How can I help with Ubuntu?

Many people who enjoy using Ubuntu would like to give back and improve the distribution. I have collected a checklist of how a motivated person could help the Ubuntu community based on proficiency.

Beginner

• IRC Presence

• Mailing List presence - See all Ubuntu Mailing Lists, FAQ and Launchpad Mailing List Help

• Forum Presence

• Join a Teams

• Join a Local Community "LoCo" Ubuntu user group

• Reporting bugs - See article "How to report bugs efficiently"

Intermediary

• Bug Triage and Testing - See Easy Bug Tasks

• Stale bug checking/updating

• Creating new (and updating untouched) documentation

• Translations

• Adopt a package

• Distribution Testing and Test cases

• Version tracking and synchronization requesting

Advanced

• Patch testing, review and notifying upstream of patches

• Bug assignment/ownership

• Bug fixing

• Upstream updating of changes we make, directions we are taking, release schedule notifying

• Creating a PPA with the latest stable/experimental upstream version of a package - See PPA Help

Other ways of helping can be found at the Signpost and the Upstream Contacts wiki pages.