[Courses] [Tools] Bug-tracking tasks

[Clytie Siddall]

I'm catching up with this, so sorry it's late.

I do a lot of typo-reporting in PO files, but have rarely reported a  
functional bug in an application. These tasks will be very useful for  
me. I'm already registered with Launchpad (Ubuntu Bugzilla) and have  
reported msgid typos there.

Drat, I went to my People page, and searching Bugs there only  
searches for bugs assigned to me. So searching for Firefox there got  
me nothing.

Back to the parent Launchpad pages, then Bugs...

Launchpad -> Bugs -> Bugs in Upstream Products -> Jump to bugs in  
product |Firefox| ...

Results: 4 links, one of them to Firefox. Click on that link...

General page on Firefox, Bugs link on the right probably gives more  
bug-related details, but several "latest" bugs are shown in a sidebar  
on the RHS. Choose one, grab the link...

1.1. Find a bug in Firefox:

https://launchpad.net/products/firefox/+bug/18401

This is new, unconfirmed.

1.2. Find a bug that has been filed but not confirmed.

Back to the main Malone page. Clicking on Find and View Ubuntu Bugs  
seems like a good choice. Malone is still keen to show me bugs  
assigned to me. It's like a murdered albatross, having bugs assigned  
to you here, they will hang around your neck wherever you go!

OK, I don't need to use the Advanced search, because there's a  
NEEDINFO in the list on this page. Grab...

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/sudo/+bug/5100

I've responded to one or two NEEDINFOs before, so I do recognize that  
status. I try to make sure as much relevant info as possible is in  
the original bug report. In my case, that means the actual strings  
from the PO file, including reference headers, what is wrong, how to  
fix it, grammatic explanations if useful, and additional references  
(e.g. to the gettext manual). The couple of NEEDINFOs to which I've  
responded, have been queries about how to do something a certain way  
with PO files, and I've taken those queries to the various  
internationalization (i18n) lists, then returned with the data. I've  
found this kind of thorough bug reporting does create change, so it's  
worth the time invested.

1.3. Find a bug that has been fixed (status RESOLVED).

The list on that page does not include a RESOLVED bug, so I'll use  
the Advanced search... link at the top of the page...

The status RESOLVED does not appear to exist in this bug-tracker.  
Status FIX COMMITTED and FIX RELEASED do exist. FIX COMMITTED sounds  
closest to RESOLVED. Searching by that status only... no other  
constraints...

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-docs/+bug/2704

I've grabbed a doc. bug, because that's more my kind of activity.

1.4. Find a bug that has been rejected (as bugs found in my kitchen  
usually are), status WONTFIX	
Same search, this time by "priority" (in this bug-tracker) WONTFIX...

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.15/+bug/ 
12911

This interests me, because the bug title is that the install freezes  
on the language choice screen. This would be critical to  
translations, and it is marked critical. What happened?

Ah, it turns out to be a BIOS issue, and updating the BIOS fixed  
that, and several other problems for this user. Great. :)  It wasn't  
rejected for any reason of accuracy or quality or sheer bad hair day,  
it just wasn't relevant to that software.

Now, moving on, I don't use a Free Software distro. I run Mac OSX  
10.4.5. However, I do translate for a large number of OSS projects.  
I'll choose one of them for the next lot of tasks. I'll choose KDE,  
since I've only just started with that project.

2.1 Where is your distribution's bug tracker?

KDE uses Bugzilla. Their Bugzilla is at:

http://bugs.kde.org/

2.2 Find a bug that has been filed against a piece of software you use.

I'll find a bug filed against a piece of software I'm translating.  
I'm currently translating kdelibs.

Logging in ... I find the Bugzilla software has problems with my  
ISP's practice of rotating IP addresses. Where Launchpad and many  
other sites can log me in automatically from my cookies, Bugzilla  
can't, and will even log me out in between pages. ID based on IP is  
not, IMHO, very reliable. The Bugzilla admins at Gnome have hacked  
their Bugzilla not to log me out, because I report so many typos,  
reliably. So if you have problems with bug-reporting, do ask your  
admins. They want your bug reports. :)

I've chosen kdelibs, then knotify (because I remember strings I've  
translated for it), then CVS, because I translate from CVS, the  
latest data. I can install KDE (and any Linux/UNIX) software on Mac  
OSX, so I've chosen "Mac OSX (fink)". I get a lot of my packages via  
fink, but also from DarwinPorts, and by downloading source from  
different places. The base system is installed already. System: OSX.  
Searching...

Nothing. :(

I'll try again, might do better by widening the search. kdelibs/ 
kbabel editor is more likely, kbabel being used so widely by us  
translators. (Can't run it on OSX due to an X11 incapacity for  
displaying or entering my language, but that's not a kbabel bug. I  
did report it against kbabel originally, but we worked out after a  
while, that it was an X11 problem, and I've reported it to Apple.

Nope, nothing. I wonder if I can look for ANYTHING reported for my  
system? No, trying kbabel again, for OSX, but the last stable release..

Nothing. This is getting frustrating. I think I'd better pretend I  
use another system. I'll try kbabel 6.1 (last full number, so  
probably last stable release) from Ubuntu packages, on All systems.

Still nothing. Either good news, or lack of info, for the kbabel  
developers.

Trying kbabel, all possible components, all versions, all systems,  
all everything!

Yay! Bugs found.

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30032

Ah, this person is also on a Mac, but running Linux. I think a  
comment would be useful here, though...

2.3 See if you can replicate the bug described in 2.2. If not, why
        not? If so, can you see anything missing from the bug report?
        Tell us about it.

The bug report was extremely brief, via the bugreporter program. It  
didn't include any screenshots of the display problem. There was no  
follow-up, after the developer offered to send the latest release to  
the person reporting.

I can't replicate this bug, since I'm not running Linux, but I can  
certainly replicate my bug, an identical one, on OSX. Running kbabel,  
you require x11, and any characters outside the Latin-1 charset will  
not display correctly, and can't be input correctly. Critical: can't  
use the app. for translation, for which it is designed.

2.4 Think of a problem you have with software on your distribution.
        See if you can find out whether a bug has been filed against it
        yet. (Tell us the search terms you used.) If there doesn't seem
        to be a bug, draft a bug report and send it to us, and we'll  
help
        you file it.

I still have the problem mentioned above. I have filed a bug against  
it. But I think it must be too old, because searching under Kbabel  
and OSX does not bring up any reports. I've input a comment on the  
above, related bug, asking the developer if he has heard anything  
about my bug, and the X11 problem that makes kbabel unusable for us.

Searching for _any_ bug against kbabel and OSX:

kbabel | (component) all | (version) all | (packages) all | (system)  
OSX | (status, severity etc.) all

produces no results. :(

I could re-file my bug, but since it seems to be an X11 problem, I  
don't want to file it against kbabel.

Does anyone know how to search for bugs at Apple, and find out their  
status?

Searching for "bug X11" at Apple only gets me info about other  
products, or "this update fixes bugs" media stuff.

<quite some time later>

I've registered for their new support fora, and asked questions about  
"how to track bugs" and "what do they think the problem is" on the  
appropriate forum. I've always found the Apple Support discussion  
lists very helpful. Thanks for encouraging me to keep trying with  
this. :)

OK, that's this lot of tasks. The mail is pretty long! I'm off to the  
next lesson...

from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm  
Việt hóa phần mềm tự do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN