Bugtracking is now on Launchpad

[Husse]

We now have bugtracking on Launchpad
But if you do not want to register there please report here and emorrp1 will take care of the rest

[ranyardm]

This is now becoming an issue with mint - there are too many places to report bugs, and I'm certain that they're not even getting seen in some places.

For instance I logged a bug in launchpad for mintmenu on the 12 Dec and it hasn't even been accepted (or rejected but that won't happen because it is real) as a bug. In the meantime, two updates have happened for bugs reported elsewhere being fixed.

Launching the community site as an extra place for bugs when the current situation is too fragmented is imho the wrong way to go.

Sorry if this seems like I'm moaning but it's something that affects mint's image, and hopefully by raising it, we can keep the good professional image up.

--
Martyn

[Husse]

Well these forums are for people that don't want to use Launchpad
emorrp1 reads the forums and adds a bug report to Launchpad if it is a real bug
The community site is still in alpha but it works well we might close the bug forums
mintMenu is looked at by the devs now because of some trouble with spaces so maybe the bug report you made is used

[viking777]

We now have bugtracking on Launchpad
But if you do not want to register there please report here and emorrp1 will take care of the rest

Good stuff. That was really needed.

[ranyardm]

I'm sorry but I have to maintain my stance here, this isn't really a good way to respond to users :

• 14/12/09 bug reported in launchpad
• 22/1/10 bug still not even acknowledged in launchpad

This needs to be looked at - IMO having multiple launchpads is not working. I love mint and it's a wonderfully polished distro, but this kind of thing can really let it down.

--
Martyn

[Husse]

I think we have been to busy getting KDE and Fluxbox out
I'll see if we can get it going now that they are ready

[ranyardm]

• 30/01/10 Bug still not even acknowledged

This is getting ridiculous. What is the point of reporting bugs if they don't even get acknowledged. It takes probably a minute to follow the testcase in a well-formulated bugreport and acknowledge that the bug is reproducible. If the person getting the bug report emails from launchpad isn't willing to do that in over a month from report, I posit that the job should be given to somebody or a group of people who will. Either that or close down the specific launchpads and merge them into one actively monitored one. I know that I sound like a broken record but it ruins the professional image of Mint to have "undecided" bugs going back so far.

[Husse]

We will reorganize this - unfortunately emorrp1 who is responsible has not had the time to watch over it as well as he wants
I'll discuss it with Clem

[ranyardm]

Broken record I know, but there seems to be no progress on this?

[Husse]

We have become one person short and I'm trying to reorganize
I hope to have it sorted not too far into the future

[emorrp1]

• 14/12/09 bug reported in launchpad
• 30/01/10 Bug still not even acknowledged

Well, the only bugs that were reported on 14th Dec do not match your description - #496730 was fixed by Clem the following day and #496353 was a dupe that was commented on and bypassed the very same day. Please provide a link.

This is getting ridiculous. What is the point of reporting bugs if they don't even get acknowledged.

Firstly I agree, you should probably know that your chances of getting a new bug report even noticed in Ubuntu is slim (just see the Mint ones I've acknowledged and sent upstream). My main aim when I volunteered to be bug supervisor was to have some sort of response as quickly as possible, to prevent the frustration of uncertainty you're feeling. This worked well over the summer when I could spend time chasing down a bug, but wasn't so effective once I started back at Uni and became even worse with the explosion of bug reports for Helena, I can't keep up.

It takes probably a minute to follow the testcase in a well-formulated bugreport and acknowledge that the bug is reproducible.

Unfortunately, it takes a lot longer than that on average. Mainly because there are very few "well-formulated" bug reports (just scroll through the list on launchpad) and they often involve random hardware or software that I don't have, but also because there's always a lot of background reading to be done. Not to let this dis-hearten me, I set up numerous virtual machines - one for each edition and version of Mint and the corresponding upstream Ubuntu release. I also formulated a number of standard responses and often marked a bug as "Incomplete" rather than "invalid" or "won't fix" to give the bug reporter a chance to respond.

A good example is bug #499475 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/499475), which I mistook for your bug before noticing the exact date and so went through with it, total time: >30mins First I had to realise the reporter meant "tab" rather than "tag", I then checked *my* Mouse prefs (Gloria) had the touchpad tab. Next I loaded up my Helena VM - sure enough there was no Touchpad tab. However I realised it could be a fancy app that only shows that tab if a touchpad is detected, so I loaded up my Gloria VM, to show yep, no Touchpad tab (whereas I know it's capable of it since it works on my native Gloria system). I then searched launchpad for similar issues: Possibility number 1 - touchpad not correctly detected [hardware]. I could have stopped there (mark "incomplete") and just asked them to run through a number of touchpad troubleshooting routines and probably never heard from the reporter again (approx time taken 10-15mins).

