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View Full Version : [ubuntu] Whole Ubuntu Bug Reporting Process Screwed Up



oldefoxx
June 18th, 2010, 09:33 PM
That's the first bug. I have a bug to report, and you leave no way to report it. I mean absolutely no way. I don't know what package is involved, so scratch that spproach. I have no process ID to report, so scratch that alternative as well. Anything I do know? Well just the error message that appears at the top of my screen about every 3rd boot attempt.

When it does, I can read it, tells me nothing I can relate to, and if I press Enter to finish booting up, it works. So why an error message? Don't know. Can I report it? Apparently not. Besides, it takes months before anybody contacts you about a bug anyway. By then you have forgotten all the particulars. Can I at least relate it to a previous bug report? How? How would a previous bug report be spotted that might be somewhat like what I have? That is just somebody on the other end wanting to bug spotters to do some of the legwork for them.

Okay, that is bug #1. Trouble is, bug #1 never gets fixed. All you have done is divide up submitted bug reports among the different versions of Ubuntu, each with its own submission path now. And you think you are doing a great job, because the number of reported bugs is down. Of course it is down. Nobody can find a decent way to get a bug report into the system. After awhile, we just quit trying. We have other things to be doing too.

So what might be the problem I want to report? All I see on the screen is something about "udevd-work[] file /dev/null folder or file not found." There is some more data as well, such as digits inside the square brackets I tried searching on any file with udevd-work or the text contents of "/dev/null", and nothing comes up. Must mean something, but I have no idea what.

So, in conjunction with bugs #1 and #2 leaving little option, I will just post this message to the forums.

I like how you divide up the forums as well. There is no overlap, it has to be all this or that. I've started several threads, and then someone on that end will decide it does not belong where I began it, and will stick it elsewhere. I get info back on where it is, but how about others that might be interested in what is being discussed there? Nothing has anything to do with Absolute Beginners except they need to be handled delicately. Issues like getting Grub to work or mixing Windows and Ubuntu on the same hard drive are just too much for them, unless they are faced with getting it done of course.

Oh, and I have commented on the lack of wisdom of advising everybody, including Absolute Beginners, to go with the most recent release, especially if you are doing to throw something totally new at them, like getting it by Torrent. Sure they could research it, but how are they to know in advance what you are advising them to commit themselves to?

Well, I think that should do for one post. Sometimes it is the way things tend to get handled that tell you the most, not the immediate words snd phrases used.

I came back to fix a few typos. Haven't gone further to read any responses yet. As usual, I expect to be held the guilty party in this. Others are going to claim they had no problem reporting bugs. Fine. That makes you better than me. I wasn't arguing that point. Since you are, you can have it your way, which is what you wanted anyway. But if it is so easy, why isn't it easy up front? You know how much you have to chase around trying to find the point of just getting started on a new bug report? Gets even better, because you follow the link trail, you reach one that takes you back to another that sent you this way in the first place. Such fun. Too bad the name "Ring Around the Rosy" is already taken.

Do I sound frustrated? Perhaps a tad. I know you guys want this software to be the best there is, and I believe it is right on the verge of that. But when we can't give adequate feedback back, how are you going to just how close you really are? Don't presume that we must all be pleased, because I can assure you, there is always someone that is not satisfied. Like me in this case.

Oh, something I did with 10.04 LTS that had helped me initially with 9.04 and 9.10 on my notebook. I installed wicd to handle networking for me, and it does a fine job, whether wired or wireless. I even get my bar indicators to show me the strength of signal. I guess that should do it for a bit.

dtfinch
June 18th, 2010, 09:40 PM
This bug? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/575333

oldefoxx
June 19th, 2010, 03:31 AM
I don't know, and care less anyway. Reason? Because I did what I could do to try and report it, and I am going to let it go at that. I'm not going to follow every link thrust under my nose. Besides, even if it has been reported, somebody should work on keeping tabs, like how many people have experienced this and what hardware was involved. Back when I was caught up in dealing with outstanding issues, I was taught a trick that they used a lot. They find the four or five reported issues that accounted for something like 80% to 99% of all trouble reports, and those were the only ones they set out to deal with. From this, you can easily conclude that if it is not a problem shared by most, then it will not be fixed and will not go away.

Example: 9.04 hangs if the keyboard and mouse are left alone. No big deal, just move the mouse or hit a key, like a shift key. Problem goes away. But under VirtualBox and a client OS, you cannot clear this problem with the keyboard. And the mouse is equally inept in resolving it. Problem was reported to Ubuntu and to Sun. In a future release of VirtualBox, there is a toolbar that can be accessed at the bottom of the screen, and some of the keys do things that clear the problem, at least temporarily.

But Ubuntu still has this as a bug, even though we are now up to 10.04 LTS, so the problem remains. Cause is unknown. No idea of what package might be at the root of the problem. And of course, no idea of what the process ID might be either. The problem is somehow limited to certain PCs, but which ones and why is unknown. It has been found thus far on two HP desktops a Gateway, and a Toshiba notebook: Actually, those are all the PCs that I have access to. Maybe it does occur on every PC, except I haven't seen anyone make mention of it or ask for a fix. Except me, of course.