CheckboxHardwareReporting

Summary

Although checkbox currently collects hardware information and submits it to Launchpad, there is no facility for users to view the collected data.

Rationale

Being able to easily view hardware information within Ubuntu is a frequently requested feature, and one that is satisfied by a number of available applciations although none are installed by default.

Checkbox collects essentially the same information as the other applications, and is installed by default, so it makes sense to make this information more readily availabel to users.

Use Cases

  • Peter is filing a bug about his network card, and needs more information for the report
  • Anne wants to compare hardware in two different machines
  • Juan - a support technician - needs to determine what hardware is a users machine to provide support

Assumptions

  • That no other package providing similar functionality will be installed by default

Design

Hardware information is gathered early in Checkbox process. Users should be provided access to this information both at the beginning and end.

The data could be exposed in two ways:

XML + XSLT

Since we are already generating an XML report to submit to Launchpad, it is relatively trivial to attach an XSLT stylesheet to that report and simply display it in a compliant browser (e.g. Mozilla Firefox).

Static content (e.g. stylesheets, images and javascript) would be distributed as part of the Checkbox package and linked to reduce the the size of the XSLT.

Graphically

The data stored in Checkbox's registry could be exposed graphically using GNOME/GTK widgets directly in the Checkbox interface. This could also then be combined with test results so that users could see what hardware is covered by tests, and the results of the tests.

Implementation

TBC.

UI Changes

TBC.

More more detail, please see the CheckboxUI spec.

Test/Demo Plan

It's important that we are able to test new features, and demonstrate them to users. Use this section to describe a short plan that anybody can follow that demonstrates the feature is working. This can then be used during testing, and to show off after release. Please add an entry to http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Coverage/NewFeatures for tracking test coverage.

This need not be added or completed until the specification is nearing beta.

Unresolved issues

This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.

BoF agenda and discussion

Goal of getting more users to report their hardware profile to Launchpad

Provide the user with a view of their hardware which may encourage them to upload their hardware

Lots of upstreams produce compatability lists. Why isn't this information used in the distribution?

  • - cups for printing - sane for scanners

Checkbox could get information about hardware compatability by grabbing information from the upstream database, sane for example, and present that information to the user.

Checkbox could only present information about hardware for which tests exist.

  • - other pieces of hardware would be greyed out since no test exists
    • - should we tell the reporter that tests are missing(?)
      • - "You have 2 devices that have no available tests" [How to help] (add device tests)
    - we would query the hardware database to find hardware needing tests (based on quantities of users that have that hardware)


CategorySpec

QATeam/Specs/CheckboxHardwareReporting (last edited 2009-01-13 13:01:47 by schwuk)