Quality Assurance and Bugs

Xubuntu, like any piece of software, needs good testers. You can contribute to Xubuntu simply by running the latest version and reporting bugs and helping follow those bugs until they are fixed.

The first steps in getting involved in Xubuntu QA and bug-tracking include:

• Running the latest development version of Xubuntu, and upgrading regularly.

• Subscribing to the xubuntu-devel mailing list online and watching it. Many developers post testing and experimental packages to mailing list. Testing CDs are often very under-tested. You can make an important contribution by following the mailing list and reporting bugs and issues that you run into.

Of course, you will run into problems when you run these testing and development version of Xubuntu. Using the software alone is not a contribution; only when you report the bugs that you encounter do you make a meaningful contribution to the Xubuntu community.

• When you find bugs, you should report bugs into the Xubuntu Malone. You can make sure your bugs are more useful by carefully reading GNOME projects bug HOWTO.

• Look through bugs, especially new bugs, to "triage" them and to find, confirm, and close duplicates. This can also involve verifying and reproducing bugs adding information to the bug description.

• Finally, you can make a huge impact by following up on bugs in packages that you care about and by fixing them!

See the documentation on our wiki about bug reporting.

Reporting Bugs

Software contains flaws, called bugs. To manage them, Xubuntu uses the Malone bug tracking system. Malone is a new bug tracker created as part of the Launchpad architecture. Malone is used to track all bugs for Xubuntu and bugs for packages from other distributions.

Getting Started

Malone uses the Launchpad accounts, just as the Ubuntu wiki. To file a bug report, you'll need to have a launchpad account which you can easily create.

Filing Bugs

Before submitting a bug, you'll want to search through the existing bug reports and release notes to ensure. If the bug has not already been reported, then you may create a new bug report.

Please do not file a bug report for the following:

• Feature requests
• Support requests
• Policy discussion
• Development ideas

When filing out the bug report, It is better to have more information than too little - Try to be as descriptive as possible. For more information on bug reports and how to file them, please visit the Ubuntu bugsquad wiki pages.

Conclusion

After you've filed a bug report, you'll most likely find that a developer or a member of the bugsquad will request more detailed information to help the development team in debugging and correcting the issue.

Testing New Versions

Every six months, a new version of Xubuntu is released. To ensure the quality of this new version, it needs to be tested and the results need to be reported. For more instructions on how to assist with testing the newest, unreleased version of Xubuntu, see the Community Testing page on the Ubuntu wiki. Do note that it is generally not recommended to install an unreleased version of Xubuntu on machines that need to be stable!