On 11/21/2011 08:12 AM, Bombshellz Administrator wrote:

On 11/21/2011 10:53 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:

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...

I usually wait a while before installing a new release, I usually wait a bit to let things die down some gaining the benefit of the first waves experience. This time, I'm in the first wave and it's no fun. Same here; I usually wait, but there are numerous things in 12.1 I really wanted - so I jumped right in. Upgrading on my laptop went completely sideways. This was due I think to my nVidia video are and

On Mon, 2011-11-21 at 01:41 -0800, Bruce Ferrell wrote: that I was using the GNOME 3.0 repos for 11.4 previously.

But once I did a re-install [not that painful since my /home is a separate volume] everything has worked extremely well: wireless, multiple displays, etc... And I'm no longer using the proprietary nVidia drivers, everything seems to be working with the Open nouveau driver - which is *SWEET*.

...

What I've noted is a tendency to short, less informative answers, a tendency to react defensively, deny or debate reports of difficulties and just a general level of snarkiness. I perceive this as well, but not just here. I've been a UNIX sys-admin for ~20 years and a LINUX user since kernel 0.99a. In general assitance in most forums has declined and snarkiness is up. But this is one of the better forums - if you want to see real unfriendliness try out the Postfix list.

Hello,

It's interesting someone had the courage to point out the flaws in support regarding Linux. The "snarkiness" so to speak is very unfortunate and yeah it has become a common occurrence. Sometimes I feel, why bother with Linux if this how people volunteering their time chooses to behave. But I must admit, it's been relatively friendly here.

Best Regards

Best Regards. Yep,

As I alluded to, I suspect it has something to do with the stress of a big rollout and the spin off form Novell/Attachmate, but I can only guess about that. When I started using SuSE back in 2002, I could count on very solid support from the community, more so that on the redhat lists. Now it seems as if unless we actually cut important mainline code we're just Lusers, unable to do anything but drool. sigh Ice cream break is over, back on my head. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

I - LOVE - Linux and I - LOVE - openSuSE although, I have to pose a question: Are the developers forcing the (I believe ?) 8 months cycle and falling down on the QA testing before the rollout ? Eluding to: My wife works is a contract QA tester and on several occasions she has been told that - basically the hell with QA testing - we HAVE to meet the target rollout date - and - those little errors can be fixed later. Is this happening - or - am I wrong ? Duaine P.S. Still going to use openSUSE anyway ! -- Duaine Hechler Piano, Player Piano, Pump Organ Tuning, Servicing& Rebuilding Reed Organ Society Member Florissant, MO 63034 (314) 838-5587 dahechler@att.net www.hechlerpianoandorgan.com -- Home& Business user of Linux - 11 years -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 23:23, Duaine Hechler wrote:

I - LOVE - Linux and I - LOVE - openSuSE although, I have to pose a question:

Are the developers forcing the (I believe ?) 8 months cycle and falling down on the QA testing before the rollout ?

Eluding to: My wife works is a contract QA tester and on several occasions she has been told that - basically the hell with QA testing - we HAVE to meet the target rollout date - and - those little errors can be fixed later.

Is this happening - or - am I wrong ?

There is lots of testing going on, but... not everyone here tests. The people doing testing don't test in every possible combination because we cannot hope to duplicate all the use cases and odd unusual "corner cases"... we (whoever tested prior to release) test on what computers and use case scenarios we can... in my case, a spare laptop and VirtualBox. My only other computer is my main computer... as much as I'd love to test on it too, I can't afford to have it offline more than a couple hours because it's my work computer as well as webserver etc etc. openSUSE is a COMMUNITY project. That means that you and I are responsible for testing... not some unidentified official salaried QA department in some multinational mega-corp. So.. if testing wasn't enough, we only have ourselves to blame here... "we" meaning me.. you.. everyone who uses openSUSE. If I want a solid release of 12.2.. I have to take the initiative and get involved.. test it on MY hardware.. file bug reports and contribute where I can. The exact same rule applies to you and everyone else here... you want a solid fully tested release? Then please step up and do the testing. The more people who test in more hardware and configuration combinations, the better chance we (as a community) have of identifying the problems. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Duaine Hechler wrote:

I - LOVE - Linux and I - LOVE - openSuSE although, I have to pose a question:

Are the developers forcing the (I believe ?) 8 months cycle and falling down on the QA testing before the rollout ?

