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PLEASE NOTE that this page is out of date and that all documentation has been moved to our official website at - http://upstreamdev.org

NOTE: This page is part of the Ubuntu Specification process. Please check the status and details in Launchpad before editing. If the spec is Approved then you should contact the Assignee, or another knowledgeable person, before making changes.

• Launchpad entry: https://launchpad.net/products/upstream/

• Packages affected:

Summary

Upstream is a collection of tools that allow users to send in system specific log and troubleshooting data to support personnel. See http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/upstream

Rationale

Upstream will simplify the support process and make it more efficient. It's quite common (especially in IRC channels) for users not to know what information they should provide so that their problem can be sorted out. People interested in helping them out typically have to ask for relevant files/logs.

Often this is time consuming, and many new users may even be unable to find / copy these logs. Occasionally, users may accidentally paste an entire log file in to the channel, earning them a ban, and confusing them in the process.

Use cases

Scenario 1 (Current situation):

<newuser>hi, something is wrong with my resolution, how can i fix it?
<support_person>newuser, what is your video card, and which driver is xorg using?
<newuser>err... how can i find out?
<support_person> cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log and pastebin it
<newuser>pastebin?
<support_person>!pastebin
<ubotu> pastebin is a service to post large texts so you don't flood the channel. The Ubuntu pastebin is at http://paste.ubuntu-nl.org (you can always find it in the channel topic, among other useful things)
<newuser>how do i copy? it wont copy!

Scenario 2 (Upstream-base CLI application):

<newuser>hi, something is wrong with my resolution, how can i fix it?
<support_person>newuser, run upstream --video please, and give me the URL it gives you at the end.

Scenario 3 (Canoe or Kanoe):

<newuser>hi, something is wrong with my resolution, how can i fix it?
<support_person>newuser, please run Canoe (System -> Help -> Canoe) and choose Video support. Give me the url you get once it's done.

Scenario 4 (Upstream + pastebin with bot):

<newuser>hi, something is wrong with my resolution, how can i fix it?
<support_person>newuser, run upstream --video please.

(In #support-upstream channel)
<upstream-bot>Paste of --video output from newuser - http://paste.bin/123456

Scope

Design

Screenshot

A sample screen from the Gtk client, Canoe.

There are more screenshots, if you'd like to have a look.

Implementation

Code

No releases have been made yet. You can however grab the current SVN: svn co https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/upstream upstream 

Unresolved issues

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec