The Future of Ubuntu should have a simplified error reporting mechanism.

[mikeycal]

The thing that makes GNU/Linux so great is that we have a community of developers that regulary do stuff like fix common glitches.

The one thing that no distrobution does, which would make Ubuntu more stable, is simplify error reporting.

The problem with general error reporting is that it is to difficult for non-technical users to file a bug report. If it is hard to report errors than you will just skip reporting them all together.

I think (K)ubuntu solved the issue of doing software updates with a taskbar icon that prompts you to do an update. (Adept)

So why can't Kubuntu do the same with error reporting -- a taskbar icon for reporting errors simply by filling something out and click send. If this mechanism existed all problems would be reported by all users.

what do you think?

[askrieger]

Re: The Future of Ubuntu should have a simplified error reporting mechanism.

It really wouldn't be that hard to write a python script, or something to generate bug reports. My concern would be that often as not, something that a new user or even a semi-pro thinks is a bug is actually a usability glitch or a case of poor documantation that leaves the user unable to do what the original programmer assumed would be intuitively obvious to even the most naive user, i.e. Linus Torvalds and Eric S. Raymond can figure it out together in a week of experimentation.

I would suspect that since most coders (myself included) know this, you will find a certain level of resistance to making it easy for general users to file bug reports. On the other hand, if there's one distro that might do it, it's (K)Ubuntu.

[Fenyx]

Re: The Future of Ubuntu should have a simplified error reporting mechanism.

Sorry for saying this, but I've found bug reporting (and searching) to be a bit of a PITA. Filing a bug report in order to be really heard, while being the proper way to communicate with developers, is also a very scary, if not stressful, undertaking for a new user.

For one, I haven't seen a general, newbie-friendly, Bug Reporting FAQ yet. So you want to file a bug report, because this app has been crashing on you since day 1, and nobody seems to know the answer. But how do you file a bug report? what logs do you need to include? what details do you need to mention? In Launchpad, for example, when you file a bug report, it is presumed you know what "package" is affected by the bug.

Another difficulty I see in bug reporting are the bug tracking utilities themselves. Most of the time, I find that the layout/interface/etc. of these trackers have a certain "geeky" feeling to them. Of course, you don't need a lot of pictures, menus, etc. But if you're whole page is nothing but a 2-column plain text list/links, and your "advanced" search page needs a CS degree to decipher... Well, just see bugs.kde.org to see what I mean.

Time and time again, I've heard that bug reporting is a great way to get involved in the development of open source projects, that it's one of the best ways to get heard by developers, that it's one of the simplest methods in contributing to a project. But until now, at least from my personal experience, bug reporting is one of those aspects of Linux that still resides within the realm of the geek.

Having said that, I think there's one aspect of bug reporting that KDE has an advantage over GNOME: KDE's Crash Handler. When a program crashes in Kubuntu, it launches the crash handler dialog box. One of the tabs will generate what they call a "backtrace" which gives developers a clue as to what might have caused the crash. Of course, you must have gdb (GNU Debugger) installed.

[aysiu]

Re: The Future of Ubuntu should have a simplified error reporting mechanism.

I agree. It's okay to have to log in, but launchpad has several places to look in addition to Ubuntu. You're also encouraged to search to see if your bug exists already, but you may not know what to search for, and even if you do... their search results usually aren't that good, so I've filed a duplicate bug or two. And I often do not know what package a problem is related to.