Chapter 41
Helping with Ubuntu Testing and QA
There are many ways to help the Ubuntu community create, refine, and promote the operating system. Some are highly technical, like writing code or packaging programs to be included in the software repositories. Some are less technical, such as helping promote Ubuntu locally or through blogging interesting news items from the community. Somewhere in the middle, leaning toward the technical side, is a task that is wide open for greater community involvement.
This is a rather brief and intentionally vague chapter. Testing by volunteers requires more than a casual interest if it is going to be helpful to the developers and not an annoyance. For that reason, this chapter covers the basics of how to get involved and some of the opportunities but not the precise details. If you are interested—and, after reading this chapter, we hope you are—the next step is to visit the websites listed in the “References” section at the end of the chapter.
Community Teams
Two community teams—the Ubuntu Testing Team and the Ubuntu QA Team—would love to see volunteers who can follow directions, be careful and methodical, and notice details. Both teams work to refine the distribution during the development cycle to help make Ubuntu the best it can be.
The Ubuntu QA Team looks directly at the overall quality of the distribution, trying out default programs and configurations and trying to break things. The goal is to find bugs during the development cycle and make clear reports about them, trying to get them fixed before end users ever know of their existence. The goal here is product improvement and quality control or assurance.
These are big tasks. Even with several Canonical employees working on these tasks full time, testing every hardware configuration or use case is nearly impossible. Guessing what creative ways users will attempt to perform tasks that developers have designed to perform differently is also impossible. Testing as many of these options as possible is key when the goal is to create a positive experience for as many people as possible. This is why volunteers are both welcome and actively recruited.
These are also exacting tasks. Testing and bug reporting (or fixing) require careful attention so that problems are reported clearly with steps that can be repeated by developers. This enables them to find where problems lie and more easily fix them. Not everyone is well suited for this sort of thing, but those who are able to be clear and precise and who can follow the directions given in testing plans and procedures are worth their weight in gold. You might not receive public glory for testing, but you will receive honor from those working with you in testing if you can do the job well.
You will notice some crossover in the descriptions of the teams that follow because these teams work together closely. Although each team has a main focus, the two teams perform similar tasks from time to time. Even the individual teams’ web pages link to each other and offer similar information to help coordinate and direct any interested volunteers to the tasks they feel most equipped to help with.
Ubuntu Testing Team
Members of the Ubuntu Testing Team are probably best known for their work during a release week, when they help validate all the CD and DVD images. They also operate on the release cycle testing beta releases and release candidates. In addition, they test update packages for stable releases before the packages are pushed out to users. They do this by enabling a new software repository called -proposed and trying out the software there before it ends up in the -updates repository. In addition, they help developers by coordinating communications and actively seeking and connecting additional volunteers when specific testing needs are encountered.
To join the Ubuntu Testing Team, you need a Launchpad account, and then you can join the team via the team’s Launchpad page, at https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-testing. Subscribing to the team’s email list at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-qa is also a good idea. When testers are needed, the Launchpad team list and the mailing list are the initial points of contact for those who are asked to help.
There are many ways to get involved in testing; each has varying requirements in terms of time and technical skill. Some tasks are quick and easy, and others are more involved. Some of the tests are general in nature, and others involve specific features, applications, and hardware. Some tests are automated and require specific test software to be downloaded and installed. Others are given as a list of instructions. Opportunities exist for many skill levels and most time schedules.
Ubuntu QA Team
Compared to the Ubuntu Testing Team, the QA Team has a stronger focus on developing and using tools to automate the process. This enables people using the tools to run a large battery of tests against a code base very quickly while ensuring that they are probing precisely what is needed. Much of the QA Team’s work is useful for hardware certification, logic testing, and bug discovery. The team has developed an Ubuntu developer-focused suite of tools called ubuntu-qa-tools, a library called Mago for the Linux Desktop Testing Project (LDTP) to simplify testing of Ubuntu within the wider realm of Linux desktops, a framework called Checkbox that tests and sends test data directly to Launchpad, and more.
Bug Squad
One of the first places people become involved in Ubuntu testing is with Bug Squad. These volunteers are the initial point of contact for most bugs filed with Ubuntu. They read bug reports to see whether each bug seems legitimate (for example, that it isn’t something like “Ubuntu doesn’t work” but is specific and measurable), that it is filed against the appropriate software package, and that adequate information is included with each report for the developers to be able to figure out the problem. If the bug report meets the criteria, the Bug Squad determines which developer or team should be notified. Sometimes during the triage process, the Bug Squad might ask reporters for more information. The volunteers attempt to determine the severity of the bug and might assign a priority setting to the report.
References
▸ https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam—The starting point for understanding and volunteering for QA Testing
▸ https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad—The Ubuntu Bug Squad