Eluding to: My wife works is a contract QA tester and on several occasions she has been told that - basically the hell with QA testing - we HAVE to meet the target rollout date - and - those little errors can be fixed later.

Is this happening - or - am I wrong ?

Duaine

P.S. Still going to use openSUSE anyway !

Duane, It is more like: openSUSE has thousands of moving parts, freezing development of new functionality for a couple months to debug and fixing the relatively few broken packages drastically slows down the process, so instead opensuse follows a model like: 1) allow major/core updates (about 4 months) 2) allow minor/leaf updates (about 2 months) 3) freeze and allow only debug updates (about 2 weeks) 3.1) split off a release from the main dev repos (factory). Allow factory to accept major updates again. 3.2) accept only debug fixes into the now split off release repo. (about 2 weeks) 4) check for any bugs that can't be fixed by the update mechanism (ie. showstoppers) 5) If none, declare a a Gold Release and ship 6) push out fixes to the bugs via patches The above really is fairly accurate. You will note that the only showstoppers are things that can't be fixed via patches. So people's assumption that the openSUSE release schedule targets a bug free release is simply wrong. Instead, when a new release comes out users should monitor the most annoying bugs page and make sure they feel comfortable with the major bugs they see before they jump in and upgrade. ie. There are lots of opensuse packages I don't use, so most of the annoying bugs don't impact me. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 11/21/2011 11:23 PM, Duaine Hechler wrote:

I - LOVE - Linux and I - LOVE - openSuSE although, I have to pose a question:

Are the developers forcing the (I believe ?) 8 months cycle and falling down on the QA testing before the rollout ?

We plan the schedule in such a way that we have enough time for everything. Still sometimes you need to sleep - openSUSE 12.1 was released one week later than initially planned due to a couple of serious issues where we needed extra time.

Eluding to: My wife works is a contract QA tester and on several occasions she has been told that - basically the hell with QA testing - we HAVE to meet the target rollout date - and - those little errors can be fixed later.

Is this happening - or - am I wrong ?

There are known bugs and we can update them via online updates. Some bugs are only found once the goldmaster is out and others just take longer. We check that we have no shipstopper bugs - and everybody can propose that a bug is a shipstopper - and only release once all shipstoppers are fixed, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger aj@{suse.com,opensuse.org} Twitter/Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GF: Jeff Hawn,Jennifer Guild,Felix Imendörffer,HRB16746 (AG Nürnberg) GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Adam Tauno Williams said the following on 11/22/2011 08:19 AM:

On Mon, 2011-11-21 at 16:23 -0600, Duaine Hechler wrote:

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I - LOVE - Linux and I - LOVE - openSuSE although, I have to pose a question: Are the developers forcing the (I believe ?) 8 months cycle and falling down on the QA testing before the rollout ?

I don't see any evidence of a failure of QA testing.

The product seems quite fit-n-finish to me.

Not perfect, but nothing as complex as a distribution can be, there are too many permutations of configuration, etc... Almost all the issues I've had can be related to proprietary hardware or third-party / additional repositories.

The sky is not falling.

I'd go further. Compare with Microsoft. Look at the delays they had bringing out Vista and 7 and look at the number of critical post-release bugs that had to be (still are being) fixed. And they do have the resources and processes for QA. -- The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents. -- Nathaniel Borenstein -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Haro de Grauw wrote:

Without intention to attack, offend, or provoke anybody: there is lots of great discussion going on, but due to the current high volume on this and other lists, could I invite everyone to use SPECIFIC "subject" lines in your emails, please.

There is a lot of "Re: a question" and similar going around which makes it difficult to pick out relevant mail and keep topics together.

Actually, your email-reader's threading should take care of that, i.e. order emails according to which thread they belong to. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (3.2°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Haro de Grauw wrote:

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There is a lot of "Re: a question" and similar going around which makes it difficult to pick out relevant mail and keep topics together. Actually, your email-reader's threading should take care of that, i.e. order emails according to which thread they belong to.

Thanks Per -- it does, to a fair extent. However, the thread "A reply" has forked into a number of different topics (KMail vs Thunderbird; release cycles and testing; and "mailing list etiquette" to put it broadly). The same is happening for "A comment" and "A question .....".

Hi Haro I think I must have killed off those branches :-), but yes, you're right, thread-hijacking is rife around here.

As it is, the mailing list is quite overwhelming/confusing for newcomers.