At this point I was going to try installing Helena in my native test partition, but discovered my optical drive isn't working - I'm not counting this 10mins. I was working on the assumption that this was your bug report (ignoring your "well-formulated" comment anyway) so I assumed (for the time being) that Mint was correctly identifying the touchpad. I therefore turned to the fount of all knowledge: http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=karmic+touchpad+preferences and discovered an upstream change for Karmic that meant you couldn't disable the touchpad fully. This was also echoed in bug #404638 and the other google links, so I loaded up my VMs again to find where this option would be (general/accessibility), but obviously it's still not showing unless a touchpad is detected: Possibility number 2 - upstream changes. At this point (just under 15mins) I gave up and edited the bug report with my findings, was generous in leaving it "Incomplete" rather than "Won't Fix" dues the ambiguity of the exact upstream changes, but writing up the bug report usually takes about 5mins to collate all the info.

Total time investigating this one bug: >30mins

If the person getting the bug report emails from launchpad isn't willing to do that in over a month from report, I posit that the job should be given to somebody or a group of people who will.

Again I agree, I have in fact said as such to the Mint Team. The problem is really one of manpower, there's only so much any one of us can do with outside commitments - If you're willing to volunteer for the job, I'll recommend you and give you all the help I can in starting out. Incidentally, I elected to stop receiving e-mails from launchpad almost immediately upon become the bug supervisor because there're so many and whenever I do have time, I just logon to launchpad and see what's new. Also, just a reminder that Ubuntu bug reports often remain untouched for months, sometimes years.

I don't mean to be harsh towards your comments or anything, but I do want to emphasise that I still care about the Mint project, I just can't donate as much time during term.

Total time taken to respond to your comments about bug supervising (inc. marking a couple of bugs duplicate, the touchpad bug [and finding it - no date filter on lp], discovering my optical drive doesn't work, writing this post [about an hour] etc.): 2hrs
Watching Husse's never-ending efforts to improve the organisation and effectiveness of the Team: priceless

[Husse]

I'll try to hunt down some bugs, but I don't want to spend so much time here that a divorce becomes imminent

[ranyardm]

Hi emorrp1,

Well, the only bugs that were reported on 14th Dec do not match your description - #496730 was fixed by Clem the following day and #496353 was a dupe that was commented on and bypassed the very same day. Please provide a link.

One reason I didn't provide a link is because I was concerned that the particular launchpad I reported the bug in was not being checked. The fact you were unable to locate the bug report in question underlines that fact. In fact this was my main initial reason for replying to this thread, that there are too many places to report bugs, and because of this, people do not know where to report the bug so that it gets seen.

There are multiple launchpads for linux mint - one for the distro, which I'm assuming is the one you're checking, then one for mintupdate, one for mintmenu, one for mintupload... I picked the most appropriate one for my bug - mintmenu. In my opinion, these extra launchpads need closing down.

Firstly I agree, you should probably know that your chances of getting a new bug report even noticed in Ubuntu is slim (just see the Mint ones I've acknowledged and sent upstream). My main aim when I volunteered to be bug supervisor was to have some sort of response as quickly as possible, to prevent the frustration of uncertainty you're feeling. This worked well over the summer when I could spend time chasing down a bug, but wasn't so effective once I started back at Uni and became even worse with the explosion of bug reports for Helena, I can't keep up.

*sigh* I haven't had to report a bug upstream in a long time, so that is something I wasn't aware of. I would point out that it's not just the frustration and uncertainty that reporting a bug and getting no feedback, but that if you look at any opensource project, there is always the possibility of finding a dead project, and one of the ways people check (at least myself and other people I know) is to look at the open bugs for the project. If you look at mintmenu's launchpad it would be easy to conclude that it is an unmaintained project. Not so much with the main linuxmint launchpad I presume, which is good.

Unfortunately, it takes a lot longer than that on average. Mainly because there are very few "well-formulated" bug reports (just scroll through the list on launchpad) and they often involve random hardware or software that I don't have, but also because there's always a lot of background reading to be done. Not to let this dis-hearten me, I set up numerous virtual machines - one for each edition and version of Mint and the corresponding upstream Ubuntu release. I also formulated a number of standard responses and often marked a bug as "Incomplete" rather than "invalid" or "won't fix" to give the bug reporter a chance to respond.

A good example is bug #499475 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/499475), which I mistook for your bug before noticing the exact date and so went through with it, total time: >30mins First I had to realise the reporter meant "tab" rather than "tag", I then checked *my* Mouse prefs (Gloria) had the touchpad tab. Next I loaded up my Helena VM - sure enough there was no Touchpad tab. However I realised it could be a fancy app that only shows that tab if a touchpad is detected, so I loaded up my Gloria VM, to show yep, no Touchpad tab (whereas I know it's capable of it since it works on my native Gloria system). I then searched launchpad for similar issues: Possibility number 1 - touchpad not correctly detected [hardware]. I could have stopped there (mark "incomplete") and just asked them to run through a number of touchpad troubleshooting routines and probably never heard from the reporter again (approx time taken 10-15mins).

