Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 = http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ pgpD25GAAbwHM.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlktik0keo9rr24ut3p7h80heg4otskqqwa6emkw...@mail.gmail.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 = http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ http://e-mail.is-not-s.ms/ pgpzJMd8zCTy9.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- -- !! No courtesy copies, please !! - Marc Haber |Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom | http://www.zugschlus.de/ Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG Rightful Heir | Fon: *49 621 72739834 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1ocyzc-00036t...@swivel.zugschlus.de
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- -- !! No courtesy copies, please !! - Marc Haber |Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom | http://www.zugschlus.de/ Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG Rightful Heir | Fon: *49 621 72739834 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1ocz0z-000377...@swivel.zugschlus.de
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- -- !! No courtesy copies, please !! - Marc Haber |Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom | http://www.zugschlus.de/ Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG Rightful Heir | Fon: *49 621 72739834 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1ocz1r-0003eq...@swivel.zugschlus.de
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- -- !! No courtesy copies, please !! - Marc Haber |Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom | http://www.zugschlus.de/ Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG Rightful Heir | Fon: *49 621 72739834 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1ocz74-0003mr...@swivel.zugschlus.de
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201007251319.16722.hans.ullr...@loop.de
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100725120614.gm29...@teltox.donarmstrong.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100725121037.gn29...@teltox.donarmstrong.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlktimd2yjxjd3wg35pscwgqog8yalc16r7mdnx9...@mail.gmail.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- -- !! No courtesy copies, please !! - Marc Haber |Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom | http://www.zugschlus.de/ Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG Rightful Heir | Fon: *49 621 72739834 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1od17m-0006ga...@swivel.zugschlus.de
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- -- !! No courtesy copies, please !! - Marc Haber |Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom | http://www.zugschlus.de/ Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG Rightful Heir | Fon: *49 621 72739834 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1od19g-0006o4...@swivel.zugschlus.de
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. -- Oscar Wilde http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100725123646.go29...@teltox.donarmstrong.com
RE : Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trou... Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100725121037.gn29...@teltox.donarmstrong.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ocdvjv6r@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100725184339.ga6...@mobee
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 = http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ http://e-mail.is-not-s.ms/ pgpIayBd45fuQ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/i2i43u$ns...@dough.gmane.org
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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. -- Ben Hutchings Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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. -- Seek truth from facts. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4c4b7128.1040...@cox.net
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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. -- Ben Hutchings Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- Offtopic discussions among Debian users and developers: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlktimuxgk8eojglwwhb8_fe8p4soqmf5axvkfjb...@mail.gmail.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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, -- Julien Viard de Galbertjul...@vdg.blogsite.org http://silicone.homelinux.org/ jul...@silicone.homelinux.org GPG Key ID: D00E52B6 Published on: hkp://keys.gnupg.net Key Fingerprint: E312 A31D BEC3 74CC C49E 6D69 8B30 6538 D00E 52B6 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/19528.21914.365476.403...@chiark.greenend.org.uk
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlktinkwxvwq6qk3wt-xsb_l1qjoriztenhopw2s...@mail.gmail.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100722153508.ga32...@an3as.eu
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87y6d31p77@nemi.mork.no
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100722161122.gb17...@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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, -- .''`. : :' : “Fuck you sir, don’t be suprised when you die if `. `' you burn in Hell, because I am a solid Christian `-and I am praying for you.” -- Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1279815631.8619.19.ca...@meh
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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. -- 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 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ocdz1n9k@nemi.mork.no
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlktikdyezw0c0qxc6qaf5xrsdk9ci0eahxc5puv...@mail.gmail.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlktinojexbhb2rzm1agjoofs8z8u5lvz8flftwo...@mail.gmail.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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. -- Seek truth from facts. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4c487cc5.7090...@cox.net
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- She was alot like starbucks. IE, generic and expensive. -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/batch3.htm http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100722172920.gg29...@teltox.donarmstrong.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87k4on1die@nemi.mork.no
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlktikxz9gtm2pn_lgorphfd-ggapvp3busioccj...@mail.gmail.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- N: Why should I believe that? B: Because it's a fact. N: Fact? B: F, A, C, T... fact N: So you're saying that I should believe it because it's true. That's your argument? B: It IS true. -- Ploy http://www.mediacampaign.org/multimedia/Ploy.MPG http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100722235503.gf31...@rzlab.ucr.edu
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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. -- brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US +1 832 623 2791 | http://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only OpenPGP: RSA v4 4096b: 88AC E9B2 9196 305B A994 7552 F1BA 225C 0223 B187 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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. -- Brian May br...@microcomaustralia.com.au -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlktimux4rxxawbhqfguurpvopu-w9vboan6e1mm...@mail.gmail.com
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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 -- I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. -- Douglas Adams _The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul_ http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100723024619.gi31...@rzlab.ucr.edu
Re: teaching users how to submit good bug reports
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. ;-) -- brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US +1 832 623 2791 | http://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only OpenPGP: RSA v4 4096b: 88AC E9B2 9196 305B A994 7552 F1BA 225C 0223 B187 signature.asc Description: Digital signature