Actually, this list is a lot less busy than ever before I think. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (3.7°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Ken Schneider - openSUSE wrote:

On 11/22/2011 01:58 PM, Per Jessen pecked at the keyboard and wrote:

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Haro de Grauw wrote:

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.....".

Hi Haro

I think I must have killed off those branches :-), but yes, you're right, thread-hijacking is rife around here.

...

As it is, the mailing list is quite overwhelming/confusing for newcomers.

Actually, this list is a lot less busy than ever before I think.

I remember when this list alone would generate over 250 emails a day, even more just after a new release. But that was 4-5 years ago.

Yup.

Many people have left because of the problems with the list.

Dunno - I think it's a natural progression, people come and people go. In our case, I suspect newbies are more drawn towards the openSUSE webfora. It's a pity, but can't be helped I suspect. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (4.0°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Tuesday, November 22, 2011 10:00 AM Anton Aylward wrote: [snip] [snip] [snip adinfinitum]

I'd go further. Compare with Microsoft.

Look at the delays they had bringing out Vista and 7 and look at the number of critical post-release bugs that had to be (still are being) fixed.

And they do have the resources and processes for QA.

Appears that the "A question" and "A reply" threads have somewhat overlapped. I guess this is as good a point as any to toss in my two cents . . . Of course the quantity & quality of resources are always a factor, as well as well-developed engineering and testing processes. But no matter what the resources or processes, nor how long the schedule, there will always be issues with any new major release. The probability is exponential given an OS's innumerable moving parts, inter-dependencies, and use cases - let alone when thousands of end-user apps are added to the mix (a challenge we shouldn't forget that MS largely offloads to the 3rd-parties). My frame of reference is having worked in both the lab and as a field engineer at one of the largest hardware manufacturers (who btw write much more sw than MS). It was our policy to discourage customers from immediately upgrading to a new release unless it contained a feature or fix which was truly imperative to their business. This policy was the same at our major competitors. Sometimes we preferred to backport a patch (if feasible) rather than compel an upgrade. Of course, our "setting expectations" policy resulted in push-back from sales and marketing, sometimes customers or even our own management. Nevertheless, it was critical for maintaining customer satisfaction. From some posts here I gather than openSUSE is sometimes used for internal or even external customers. In these cases, I would think that whomever is responsible for supporting the upgrades would, if permitted, communicate similar cautions and strongly encourage waiting until, at the minimum, the first major round of patches. This step is often signaled as a discrete step in the form of a "service pack". While desktop power-users understand the risks with any new release, most end- users do not. MS has of course played a major unhelpful role here, resulting in the avg desktop user having the highest expectations yet lowest ability to contend with unexpected problems. All the more reason for caution and setting expectations. Rhetorical questions: How many users read the Release Notes before upgrading? How many users read the critical bugs page? How many users know this info exists? How many users understand what the info means and/or its significance? How good a job do we do in encouraging all users to read and understand this info in advance? What advice or tools do we encourage users to consider for planning for an upgrade, whether a simulation via an upgrade Live-DVD or another method? Should we put more focus on these areas? One last question which I think relates: I wonder if we are compounding the challenge by trying to do too much? Both Fedora and Ubuntu have a more focused target audience. And both distributions (despite having more resources) deliver just one desktop environment. Additional environments are the province of spins or fork projects. Yet openSUSE delivers KDE, Gnome, Xfce, desktop and server, and more, all in a single offering. In short, perhaps the answer to a better new release experience, rather than more testers (a reactive solution) and the like, is better communication, better setting of expectations, easier ways of pre-determining the upgrade impact, and a tighter focus in terms of users, product structure, and deliverables. And, finally, what are the effects of all these decisions on project growth and sustainability? If you've read thru all this, thanks and please forgive the length. And where you disagree, no need to bring out the sledge hammer. --Dennis -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Le 21/11/2011 17:12, Bombshellz Administrator a écrit :

It's interesting someone had the courage to point out the flaws in support regarding Linux.

As Linux Documentation Project (LDP - http://tldp.org) coordinator, I remember than 10 years ago we had a lack of Linux documentation, but now we have a lot but spread all over the net in chaotic form (should we be surprised?) and we don't anymore find authors willing to follow a HOWTO life is like this... jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 11/21/2011 11:52 AM, Bruce Ferrell wrote:

On 11/21/2011 08:43 AM, jdd wrote:

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Le 21/11/2011 17:12, Bombshellz Administrator a écrit :

...