At this point I was going to try installing Helena in my native test partition, but discovered my optical drive isn't working - I'm not counting this 10mins. I was working on the assumption that this was your bug report (ignoring your "well-formulated" comment anyway) so I assumed (for the time being) that Mint was correctly identifying the touchpad. I therefore turned to the fount of all knowledge: http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=karmic+touchpad+preferences and discovered an upstream change for Karmic that meant you couldn't disable the touchpad fully. This was also echoed in bug #404638 and the other google links, so I loaded up my VMs again to find where this option would be (general/accessibility), but obviously it's still not showing unless a touchpad is detected: Possibility number 2 - upstream changes. At this point (just under 15mins) I gave up and edited the bug report with my findings, was generous in leaving it "Incomplete" rather than "Won't Fix" dues the ambiguity of the exact upstream changes, but writing up the bug report usually takes about 5mins to collate all the info.

Total time investigating this one bug: >30mins

Indeed, for a distro bug, I can well imagine that the time taken is exponentially greater, and especially when the problem has not been introduced by the mintify process. This is one of the problems of running a distribution and one of the many reasons I have never done so (aside from the fact that mint is such a good distro).

Again I agree, I have in fact said as such to the Mint Team. The problem is really one of manpower, there's only so much any one of us can do with outside commitments - If you're willing to volunteer for the job, I'll recommend you and give you all the help I can in starting out. Incidentally, I elected to stop receiving e-mails from launchpad almost immediately upon become the bug supervisor because there're so many and whenever I do have time, I just logon to launchpad and see what's new. Also, just a reminder that Ubuntu bug reports often remain untouched for months, sometimes years.

I think that my earlier comment stands on this - it's not just a question of manpower, but centralisation. If the volume was low enough to receive the emails from launchpad, having multiple launchpads (perhaps plus the forum, but not IMHO the community site as well) would work. I am well aware of how much time volunteering for a project such as this takes, I used to be a package maintainer for cAos Linux and am not in a position to offer any more of my time at present, except in occasional hopefully constructive input such as this.

I don't mean to be harsh towards your comments or anything, but I do want to emphasise that I still care about the Mint project, I just can't donate as much time during term.

My comments are only intended constructively, the bug only frustrates me occasionally, and I do appreciate the effort put in by the team, including yourself. I am trying to help in the small way I can by bringing this discussion to the team, and hopefully it is not seen as an attack, but indeed constructive.

Total time taken to respond to your comments about bug supervising (inc. marking a couple of bugs duplicate, the touchpad bug [and finding it - no date filter on lp], discovering my optical drive doesn't work, writing this post [about an hour] etc.): 2hrs
Watching Husse's never-ending efforts to improve the organisation and effectiveness of the Team: priceless

Thanks for your time on this, but I would be tempted to separate those two things out - the point of my post is not to get my bug looked at, but to get the bug-reporting structure of Linux Mint looked at, which would hopefully have the knock-on effect of the bug in question looked at.

Thanks again for your input on this and hopefully something will come of the discussions.
--
Martyn

[emorrp1]

There are multiple launchpads for linux mint - one for the distro, which I'm assuming is the one you're checking, then one for mintupdate, one for mintmenu, one for mintupload... I picked the most appropriate one for my bug - mintmenu. In my opinion, these extra launchpads need closing down.

I see what you mean, occasionally it is useful to have separate project pages, but I think you're right. While our actual codebase is quite small, the extra project pages are just diluting the bug reporting. We can quite easily manage with the current practice of tagging and using "[mintMenu]" prependers. In fact I wouldn't even receive notification of mintMenu bugs as I'm only "bug supervisor" for linuxmint.

Thanks for your time on this, but I would be tempted to separate those two things out - the point of my post is not to get my bug looked at, but to get the bug-reporting structure of Linux Mint looked at, which would hopefully have the knock-on effect of the bug in question looked at.

I did realise this, but thought I'd run with it anyway. The only thing missing from your bug report was the version number (otherwise it was great), and it still took just over 10mins to diagnose and reply. I'll mention your recommendation to the Team, thanks for bringing it up.

[Husse]

I already posted a suggestion yesterday to have only one Launchpad section (or whatever it's called) for bugs
I'm actually going through the forum and reporting to Launchpad "real" bugs that are not reported
Some time later I'll check in on Launchpad - the unanswered posts will have to wait a bit