Introduction

There are many different types of testing availible to people interested in QA. Before getting invovled in any activity, it's recommended you join the Ubuntu QA mailing list. The mailing list will have periodic announcements surrounding testing and keep you up to date on what's going on currently.

I want to help test

The below link is more of a quick overview of the things mentioned in more detail on this page. It includes an introduction to Virtual Machines.

Testing the development release.

Who are you?

Please do take the time to register who you and your test machine(s) are.

Who we are.

About our hardware.

What can I do?

If you are new, contributing test results is a great way to start. Once you've contributed some results, you can participate in contributing testcases as well with your new knowledge. Watch the mailing list for announcements around calls for testing and cadence testing weeks. Then, follow the tutorials below and contribute your results. Use the mailing list and IRC channels to help you if you get stuck.

How can I learn how to do it?

Tutorials / Classroom sessions

We hold these each cycle, they are a great way to learn about the various tools we use for testing.

About tutorial / classroom sessions.

QATracker

Before you begin, it's important to learn about the QATracker. The QATracker is the master repository for all our our testing within ubuntu QA. It holds our testcases, records our results, and helps coordinate our testing events. It's imperative you learn about and understand how to use this tool before you are able to participate in the activities listed below.

About the QATracker.

Stages of Testing

There are some differences between how the ubuntu family carry out their testing cycles. Some only release at LTS, some use alpha testing, some use only beta testing and some use only release candidate. This is discussed on this link.

About the Stages of Testing.

How can I contribute test results?

Manual Testing

Using your system to check that installing, updating and running applications behave as expected. Areas covered are listed below:

About Manual Testing.

About Image (ISO) Testing.

About Testing on a pandaboard (ARM).

About Application Testing.

Automated Testing

Using the tools provided to run automated tests, simply get it running and go and have a break while the computer does the hard work!

About Automated Testing.

Bug Reporting

We may all hate bugs, but finding them, getting them logged and following up on them is a critical part of our work.

About Reporting Bugs.

SRU Testing

Following on from reporting bugs, this is also an extremely important area. It ensures that bug fixes work on the older releases before they added as updates to those releases.

About SRU Testing.

How can I contribute to testcases?

Once you've done a few tests, you may like to add to the number of test cases that we have available.

Resources on Writing Testcases.

Thank-you

So, you have got this far? Thank-you! We were all once new to the family that is Ubuntu and felt worthless because we had so many questions, yet felt we could never answer them for others. In testing the Ubuntu-QA team welcomes you. Whether you are a new tester, or just brushing up on what is new. You may have questions running through your mind. There is no such thing as a dumb question, if they are not answered on our QA page, please just ask! We will, as testers, answer any S.O.S. request from any of our family. We cannot stress how important you people are. Please do feel free to ask questions, these make the instructions better for everyone