Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Neil Williams
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 01:30:06 +0100
Ben Hutchings b...@decadent.org.uk wrote:

 reportbug does have a GUI (Gtk-based) and a desktop file, but the GUI
 requires python-gtk2 and python-vte which the reportbug package only
 suggests.  Maybe the GUI code and desktop file should be moved to a new
 package, reportbug-gtk, which depends on them.  Either way, this GUI
 does support bug scripts and is therefore a better candidate for the
 desktop task.

Sadly, reportbug GTK frontend appears not to work with
reportbug.debian.org. I've just tried it on a machine that has not had
reportbug installed before (because it has no MTA) and the GTK frontend
refuses to send using reportbug.debian.org when configured as novice.

SMTP send failure: (550, 'No valid sender found in the From:, Sender:
and Reply-to: headers'). Do you want to retry (or else save the report
and exit)??

Sending to reportbug.debian.org via the command line interface works.
Bug report for reportbug gtk-ui on it's way via the command line
interface

-- 


Neil Williams
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Sandro Tosi
Hi all,

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 10:53, Neil Williams codeh...@debian.org wrote:
 On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 01:30:06 +0100
 Ben Hutchings b...@decadent.org.uk wrote:

 reportbug does have a GUI (Gtk-based) and a desktop file, but the GUI
 requires python-gtk2 and python-vte which the reportbug package only
 suggests.  Maybe the GUI code and desktop file should be moved to a new
 package, reportbug-gtk, which depends on them.  Either way, this GUI
 does support bug scripts and is therefore a better candidate for the
 desktop task.

 Sadly, reportbug GTK frontend appears not to work with
 reportbug.debian.org. I've just tried it on a machine that has not had
 reportbug installed before (because it has no MTA) and the GTK frontend
 refuses to send using reportbug.debian.org when configured as novice.

 SMTP send failure: (550, 'No valid sender found in the From:, Sender:
 and Reply-to: headers'). Do you want to retry (or else save the report
 and exit)??

it seems highly unlikely, given the GTK+ UI it's just a graphical
layer over the same methods used by the cli reportbug (so either it's
broken even the cli or there's something else).

 Sending to reportbug.debian.org via the command line interface works.
 Bug report for reportbug gtk-ui on it's way via the command line
 interface

Anyhow, (all) please stop using this thread for reporting semi-bugs,
suggestions for reportbug or so: use the bts reporting bugs against
reportbug (with proper severity), as some already did. So Neil, please
report that as a bug, if you feel like it.

don't expect me to read and follow-up on any email on this thread if
you don't cc me explicitly requesting comments.

Regards,
-- 
Sandro Tosi (aka morph, morpheus, matrixhasu)
My website: http://matrixhasu.altervista.org/
Me at Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/SandroTosi


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Neil Williams
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 10:59:34 +0200
Sandro Tosi mo...@debian.org wrote:

  SMTP send failure: (550, 'No valid sender found in the From:,
  Sender: and Reply-to: headers'). Do you want to retry (or else save
  the report and exit)??
 
 it seems highly unlikely, given the GTK+ UI it's just a graphical
 layer over the same methods used by the cli reportbug (so either it's
 broken even the cli or there's something else).

I would have expected the same and I was surprised that it failed.
Hence the bug report.

  Sending to reportbug.debian.org via the command line interface
  works. Bug report for reportbug gtk-ui on it's way via the command
  line interface
 
 Anyhow, (all) please stop using this thread for reporting semi-bugs,
 suggestions for reportbug or so: use the bts reporting bugs against
 reportbug (with proper severity), as some already did. So Neil, please
 report that as a bug, if you feel like it.

The message above came from trying to use reportbug in the GTK:ui
interface to actually file this very bug report (because I wanted to
demonstrate to myself that it was indeed not a fluke but that the
command line can post and the gtk cannot) and I then switched to the
command line interface and filed the bug. You should just have received
notification of bug 590242.
 
 don't expect me to read and follow-up on any email on this thread if
 you don't cc me explicitly requesting comments.

The message to -devel was to draw the attention of people on -devel
that the proposal being made on -devel was hitting a bug.

I've added the paragraph above to the bug report for a little extra
clarity. All future discussion of this specific bug will be via the bug
report.

-- 


Neil Williams
=
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Marc Haber
On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:29:20 -0700, Don Armstrong d...@debian.org
wrote:
Perhaps not, but it's literally the very first thing listed on

http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting

which is linked from http://www.debian.org and the first result for
reporting bugs in debian, and the second for debian bug.

What would probably be useful is if people like your friend who didn't
know about reportbug first were asked what steps they'd take (or
actually did take) to try to report bugs in the first place.

You assume that users know that we're willing to take bug reports. A
Windows user who has just converted over to Debian will not remotely
think about googling for reporting bugs in debian because she's not
accustomed to their software vendor listening without being paid to
listen.

Greetings
Marc
-- 
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Marc Haber
On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:55:03 -0700, Don Armstrong d...@debian.org
wrote:
All reportbug requires is that you can connect to bugs.debian.org:587.
You don't need anything else to be working at all.