It's interesting someone had the courage to point out the flaws in support regarding Linux. As Linux Documentation Project (LDP - http://tldp.org) coordinator, I remember than 10 years ago we had a lack of Linux documentation, but now we have a lot but spread all over the net in chaotic form (should we be surprised?) and we don't anymore find authors willing to follow a HOWTO

life is like this...

jdd jdd,

What a pleasure! I loved LDP. I used it as my primary source and still refer people to it for basic theory of "how it's supposed to work"

Please, if I can help, let me know. Such things are important to keep alive outside of the distros.

Hello I think, as user, for those who make the effort to empathize and be compassionate towards developer (we appreciate the work they do), it's not so bad to receive it in return :) I don't think that this subject falls squarely on developers, this also extends to other volunteers (who are more insightful and skilled) who are not necessarily explicitly tied with the project. My 2c -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Roger Luedecke said the following on 11/21/2011 05:04 PM:

Thats actually a very good point. Many end users have a sense of entitlement that is undue. They think they can demand things as if it were a paid for product. They haven't gotten used to the idea of software as a community, and not a commodity.

True; one of the many ways they are still operating in a "Windows mindset". OK, so that's no entirely fair. MS-Developers know about the extensive documentation that MS has on-line for them, just as we know about the wiki and the LDP and How-tos and list archives. Developers are not like home users that have been forced over to escape the spiralling costs of staying with Microsoft. You don't need bleeding edge hardware to run the latest Linux as you do with Microsoft. Try running W/7 or W/Vista/Pro on a machine from 2001 and see what you get! I recall reading that there are drivers for more hardware under Linux than under Windows. -- Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind. -- Terry Pratchett _Reaper Man_ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Roger Luedecke wrote:

Thats actually a very good point. Many end users have a sense of entitlement that is undue. They think they can demand things as if it were a paid for product.

Well, that is at times what Joe User is being promised, i.e. a distro is being presented as a near plug-compatible replacement for e.g. Windows.

They haven't gotten used to the idea of software as a community, and not a commodity.

Just an observation: Joe User isn't necessarily part of any community other than that of his local village. I.e. just because someone uses openSUSE doesn't automagically make them part of the community. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (2.8°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Monday, November 21, 2011 05:43:33 PM jdd wrote:

Le 21/11/2011 17:12, Bombshellz Administrator a écrit :

...

It's interesting someone had the courage to point out the flaws in support regarding Linux.

As Linux Documentation Project (LDP - http://tldp.org) coordinator, I remember than 10 years ago we had a lack of Linux documentation, but now we have a lot but spread all over the net in chaotic form (should we be surprised?) and we don't anymore find authors willing to follow a HOWTO

life is like this...

jdd And our own wiki here doesn't help matters. Its a mess, mainly from poor upkeep. We need a new scheme to keep things fresh on there. -- Roger Luedecke openSUSE Ambassador Ind. Repairs and Consulting **Looking for a C++ etc. mentor*** -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Graham Anderson wrote:

On Monday 21 Nov 2011 01:41:24 Bruce Ferrell wrote:

...

What I've noted is a tendency to short, less informative answers, a tendency to react defensively, deny or debate reports of difficulties and just a general level of snarkiness. I don't think the list has seen a massive influx of windows converts (who, even if we want to, shouldn't be treated like idiots), I could be wrong. This isn't a "them" and "us" situation. Please, lets try not to turn it into one. I for one, even if I don't write patches, do contribute by doing bug reports, buying the boxed set and doing all I can to promote Suse in my workplace. Even if these contributions aren't globally visible and well known, what does it hurt to ask a question or two if you didn't get enough information to help, or just not answer at all if all you can respond with is a nasty RTFM.

Here's a suggestion. Don't suddenly turn on people who are trying to help you and accuse them of playing games and starting a pissing contest becuase _you_ screwed something up. Quite frankely if people were being "snarky" with you, it's because you were being a wanker.

