu-bugcontrol team, if someone has been doing a good work triaging bug he can apply to the ubuntu-bugcontrol team
(02:44:33 PM) pedro_: which gives you a few more permissions that just edit the importance of a bug :-)
(02:45:05 PM) pedro_: ok so Fix Released
(02:45:27 PM) pedro_: means that there's a official package available on Ubuntu that fix the problem
(02:46:00 PM) pedro_: Won't Fix: means that the developers of the same determined that will not fix the issue
(02:46:26 PM) pedro_: and last one the scary Invalid status
(02:46:58 PM) pedro_: a bus is marked as Invalid when it doesn't have enough information to determine where the bug is or that the report isn't a bug itself
(02:47:37 PM) pedro_: for asking all these things we have a page with stock responses that are really useful
(02:47:46 PM) pedro_: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Responses
(02:48:09 PM) pedro_: sometimes it's hard for new triagers what to ask on some reports
(02:48:19 PM) pedro_: the stocks responses will help you with that
(02:49:29 PM) pedro_: we also have debugging procedures that may help you to ask for files the reporter can submit in order to see where's the bug: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProcedures
(02:50:26 PM) Iulian: <InsClusoe> QUESTION: I feel a bug needs to be looked at by the bugcontrol team. Can I subscribe them to the bug?
(02:51:19 PM) pedro_: InsClusoe: best way is to announce the bug at #ubuntu-bugs if you don't get attention in a few hours you can send an email to the bugsquad list
(02:51:33 PM) Iulian: <barcc> QUESTION: there are some reports "xy doesn't work" with answers "me too,me too,..." without providing more information. how is the correct status Incomplete or Confirmed?
(02:52:49 PM) pedro_: barcc: that's one of the painful bugs we have to face the "me too" ones... if the bug doesn't have the enough information but lot of "me too" the status should be Incomplete
(02:53:10 PM) pedro_: it doesn't matter if you have 10000 "me too" but there's no enough information
(02:53:14 PM) pedro_: it should incomplete anyways
(02:54:04 PM) pedro_: One of the fun things we do as a BugSquad are the Hug Days
(02:54:36 PM) pedro_: A Hug or Bug Day it's a complete day where the BugSquad focus on a package or task
(02:54:55 PM) pedro_: we celebrate the Hug days twice a week, that means Tuesdays and Thursdays
(02:55:14 PM) pedro_: today we're running the GNOME Power Manager one and last Tuesday we had a Printing one
(02:55:36 PM) pedro_: you can see both pages and progress here:
(02:55:39 PM) pedro_: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBugDay/20080221
(02:55:54 PM) pedro_: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBugDay/20080219
(02:56:28 PM) pedro_: of course you can always join the #ubuntu-bugs channel and discuss bugs there
(02:56:43 PM) pedro_: everyday everyhour
(02:57:25 PM) pedro_: if you take a look to http://planet.ubuntu.com
(02:57:38 PM) pedro_: you'll see a few posts in there with a "5"
(02:57:54 PM) dholbach: YES YES YES :)
(02:58:22 PM) pedro_: :-)
(02:58:38 PM) Iulian: 5-a-day r0cKz!
(02:58:38 PM) pedro_: that's a new and really funny way to work on bugs
(02:58:51 PM) pedro_: 5-a-day means everybody  have to do 5 bugs a day!
(02:58:56 PM) pedro_: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day
(02:59:41 PM) dholbach:  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day#Log for how to join up
(02:59:42 PM) pedro_: there's a stats page http://daniel.holba.ch/5-a-day-stats/ and we really like to see your name on it
(03:00:41 PM) pedro_: so if you have any questions on how to do more specific triage or a question on what to do with a bug, feel free to ask at #ubuntu-bugs or in our bugsquad mailing list everytime everyhour 24x7 :-)
(03:01:12 PM) dholbach: thanks a lot for plugging 5 a day and thanks for your great talk pedro_! :-)
(03:01:23 PM) pedro_: thanks for the attention :-)