For a lot of bigger installation, even this is expected too much.
You'll get that connection via a SoHo NAT router, but not through a
corporate firewall.

Greetings
Marc
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Marc Haber
On Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:26:47 +1000, Brian May
br...@microcomaustralia.com.au wrote:
(curiously port 587 is blocked on some networks at work - might see if
I can get that changed)

A lot of companies don't want their employees to send out mail without
going through their corporate mail servers for policy reasons. Some of
these reasons are even valid.

Greetings
Marc
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Marc Haber
On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:03:04 -0500, Ron Johnson
ron.l.john...@cox.net wrote:
On 07/24/2010 02:06 PM, Holger Levsen wrote:
 And then there is the (nowadays perceived) problem that reportbug needs a
 working MTA setup or at least outgoing traffic on port 25/587. Both ports are
 blocked on almost all my machines, so I still have not much bothered with
 reportbug. (I'd use it for when a maintainer tells me to use it as it will
 collect some information automatically, but thats it.)

For at least a couple of years, reportbug has been able to send mail 
via the user's ISP's smtp server, just like he sends regular email.

From where does reportbug obtain that information? How does it cope
with corporate installations where the only means of submitting mail
from a regular workstation is Notes or MAPI?

Even resorting to port 80 will not help in the case where there is a
non-transparent http proxy in use since reportbug would have to ask
for the proxy data. And it will probably fail if that proxy demands
user authentication.

Greetings
Marc
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Hans-J. Ullrich
Hi all! 

Well, although I for myself like reportbug, IMO for new and unexperienced 
users it is too difficult. I am helping often unexperienced users with debian, 
and get a lot of feedback. As a better way for those users I think, the kind 
of webinterface, which is kde using is the better and from me suggested kind.

This interface is reall easy to use, even for noobs. And this should be our 
goal, too, shouldn't it?

Maybe you might want to try it for a while, just for testing purposes. I 
think, it is ok, to use other ideas from other people, too. Isn't it the kind 
of style, open source is living of???

Best regards

Hans-J. Ullrich


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Don Armstrong
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010, Marc Haber wrote:
 On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:29:20 -0700, Don Armstrong d...@debian.org wrote:
 What would probably be useful is if people like your friend who
 didn't know about reportbug first were asked what steps they'd take
 (or actually did take) to try to report bugs in the first place.
 
 You assume that users know that we're willing to take bug reports.

If you can come up with a good way to inform users of that without
annoying users who already know that, by all means do so. Otherwise,
while I grant your point, I don't see what I can or should do about
it.


Don Armstrong

-- 
Sometimes I wish I could take back all my mistakes
but then I think
what if my mother could take back hers?
 -- a softer world #498
http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=498

http://www.donarmstrong.com  http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Don Armstrong
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010, Marc Haber wrote:
 From where does reportbug obtain that information? How does it cope
 with corporate installations where the only means of submitting mail
 from a regular workstation is Notes or MAPI?

Let's not make perfect the enemy of the good; there are all kinds of
setups where you can make arbitrary communication with the outside
world very difficult. reportbug can handle more and more of them, but
it's impossible for it to handle them all.
 

Don Armstrong

-- 
The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of
the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the
benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any
curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.
 -- Adolf Hitler _Mein Kampf_ p403

http://www.donarmstrong.com  http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Stefano Zacchiroli
On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 05:10:37AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote:
 On Sun, 25 Jul 2010, Marc Haber wrote:
  From where does reportbug obtain that information? How does it cope
  with corporate installations where the only means of submitting mail
  from a regular workstation is Notes or MAPI?
 
 Let's not make perfect the enemy of the good; there are all kinds of
 setups where you can make arbitrary communication with the outside
 world very difficult. reportbug can handle more and more of them, but
 it's impossible for it to handle them all.

Agreed.  Still, I believe we might agree on the fact that the ability of
submitting reports via HTTP would be quite a good compromise, even more
so if http_proxy or equivalent variables are supported. That's why I've
reported #590214. Would you like a similar (actually, blocker) feature
request on debbugs?

Cheers.

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..|  .  |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Sandro Tosi
Hi,

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 14:20, Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org wrote:
 On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 05:10:37AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote:
 On Sun, 25 Jul 2010, Marc Haber wrote:
  From where does reportbug obtain that information? How does it cope
  with corporate installations where the only means of submitting mail
  from a regular workstation is Notes or MAPI?

 Let's not make perfect the enemy of the good; there are all kinds of
 setups where you can make arbitrary communication with the outside
 world very difficult. reportbug can handle more and more of them, but
 it's impossible for it to handle them all.

 Agreed.  Still, I believe we might agree on the fact that the ability of
 submitting reports via HTTP would be quite a good compromise, even more
 so if http_proxy or equivalent variables are supported.

reportbug support http_proxy (and if not, it's a bug)

 That's why I've
 reported #590214. Would you like a similar (actually, blocker) feature
 request on debbugs?

please do so (I didn't myself after your report due to lack of time):
there's very little I can do on reportbug if not properly supported by
debbugs (I won't develop a translation layer HTTP-mail on a third host
to support it or so). Maybe another debbugs SOAP method we can call
would be nice (or some other XML-RPC call).

