[GTALUG] question re: bug filing

[Dhaval Giani]

On Wed, Feb 17, 2021 at 6:52 PM o1bigtenor via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 17, 2021 at 7:28 PM Lennart Sorensen via talk
> <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 17, 2021 at 03:12:49PM -0800, Dhaval Giani via talk wrote:
> > > I also imagine you are paying the debian volunteers for their time to
> > > help you with a bug you are hitting. You are joining a community, and
> > > it would be great to respect the rules and processes that community
> > > follows. Seriously, this is a volunteer effort people are involved in.
> > >
> > > FWIW, reportbug is *NOT* monitoring your system. It is just populating
> > > your bug report with almost everything the maintainer would ask you up
> > > first. Such as, are you on the latest package? Can you test with the
> > > latest package? Has your bug already been reported? If so, can we add
> > > to that report? Are you running the originally shipped package or
> > > doing something custom?
> >
> > Yes the debian bug reporting is a script collecting info.  It can send it
> > directly as an email, if email sending is configured on your system, or it
> > can save it as a file you can send from an email client by yourself, and
> > of course being a text file you can read what it in it before sending it.
> >
> Reading the 'official' Debian page on 'reportbug' really didn't even seem to
> hint that sending anything in myself was possible. There were directions on
> setting up this and that and the next thing and everything was supposed to
> then 'just happen' (an automatic function). There was also no mention of
> any limits in the 'sending'. Like does it function autonomously after the first
> time, that seemed to be what was suggested - - - - but - - - - - it
> really wasn't
> clear.
>

Try harder.  Hugh suggested https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting .
Opening that page,

How to report a bug in Debian using email (and advanced usage of reportbug)

followed by

Sending the bug report via e-mail

Nowhere does it say you can only use reportbug. Yes, they prefer bugs
reported through that, but you can always email bugs.

> Any tool that doesn't have clearly defined limits usually doesn't get installed
> here. My trust factor in software isn't very high - - - - if it even
> exists in all
> honesty - - - that's called experience.

Just to remind you here, this is free software. The source code is
available to you to satisfy your paranoia.

> In fact I have four systems - - - one
> main computer and an older server - - - - don't use it much but bought it
> looking forward. Then there is a test bed system for each of the first two.
> There are still issues that happen because the test bed system for my main
> machine isn't multi-gpu and multi-monitor so I 'have' been trying to set up
> things to minimize my main system(s) being taken out because of software
> but even this trialing system isn't detailed enough. Its starting to seem
> like I need to have my trial system be more similar to its counterpart.
> I just don't have the time to fight to get things working well after I do a
> system upgrade and those issues are taking at least part of my system
> down even 3 to 4 days. Kernel 5.0.5 was far worse there were times I
> had to do a reboot every few hours - - - hard to get work done when you
> need about 1/2 hour to set up things the way you want them and then
> within a few hours you need to do it all over again.
>
> So what do I do - - - - no clear path at this point yet except perhaps to
> install kernel 5.4.99 (last time I looked at the kernel info) and then run that,
> maybe I can keep that kernel and just update everything else - - - dunno.
>

Engage the debian community, and describe your problem. Let them
figure out where the issue is. Respect the person at the other end and
remember, they are doing you a favour. And that you are not entitled
to that support. If you take this attitude there, I am very sure you
will just get ignored. If that is not possible, pay someone to fix it
for you. Of course, there is the other option of using some other
software (proprietary because it would meet your requirements better,
and you have paid for support). No one is forcing you to use Debian
(or free software for that matter).

Dhaval