In the Ubuntu community we always need more people triaging bugs. There are literally thousands of bugs in Launchpad that need to be triaged so they can be assigned to the right team to fix them.
With a huge world-wide network of LoCoTeams, more and more teams are running Packaging Jams. This document will outline the special events in which people meet up and a few instructors show the attendees how to get involved with triaging Ubuntu bugs. Not only are these events extremely valuable in attracting new volunteers, but they are fun! This page offers a simple guide to running a Bug Jam.
Requirements
To run a Bug Jam, you need a few things:
- Tutor(s) - Someone that knows bug triaging fairly well and can handle questions and some of the unexpected likely to come up. Ideally they would have participated in past Bug Days and regularly visit #ubuntu-bugs or the mailing lists.
- Scheduled Day - A day with some spare time, at least 2 hours if you have new people who need to learn. Progress will be slower than you might expect, so provide plenty of time.
- Venue - A meeting location with network connectivity, power for everyone, and some room to get comfy for a little bit.
5-a-day Playbook (optional) - We have a generic sheet that you can print out and hand out to attendees that people can follow along with the workflow: 5-A-Day/5-a-day.pdf
Asking people to prepare for the Jam
Ask Everyone to sign up for 5-a-day - We encourage your LoCo to sign up for 5-a-day statistics so you can have your name in lights as your team fixes bugs.
To properly confirm bugs (and test fixes) on the current development release, ask the jammers to set up one of the methods on QATeam/Testdrive.
Material
HelpingWithBugs - BugSquad landing page: all important information is linked from here.
Interview with Brian Murray: lots of useful information about bug triage.
Quick Overview Bug Workflow charts.
Assign a package to bugs video, there are also docs about the same topic available.
warning: this video advises triagers to assign bugs to the acpi-support package. This is wrong! Recent versions of Ubuntu use pm-utils for suspend-resume, acpi-support is not involved in this process. Do not assign bugs to this package, they will only have to be triaged again by a much smaller group of developers. Please refer all triagers to the docs mentioned above for current information about which packages to assign bugs to.
Bug Report Triage Presentation A presentation to instruct on reporting and triaging Bugs
Holding the Session
Introduction Session
- Do a quick presentation that covers
Bug statuses
Mention the bug importances
- What makes a good bug report
- What a duplicate, subscriber, assignee is
- Show a few bugs and explain the aspects of them and answer questions. (Especially show a few that have little information, so people get an idea what to start working on.)
Workflow
As people triage bugs keep track of the amount of bugs touched. This can be done with etherpad, a marker on a whiteboard, or some other means. It is important that you have some number so that you can measure improvement and progress as you have more Jams.
- Try to group people who have similar interests in groups of four, so they can try to work on bugs together and answer questions in a group.
Tools & Helpful Information
Follow the HelpingWithBugs page.
Ask people to check out Bugs/EasyTasks which links to easy bugs to get started with.
Make sure everyone knows about the #ubuntu-bugs IRC channel along with your LoCo's channel
Get in touch with people on #ubuntu-bugs if you run into problems.
- The IRC channel is a great place to paste links and other information.
- If you need help during the jam, feel free to ask questions in #ubuntu-bugs
- Try to keep your specific Jam's talk in your loco's channel