Regards,
-- 
Sandro Tosi (aka morph, morpheus, matrixhasu)
My website: http://matrixhasu.altervista.org/
Me at Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/SandroTosi


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Marc Haber
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 05:06:14 -0700, Don Armstrong d...@debian.org
wrote:
Otherwise,
while I grant your point, I don't see what I can or should do about
it.

If I had a better idea, I would have written it down in the first
article.

Greetings
Marc
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Marc Haber
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:19:15 +0200, Hans-J. Ullrich
hans.ullr...@loop.de wrote:
Well, although I for myself like reportbug, IMO for new and unexperienced 
users it is too difficult. I am helping often unexperienced users with debian, 
and get a lot of feedback. As a better way for those users I think, the kind 
of webinterface, which is kde using is the better and from me suggested kind.

This is a classic case where a webinterface is considered easy to use
while a text-based UI which does essentially the same is considered
hard just because you can't click.

Greetings
Marc
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Don Armstrong
clone 590214 -1
reassign -1 debbugs
retitle -1 create a web-based submission for use with reportbug and possibly 
everything
severity -1 wishlist
block -1 by 590214
thanks

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
 That's why I've reported #590214. Would you like a similar
 (actually, blocker) feature request on debbugs?

I'll almost certainly forget otherwise. ;-)


Don Armstrong

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the people.
 -- Oscar Wilde

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RE : Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Bastien ROUCARIES
Using libproxy could help here.

(Sorry for top post android)

Bastien

Le 25 juil. 2010 14:11, Don Armstrong d...@debian.org a écrit :

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010, Marc Haber wrote:

 From where does reportbug obtain that information? How does it cope
 with corporate installations...
Let's not make perfect the enemy of the good; there are all kinds of
setups where you can make arbitrary communication with the outside
world very difficult. reportbug can handle more and more of them, but
it's impossible for it to handle them all.


Don Armstrong

--
The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of
the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the
benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any
curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.
 -- Adolf Hitler _Mein Kampf_ p403


http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Russ Allbery
Don Armstrong d...@debian.org writes:
 On Sun, 25 Jul 2010, Marc Haber wrote:

 You assume that users know that we're willing to take bug reports.

 If you can come up with a good way to inform users of that without
 annoying users who already know that, by all means do so. Otherwise,
 while I grant your point, I don't see what I can or should do about
 it.

There's probably something wrong with this idea or someone would have
suggested it already, but what about putting a mention of reportbug in our
default /etc/motd?

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Steve Langasek
On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 11:03:08AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
 Don Armstrong d...@debian.org writes:
  On Sun, 25 Jul 2010, Marc Haber wrote:

  You assume that users know that we're willing to take bug reports.

  If you can come up with a good way to inform users of that without
  annoying users who already know that, by all means do so. Otherwise,
  while I grant your point, I don't see what I can or should do about
  it.

 There's probably something wrong with this idea or someone would have
 suggested it already, but what about putting a mention of reportbug in our
 default /etc/motd?

Nowadays the default /etc/motd on Ubuntu points at help.ubuntu.com; perhaps
there's a similar high-level resource for Debian (which I'm not able to
think of at the moment) that could include information about reporting bugs?

-- 
Steve Langasek   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/
slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Serafeim Zanikolas
On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 05:06:14AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote:
 On Sun, 25 Jul 2010, Marc Haber wrote:
  You assume that users know that we're willing to take bug reports.
 
 If you can come up with a good way to inform users of that without
 annoying users who already know that, by all means do so. Otherwise,
 while I grant your point, I don't see what I can or should do about
 it.

Fedora uses the start page of firefox for that (and a lot more). Contrast that
to iceweasel's current start page, which is relevant only to devs.

BTW reportbug gtk is currently under the Applications/System/Administration
menu, which doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem to fit anywhere in the menu
hierarchy; I find the Help menu the least unsuitable.

-S


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Neil Williams
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:11:46 -0700
Steve Langasek vor...@debian.org wrote:

 On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 11:03:08AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
  Don Armstrong d...@debian.org writes:
   On Sun, 25 Jul 2010, Marc Haber wrote:
 
   You assume that users know that we're willing to take bug
   reports.
 
   If you can come up with a good way to inform users of that without
   annoying users who already know that, by all means do so.
   Otherwise, while I grant your point, I don't see what I can or
   should do about it.
 
  There's probably something wrong with this idea or someone would
  have suggested it already, but what about putting a mention of
  reportbug in our default /etc/motd?
 
 Nowadays the default /etc/motd on Ubuntu points at help.ubuntu.com;
 perhaps there's a similar high-level resource for Debian (which I'm
 not able to think of at the moment) that could include information
 about reporting bugs?

One possibility is something on the main desktop menu, under System.
Not under System|Admin or System|Preferences - a top level menu entry
just under Help called Report a bug ?

