Ubuntu Wiki

About Me

I'm a final year Electrical Engineering student at the University of Sydney. I was a Windows user, but after dabbling in a few distributions, I seriously got into GNU/Linux with Ubuntu Dapper, and switched to Ubuntu as my primary OS with Edgy. I've been hooked ever since

Contributions to Ubuntu

Summary

I started contributing in the Hardy development cycle, and have become even more involved during Intrepid development. I am not a programmer, so I spend much of my free time contributing to Ubuntu in the form of bug triage, reporting and testing. I also provide support in the #ubuntu channels from time to time, as well as providing en_AU translations and support on Launchpad Answers.

List of Contributions

• Bug Triage - I am a member of Ubuntu Bug Control. I have been known to triage bugs in neglected universe packages, bugs I am familiar with and bugs I can reproduce. This means I often contribute information to the reports I triage in the form of testing, logs and backtraces. I subscribe to all bugs I touch and stay with them until they are closed, rather than doing drive-by triage across a large number of bugs.

• Bug Reporting - I have reported a number of bugs, ranging from crashers to errors to cosmetic issues to sync requests. I follow these up with triage once others confirm the issue. As a triager, I know what information is relevant to a bug report, so I make a point of having complete bug reports that are effectively triaged as they are submitted. Naturally, a number of my reports have been fixed either upstream, or by Ubuntu developers.

• 5-a-day - I participate in 5-a-day. My contributions can be seen at the 5-a-day stats page.

• #ubuntu Support - When I'm available, I can be found in #ubuntu, #ubuntu+1, #ubuntu-au and #ubuntu-bugs. I give support and information to users that request it.

• en_AU Translations - I have done some en_AU translations recently, as they are seriously lacking. No offence to our en_US friends, but seeing color and customize in various applications can get annoying

• Launchpad Answers - I normally run into these when they are related to bugs I am triaging.

• Offline Support - I recommend Ubuntu and provide support for it to Windows friends, as I'm sure most other Ubuntu users do. I have had a number of my friends make the switch.

Plans and Ideas for Ubuntu

I aim to keep triaging and getting more involved in Ubuntu, and exploring what other areas I can contribute to.

My Thoughts on the Direction of Ubuntu

• I believe it's critically important to keep Ubuntu as polished and feature complete as possible in order to increase the market share of Ubuntu, and GNU/Linux in general. Each item that doesn't work for a user is another reason for them to switch back to their previous OS.
• Ubuntu is mostly comprised of Free and Open Source Software, but not completely. It should be an important long term goal to have Ubuntu feature complete with 100% free components. This means practical solutions need to be found for proprietary 3D graphics drivers, Flash and proprietary media codecs in particular.

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