91 lines
4.2 KiB
Text
91 lines
4.2 KiB
Text
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" [
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<!ENTITY base CDATA "../..">
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<!ENTITY date "$FreeBSD$">
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<!ENTITY title "FreeBSD GNOME Project: Reporting a Bug">
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<!ENTITY % gnomeincludes SYSTEM "../includes.sgml"> %gnomeincludes;
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<!ENTITY % includes SYSTEM "../../includes.sgml"> %includes;
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]>
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<html>
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&header;
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<table border="0">
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<tr>
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<td>
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<h2>1. What to report?</h2>
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<p>The rule of the thumb should be: report as much information as you
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can, because even if there is some irrelevant information usually
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developers could quite easy filter it out. On the contrary, the
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situation is much worse when there is too little information to
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reliably track down or reproduce the problem - in this case developers
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have to spend their time guessing and/or asking originator of report
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to send more information.</p>
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<p>There are plenty of examples of totally useless bug reports, something
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like <i>"Hey, gnomefoo port is broken. I'm running FreeBSD-X.Y.
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Please fix."</i> Needless to say, that such report is just a waste of
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your time, time of the appropriate developer and network bandwidth.
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At the bare minimum the report should include the following
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information:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><p>Exact version of the operating system (usually output of
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<tt>uname -a</tt>).</p></li>
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<li><p>List of all packages installed on your system.</p></li>
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<li><p>Your environment (output of <tt>/usr/bin/env</tt>).
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<li><p>If you are building from ports then approximate time when you was
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last time updating your ports tree.</p></li>
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<li><p>Information specific for each type of breakage: full log of
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unsuccessful build in the case when the build of the port is broken,
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stack trace in the case of core dump, clean and detailed description
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of the problem when application does something unexpected etc. Try
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to put yourself into developer's shoes and in each particular case
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evaluate what information would be necessary for him to locate the
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source of the problem, don't just assume that he already knows all
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about the problem, but is just too lazy to fix it.</p></li>
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</ul>
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<p>If you have a solution or a workaround for the problem then include
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it into your report as well, even if you are not quite sure that this
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is a correct fix, if it is not it could give developer idea about
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what to look at and save him some time.</p>
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<h2>2. Where to report?</h2>
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<p>There are several ways to report a bug in GNOME running on a FreeBSD
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system: you could send report to the
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<a href="mailto:&email;@FreeBSD.org">freebsd-gnome mailing
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list</a>, file a problem report in
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<a href="http://www.freebsd.org/support.html#gnats">FreeBSD bug
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reporting system</a>, send your report to the particular GNOME
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developers via their
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<a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/">bug tracking system</a> or any
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combination of those.<p>
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<p>It is impossible to define guidelines that will clearly tell you where
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to report in each particular case - you have to use your own common
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sense, however some rules follow:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><p>If the problem is FreeBSD-specific and transient (e.g. checksum
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mismatch, patch failure, syntax error in port's Makefile etc.) then
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report to the freebsd-gnome mailing list.</p></li>
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<li><p>If the problem is clearly not FreeBSD-specific and you have no
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readily available solution then report to the developers of the
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software directly (for most core GNOME components this means that you
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need to use their Bugzilla bug tracking system).</p></li>
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<li><p>If the problem isn't a FreeBSD-specific, but quite serious and you
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have a fix available then report both to FreeBSD and authors' bug
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tracking systems, so that the appropriate port will be patched and
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other users of FreeBSD will be able to benefit from your fix, without
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the need to wait for a next vendor's release.</p></li>
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</ul>
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</td>
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</tr>
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</table>
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&footer;
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</body>
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</html>
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