The hindrance there is getting something equivalent on other desktops
but as the default is still GNOME, it might help a bit. XFCE could have
a default icon on it's panel - haven't run KDE in such a long time that
I've got no idea where it would appear in KDE.

-- 


Neil Williams
=
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-25 Thread Bastian Venthur
Hi Julien,

Am 25.07.2010 01:00, schrieb Julien Cristau:
 On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 23:50:36 +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
 
 On Sat, 2010-07-24 at 15:06 -0400, Holger Levsen wrote:
 [...]
 and b.) IMHO reportbug-ng should be installed by the default 
 desktop task.

 Yes, if it supports bug scripts properly now.

 It doesn't.  I'm still tempted to add Conflicts on it in my packages
 because it's a source of additional work.  Thankfully I seem to be
 getting fewer reports from rng than I did in the past (that said I'm not
 reading half of them, so I'm not sure).

could you please tell me the packages where rng fails to run the bug
scripts properly so Ï can have a look at it?

Please CC me, as I don't follow -devel closely.


Thanks and Cheers,

Bastian

-- 
Bastian Venthur  http://venthur.de
Debian Developer venthur at debian org



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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-24 Thread Holger Levsen
Hi,

On Donnerstag, 22. Juli 2010, Don Armstrong wrote:
 On Thu, 22 Jul 2010, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
  So, point 2: are we *advertising* reportbug enough to our users?

 Perhaps not, but it's literally the very first thing listed on

 http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting

 which is linked from http://www.debian.org and the first result for
 reporting bugs in debian, and the second for debian bug.

 What would probably be useful is if people like your friend who didn't
 know about reportbug first were asked what steps they'd take (or
 actually did take) to try to report bugs in the first place.

I have reported bugs for several years until I first heard about^w^wnoticed 
reportbug. I guess the reason is/was: that page first tells you very briefly 
to install a new tool (which then forces me to learn something new) and then 
it explains in easy steps how to report a bug using a technique I already 
know: by sending an email. And thats what I have been doing ever since then.

(When having the chance to do something using known or unknown techniques, 
most people will choose the known way.)

And then there is the (nowadays perceived) problem that reportbug needs a 
working MTA setup or at least outgoing traffic on port 25/587. Both ports are 
blocked on almost all my machines, so I still have not much bothered with 
reportbug. (I'd use it for when a maintainer tells me to use it as it will 
collect some information automatically, but thats it.)

reportbug-ng works well on my laptop (but it's not in lenny, so no cookie for 
me (as someday I stopped backporting it)), but most of my systems dont have a 
GUI neither.

So, to summarize: a.) I still think reportbug should be able to submit bugs 
using port 80 and b.) IMHO reportbug-ng should be installed by the default 
desktop task.


cheers,
Holger


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-24 Thread Ben Hutchings
On Sat, 2010-07-24 at 15:06 -0400, Holger Levsen wrote:
[...]
 And then there is the (nowadays perceived) problem that reportbug needs a 
 working MTA setup or at least outgoing traffic on port 25/587. Both ports are 
 blocked on almost all my machines, so I still have not much bothered with 
 reportbug. (I'd use it for when a maintainer tells me to use it as it will 
 collect some information automatically, but thats it.)

Given that you know the benefit of reportbug to maintainers receiving
bug reports, this really is quite selfish behaviour.

 reportbug-ng works well on my laptop (but it's not in lenny, so no cookie for 
 me (as someday I stopped backporting it)), but most of my systems dont have a 
 GUI neither.
 
 So, to summarize: a.) I still think reportbug should be able to submit bugs 
 using port 80

Agreed.

 and b.) IMHO reportbug-ng should be installed by the default 
 desktop task.

Yes, if it supports bug scripts properly now.

Ben.

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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-24 Thread Julien Cristau
On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 23:50:36 +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:

 On Sat, 2010-07-24 at 15:06 -0400, Holger Levsen wrote:
 [...]
  and b.) IMHO reportbug-ng should be installed by the default 
  desktop task.
 
 Yes, if it supports bug scripts properly now.
 
It doesn't.  I'm still tempted to add Conflicts on it in my packages
because it's a source of additional work.  Thankfully I seem to be
getting fewer reports from rng than I did in the past (that said I'm not
reading half of them, so I'm not sure).

Cheers,
Julien


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-24 Thread Ron Johnson

On 07/24/2010 02:06 PM, Holger Levsen wrote:
[snip]


And then there is the (nowadays perceived) problem that reportbug needs a
working MTA setup or at least outgoing traffic on port 25/587. Both ports are
blocked on almost all my machines, so I still have not much bothered with
reportbug. (I'd use it for when a maintainer tells me to use it as it will
collect some information automatically, but thats it.)



For at least a couple of years, reportbug has been able to send mail 
via the user's ISP's smtp server, just like he sends regular email.


I'd bet that, given the correct ~/.reportbugrc options, you can also 
use smtp.google.com.


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-24 Thread Ben Hutchings
Julien Cristau wrote:
 On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 23:50:36 +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
 
  On Sat, 2010-07-24 at 15:06 -0400, Holger Levsen wrote:
  [...]
   and b.) IMHO reportbug-ng should be installed by the default 
   desktop task.
  
  Yes, if it supports bug scripts properly now.
  
 It doesn't.  I'm still tempted to add Conflicts on it in my packages
 because it's a source of additional work.  Thankfully I seem to be
 getting fewer reports from rng than I did in the past (that said I'm not
 reading half of them, so I'm not sure).

reportbug does have a GUI (Gtk-based) and a desktop file, but the GUI
requires python-gtk2 and python-vte which the reportbug package only
suggests.  Maybe the GUI code and desktop file should be moved to a new
package, reportbug-gtk, which depends on them.  Either way, this GUI
does support bug scripts and is therefore a better candidate for the
desktop task.

Ben.

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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-23 Thread Andrei Popescu
On Vi, 23 iul 10, 02:51:36, brian m. carlson wrote:
 On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 10:26:47AM +1000, Brian May wrote:
  On 23 July 2010 10:03, brian m. carlson sand...@crustytoothpaste.net 
  wrote:
   You can use smtphost reportbug.debian.org in the configuration file.
   As for blocking direct outgoing SMTP connections:
  
  This is news for me. Is there any thoughts on making this the default?
 
 It's enabled if stupidmode is set.  To do that, say that no when
 asked if you have an MTA configured and just hit enter when it asks for
 your smarthost.  You can always edit the config file as well.  It will
 print the same lines regardless, except that they're commented out when
 stupidmode is off.

How about not asking at all if the user chooses 'novice', or even 
'standard'.

Regards,
Andrei
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-23 Thread Bastien ROUCARIES
On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 1:55 AM, Don Armstrong d...@debian.org wrote:
 On Fri, 23 Jul 2010, Brian May wrote:
 On 23 July 2010 00:05, Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org wrote:
  1) I've been teaching him how to use reportbug [...]

 Recently I have found reportbug and other bts tools rather annoying
 because of their requirement to to get a working email setup[1] on
 the computer first.

 All reportbug requires is that you can connect to bugs.debian.org:587.
 You don't need anything else to be working at all.


Unfortunatly a lot of entreprise does not allow anything else port 80! I

Bastien


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-23 Thread Julien Viard de Galbert
On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 09:23:12AM +0300, Andrei Popescu wrote:
 On Vi, 23 iul 10, 02:51:36, brian m. carlson wrote:
  On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 10:26:47AM +1000, Brian May wrote:
   On 23 July 2010 10:03, brian m. carlson sand...@crustytoothpaste.net 
   wrote:
You can use smtphost reportbug.debian.org in the configuration file.
As for blocking direct outgoing SMTP connections:
   
   This is news for me. Is there any thoughts on making this the default?
  
  It's enabled if stupidmode is set.  To do that, say that no when
  asked if you have an MTA configured and just hit enter when it asks for
  your smarthost.  You can always edit the config file as well.  It will
  print the same lines regardless, except that they're commented out when
  stupidmode is off.
 
 How about not asking at all if the user chooses 'novice', or even 
 'standard'.

Or maybe just making the text explain that the default will actually work.
I currently reads:
| Do you have a mail transport agent (MTA) like Exim, Postfix or SSMTP
| configured on this computer to send mail to the Internet? [Y|n|q|?]? n
| Please enter the name of your SMTP host. Usually it's called something like
| mail.example.org or smtp.example.org. If you need to use a different port
| than default, use the host:port alternative format. Just press ENTER if 
you
| don't have one or don't know.

When I read that, I just though if I hit enter, it will just not be able to
send mails... So on my laptop I configured my home MTA, but it only works when
I'm at home... According to what you are saying I should have left it blank
here.

What about adding (It will directly connect to debian) or something
similar to the message above ?

Best Regards,

-- 
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http://silicone.homelinux.org/   jul...@silicone.homelinux.org
GPG Key ID: D00E52B6  Published on: hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Ian Jackson
Stefano Zacchiroli writes (teaching users how to submit good bug reports):
So, point 2: are we *advertising* reportbug enough to our users?
In particular, I'm thinking about advertising in push mode rather
then in pull mode.

This approach, trying to make it easier to report bugs, supposes that
most (or even a substantial fraction) of the bugs in deployed Debian
systems, as experienced by users, are there because no-one has yet
reported that bug.

I don't think that's true at all.  Looking at the bugs which are
outstanding in Debian in general, and my own experience, it seems to
me that the main reason for the presence of most bugs is lack of
available effort for fixing them.  The obvious conclusion is that if
we increase the number of bugs submitted we will divert effort from
bug fixing to triage.

I think that people who want Debian to deal better with bug reports
from a wider audience should work on improving the available triage
effort (both in quantity and quality!), and the available fixing
effort.

When popular and high-profile end-user-oriented packages have low
numbers of outstanding bugs, it will be time to think about how we can
get more reports so that we can further improve the quality.

Ian.


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Bastien ROUCARIES
On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Ian Jackson
ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk wrote:
 Stefano Zacchiroli writes (teaching users how to submit good bug reports):
    So, point 2: are we *advertising* reportbug enough to our users?
    In particular, I'm thinking about advertising in push mode rather
    then in pull mode.

 This approach, trying to make it easier to report bugs, supposes that
 most (or even a substantial fraction) of the bugs in deployed Debian
 systems, as experienced by users, are there because no-one has yet
 reported that bug.

 I don't think that's true at all.  Looking at the bugs which are
 outstanding in Debian in general, and my own experience, it seems to
 me that the main reason for the presence of most bugs is lack of
 available effort for fixing them.  The obvious conclusion is that if
 we increase the number of bugs submitted we will divert effort from
 bug fixing to triage.

 I think that people who want Debian to deal better with bug reports
 from a wider audience should work on improving the available triage
 effort (both in quantity and quality!), and the available fixing
 effort.

 When popular and high-profile end-user-oriented packages have low
 numbers of outstanding bugs, it will be time to think about how we can
 get more reports so that we can further improve the quality.

Automated backtrace ala unbuntu will really ease the debian maintener job.

bastien


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Andreas Tille
On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 04:05:17PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
So, point 2: are we *advertising* reportbug enough to our users?
In particular, I'm thinking about advertising in push mode rather
then in pull mode.

No, we obviosely do not.  When staffing bothes in the past I regularly
asked people to report their problem and they had no idea how to do
(because they did not know reportbug) even if long term Debian users.  I
think I suggested in the past (shame on my provided no patch) to
advertise reportbug in the installation process somehow.

Kind regards

 Andreas.

-- 
http://fam-tille.de


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Bjørn Mork
Andreas Tille andr...@an3as.eu writes:
 On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 04:05:17PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
So, point 2: are we *advertising* reportbug enough to our users?
In particular, I'm thinking about advertising in push mode rather
then in pull mode.

 No, we obviosely do not.  When staffing bothes in the past I regularly
 asked people to report their problem and they had no idea how to do
 (because they did not know reportbug) even if long term Debian users. 

I believe it's extremely unlikely that you have anything valuable to
report if you are unable to find reportbug.

Googling for Debian bug or similar (actually even when I misspelled
Debian), lists http://www.debian.org/Bugs/ as the first hit.  The second
heading on that page says How to report a bug in Debian.  It is a
single line linking to http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting which starts
with We strongly recommend that you report bugs in Debian using the
reportbug program. and continues with further instructions on how to do
that.

If you are still unable to find and use reportbug, then I doubt that you
are able to identify a bug and much less provide the information
required to actually fix it.


Bjørn


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Norbert Preining
On Do, 22 Jul 2010, Bjørn Mork wrote:
 If you are still unable to find and use reportbug, then I doubt that you
 are able to identify a bug and much less provide the information
 required to actually fix it.

Agreed upon that. Typical example are Ubuntu bugs. I am subscribed to 
the bug reports of my packages in Ubuntu, and it is a long time that
I stopped reading these completely useless It does not work bug
reports ... sad as it is.

Best wishes

Norbert

Norbert Preiningprein...@{jaist.ac.jp, logic.at, debian.org}
JAIST, Japan TeX Live  Debian Developer
DSA: 0x09C5B094   fp: 14DF 2E6C 0307 BE6D AD76  A9C0 D2BF 4AA3 09C5 B094

Trillian did a little research in the ship's copy of
THHGTTG. It had some advice to offer on drunkenness.
and good luck.'
It was cross-referenced to the entry concerning the size of
the Universe and ways of coping with that.
 --- One of the more preferable pieces of advice contained in
 --- the Guide.
 --- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Josselin Mouette
Le jeudi 22 juillet 2010 à 17:11 +0200, Bastien ROUCARIES a écrit :
 Automated backtrace ala unbuntu will really ease the debian maintener job.

Since you don’t seem to be aware of it: full support for ddebs is mostly
waiting for a patch to dak.

Cheers,
-- 
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Stefano Zacchiroli
On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 06:00:44PM +0200, Bjørn Mork wrote:
  No, we obviosely do not.  When staffing bothes in the past I regularly
  asked people to report their problem and they had no idea how to do
  (because they did not know reportbug) even if long term Debian users. 
 I believe it's extremely unlikely that you have anything valuable to
 report if you are unable to find reportbug.

That is just not the attitude we should have, IMVHO.

Basically, this reasoning has an underlying argument which goes like:
there's an entry barrier that we are willfully imposing to our users,
either you're good enough to discover the tool, or we're not interested
in your bug reports.  Now, it *might* be that the net result of that is
that you get higher quality bug reports, but I'm more inclined to
believe that it is just wishful thinking.

For instance, the story I reported involved a skilled programmer, which
was just too lazy to look for the good tool. Frankly speaking, I can
understand the stance. For most of us Debian is *the* most important
FOSS project out there, so we take the time to do things properly. But
I can't personally claim that I'm putting the same amount effort in all
other FOSS projects I use as a user, e.g. to register to their upstream
BTS and behave as a conscientious FOSS user. I simply can't do that with
*all* of them. Hence, as a user, I'm happy when upstream offers some
simplified way to give feedback to them, e.g. integrated in the
application itself.

Now, looking at it from the side of Debian, I feel guilty in discovering
that I'm not doing enough in advertising how Debian wants his users to
behave in reporting bugs. I also consider a significant loss that of bug
reports that we don't receive due to this. From this discussion it's
clear that not all of us think it's a loss unless we are able to fix
currently reported bugs (see e.g. Ian or Joss replies), but I personally
disagree---although I concede that things might look very different when
seen from the POV of maintainers of vastly popular packages :-).

Cheers.

-- 
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Bjørn Mork
Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org writes:
 On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 06:00:44PM +0200, Bjørn Mork wrote:
  No, we obviosely do not.  When staffing bothes in the past I regularly
  asked people to report their problem and they had no idea how to do
  (because they did not know reportbug) even if long term Debian users. 
 I believe it's extremely unlikely that you have anything valuable to
 report if you are unable to find reportbug.

 That is just not the attitude we should have, IMVHO.

 Basically, this reasoning has an underlying argument which goes like:
 there's an entry barrier that we are willfully imposing to our users,
 either you're good enough to discover the tool, or we're not interested
 in your bug reports. 

No, not at all.  The reasoning is based on the observation that 
a) finding reportbug requires an obvious google search and reading two
   short lines of text, and
b) describing any problem, whether bug or not, is way more complicated
   than a)

If you can do b) then you almost certainly can do a).  If you cannot do
b) then you have no reason to try a).  It has nothing to do with being
good enough.

 Now, it *might* be that the net result of that is
 that you get higher quality bug reports, but I'm more inclined to
 believe that it is just wishful thinking.

 For instance, the story I reported involved a skilled programmer, which
 was just too lazy to look for the good tool.

Sure.  I can understand that.  Reporting bugs do require some work, and
I am also among those who have refrained from doing so because I didn't
want to spend any time on it.

But this is not a problem you can solve.  You cannot avoid requiring
some effort from users wanting to report a bug.



Bjørn


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Bastien ROUCARIES
On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Andreas Tille andr...@an3as.eu wrote:
 On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 04:05:17PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
    So, point 2: are we *advertising* reportbug enough to our users?
    In particular, I'm thinking about advertising in push mode rather
    then in pull mode.

 No, we obviosely do not.  When staffing bothes in the past I regularly
 asked people to report their problem and they had no idea how to do
 (because they did not know reportbug) even if long term Debian users.  I
 think I suggested in the past (shame on my provided no patch) to
 advertise reportbug in the installation process somehow.

 Kind regards

Why not a tool a la kerneloops for debian ? If a process coredump,
save the dump (core pipe is in the kernel) popup something in the
taskbar and ask user if to run reportbug ng ?

Bastien




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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Bastien ROUCARIES
On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 6:11 PM, Norbert Preining prein...@logic.at wrote:
 On Do, 22 Jul 2010, Bjørn Mork wrote:
 If you are still unable to find and use reportbug, then I doubt that you
 are able to identify a bug and much less provide the information
 required to actually fix it.

 Agreed upon that. Typical example are Ubuntu bugs. I am subscribed to
 the bug reports of my packages in Ubuntu, and it is a long time that
 I stopped reading these completely useless It does not work bug
 reports ... sad as it is.

Yes ia gree for some kind of bug, but for coredump and signal abort
bug, unbuntu is really really useful.

Bastien


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Ron Johnson

On 07/22/2010 11:42 AM, Bjørn Mork wrote:
[snip]


But this is not a problem you can solve.  You cannot avoid requiring
some effort from users wanting to report a bug.



For some value of some effort.

MS Windows has a bug-reporting pop-up window that with the click of 
a button sends traceback info to MS.  GNOME also has such a tool, I 
think.


Windows, however, is a closed GUI-only environment which makes it 
easy for them to integrate such a feature into the OS and MSVC.


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Don Armstrong
On Thu, 22 Jul 2010, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
 So, point 2: are we *advertising* reportbug enough to our users?

Perhaps not, but it's literally the very first thing listed on

http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting

which is linked from http://www.debian.org and the first result for
reporting bugs in debian, and the second for debian bug.

What would probably be useful is if people like your friend who didn't
know about reportbug first were asked what steps they'd take (or
actually did take) to try to report bugs in the first place.


Don Armstrong

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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Bjørn Mork
Ron Johnson ron.l.john...@cox.net writes:
 On 07/22/2010 11:42 AM, Bjørn Mork wrote:
 [snip]

 But this is not a problem you can solve.  You cannot avoid requiring
 some effort from users wanting to report a bug.


 For some value of some effort.

 MS Windows has a bug-reporting pop-up window that with the click of a
 button sends traceback info to MS.  GNOME also has such a tool, I
 think.

OK. 

One of your Windows applications prints foo on the screen when you
expected it to print bar.  What do you do?

Reporting bugs requires some effort.  Sending crash dumps does maybe
not.  But then again, Debian has already several apps which will do that
for you.  It is still not bug reporting.


Bjørn


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Brian May
On 23 July 2010 00:05, Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org wrote:
 1) I've been teaching him how to use reportbug [...]

Recently I have found reportbug and other bts tools rather annoying
because of their requirement to to get a working email setup[1] on the
computer first. It is not uncommon for me to send a bug report that
gets lost and/or is sent from an invalid email address (e.g.
r...@myhost) because the MTA setup was broken[2].

The days where every Linux computer has to have a working MTA are
gone, and typically tends to be very painful especially for
portable/laptop computers which may not have no single way to send
outgoing mail that is guaranteed to always work (e.g. networks often
block direct outgoing SMTP connections).

It is annoying to have to setup a working MTA just in order to be able
to report a bug.

Not to mention, the nature of the bug being reported may make it
impossible to have a working email setup. Or that it is just more
convenient to be able to report the bug from a different computer to
the one that is showing the symptoms.

So often I end up entering bug reports by hand, hardly a selling point
for Debian.

Notes:
[1] through what ever means, e.g. I think reportbug can be configured
to talk directly to a smtp server now, although I don't have an
installation handy to check.

[2] for servers for example it is quite possible to have them send
cron job messages, etc, using an internal only address to another
internal only address, so such a setup may not really be broken.
-- 
Brian May br...@microcomaustralia.com.au


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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Don Armstrong
On Fri, 23 Jul 2010, Brian May wrote:
 On 23 July 2010 00:05, Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org wrote:
  1) I've been teaching him how to use reportbug [...]
 
 Recently I have found reportbug and other bts tools rather annoying
 because of their requirement to to get a working email setup[1] on
 the computer first.

All reportbug requires is that you can connect to bugs.debian.org:587.
You don't need anything else to be working at all.


Don Armstrong

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   That's your argument?
B: It IS true.
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread brian m. carlson
On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 09:31:46AM +1000, Brian May wrote:
 The days where every Linux computer has to have a working MTA are
 gone, and typically tends to be very painful especially for
 portable/laptop computers which may not have no single way to send
 outgoing mail that is guaranteed to always work (e.g. networks often
 block direct outgoing SMTP connections).

You can use smtphost reportbug.debian.org in the configuration file.
As for blocking direct outgoing SMTP connections:

  lakeview ok % sudo nmap -sS -p587 reportbug.debian.org
  [sudo] password for bmc: 
  
  Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2010-07-22 23:58 UTC
  Interesting ports on busoni.debian.org (140.211.15.34):
  PORTSTATE SERVICE
  587/tcp open  submission
  
  Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.81 seconds

 It is annoying to have to setup a working MTA just in order to be able
 to report a bug.

All you really need is a working email address to put in the From line
and an Internet connection. That's it.

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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Brian May
On 23 July 2010 10:03, brian m. carlson sand...@crustytoothpaste.net wrote:
 You can use smtphost reportbug.debian.org in the configuration file.
 As for blocking direct outgoing SMTP connections:

This is news for me. Is there any thoughts on making this the default?

Based on what you say, it seems to use port 587 by default; is this correct?

(curiously port 587 is blocked on some networks at work - might see if
I can get that changed)

 All you really need is a working email address to put in the From line
 and an Internet connection. That's it.

Yes, need to make sure that the From address is valid... To be fair,
it does print it out, but sometimes I get it wrong all the same.
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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread Don Armstrong
On Fri, 23 Jul 2010, Brian May wrote:
 On 23 July 2010 10:03, brian m. carlson sand...@crustytoothpaste.net wrote:
  You can use smtphost reportbug.debian.org in the configuration file.
  As for blocking direct outgoing SMTP connections:
 
 This is news for me. Is there any thoughts on making this the default?

It is the default, though it'll ask you some questions to try to find
a better host, iirc.
 
 Based on what you say, it seems to use port 587 by default; is this
 correct?

Yes, because outgoing 587 is less likely to be blocked than 25.


Don Armstrong

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Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports

2010-07-22 Thread brian m. carlson
On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 10:26:47AM +1000, Brian May wrote:
 On 23 July 2010 10:03, brian m. carlson sand...@crustytoothpaste.net wrote:
  You can use smtphost reportbug.debian.org in the configuration file.
  As for blocking direct outgoing SMTP connections:
 
 This is news for me. Is there any thoughts on making this the default?

It's enabled if stupidmode is set.  To do that, say that no when
asked if you have an MTA configured and just hit enter when it asks for
your smarthost.  You can always edit the config file as well.  It will
print the same lines regardless, except that they're commented out when
stupidmode is off.

 Based on what you say, it seems to use port 587 by default; is this correct?

It works on both 25 and 587, TTBOMK.  I believe 25 is the default.  My
example was because I just figured that 25 is a lot more likely to be
blocked.  You can use smtphost reportbug.debian.org:587 for port 587.

  All you really need is a working email address to put in the From line
  and an Internet connection. That's it.
 
 Yes, need to make sure that the From address is valid... To be fair,
 it does print it out, but sometimes I get it wrong all the same.

Nothing I can do about that. ;-)

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