Q.E.D. -- Tony Alfrey tonyalfrey@earthlink.net "I'd Rather Be Sailing" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 19:57, Peter Nikolic wrote:

That is why i am still on 11.3 i have looked at 12.1 had problems tried to get help got a sarcastic comment   far as i am concerned 12.1 is now officially dead

Please consider this: - Often people replying are doing so quickly/in a rush, so replies are often short and abrupt - A large number of people on this list have English as a second, third or fourth language (or more), so sometimes what may sound OK to them comes across as horribly rude - This is an international list and if you have any experience with English in other cultures, you soon observe that what is good natured jibes or teasing in one version is a horrible insult in others (I see this a lot in my travels from one English speaking nation to another). - In any group of one or more people there will always be someone who is a bully or rude. You either get upset - which is what they usually are looking for - or you just ignore it and let it slide. The noisy ones get bored and leave. - It's the internet.. you can't exist here and have a "thin skin" - People are dividing their time between personal life, work life and openSUSE... the resulting stress sometimes that causes them to be a bit more snippy than they normally are or intend to be - Some people ask the same question over and over, or a group have a sense of self-entitlement, and it gets old. Seeing a constant stream of "you're all idiots" gets tiresome and people give grumpy replies. So... you let it bother you and get upset like this thread is showing, or you ignore it. Personally.. I find ignoring the grumpy people is the best solution. Oh, and considering openSUSE 12.1 as "officially dead" is a real shame. It has a few teething pains, but it's a darned good release - give it another week for the gurus to beat back the post release bugs, and then try it again... you will (hopefully) be quite surprised at just how nice this release is.... and the core of the supporters here do a great job of trying to get openSUSE out, and support it on mailing lists, forums IRC etc etc. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Monday 21 November 2011 20:41:59 Greg Freemyer wrote:

On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 3:22 PM, C wrote:

...

Oh, and considering openSUSE 12.1 as "officially dead" is a real shame. It has a few teething pains, but it's a darned good release - give it another week for the gurus to beat back the post release bugs, and then try it again... you will (hopefully) be quite surprised at just how nice this release is.... and the core of the supporters here do a great job of trying to get openSUSE out, and support it on mailing lists, forums IRC etc etc.

I totally agree.

Some people seem to think that getting a new distro on day one is the way to go. The reality with almost all software (open, commercial, whatever0 is that a new release comes with new bugs.

I have opensuse running on about 15 computers. Currently most of those are on 11.3 because it works fine and yet is still supported. More importantly there are not likely to be new bugs introduced at this point.

As we all know, I have 2 months more of 11.3 support from the release of 12.1. All of those 11.3 machines will be upgraded to 11.4. After all its been out since March and has seen most of its teething problems solved.

well 11.4 is a no go zone on this machine or the laptop when it deciedes it is going to boot it is so slow and unstable it is unuseable so 11.3 rules . This machine has to be stable it is used for the dev of several web sites backed up everytime something is changed 11.4 cant even find the backup drive i have a test drive for playing with but have to keep returning to 11.3 for useability and stability I would love to run 12.1 but the path is way to unstable right now

12.1 on the other hand came out less than 7 days ago. I have it running on exactly one computer at this point. While I hope it works well, I don't expect it to be without new release problems.

I actually had a couple major issues when I first upgraded to -RC2, but both of those were fixed with the help of either the mailing lists or bugzilla. Even better, both issues were specific to my machine and not to the general user base.

RC2 was a total no go . untill Kmail is sorted fully and i can safeley and reliably migrate my mail from this box , Hate thunderbird cant get on with it Pete -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34.10-0.4-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.6.5 (4.6.5) "release 7" 23:14 up 7 days 1:33, 4 users, load average: 0.10, 0.08, 0.02 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2011/11/21 23:23 (GMT) Peter Nikolic composed:

well 11.4 is a no go zone on this machine or the laptop when it deciedes it is going to boot it is so slow and unstable it is unuseable so 11.3 rules .

Did you ever try reverting to sysvinit ('zypper in sysvinit-init', as spelled out in the relnotes)? That solved slow boot on all my 12.1 machines that suffered it. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 11/21/2011 02:09 PM, Roger Luedecke wrote:

On Monday, November 21, 2011 06:57:53 PM Peter Nikolic wrote:

...

...

On Monday 21 Nov 2011 01:41:24 Bruce Ferrell wrote:

...

What I've noted is a tendency to short, less informative answers, a tendency to react defensively, deny or debate reports of difficulties and just a general level of snarkiness. I don't think the list has seen a massive influx of windows converts (who, even if we want to, shouldn't be treated like idiots), I could be wrong. This isn't a "them" and "us" situation. Please, lets try not to turn it into one. I for one, even if I don't write patches, do contribute by doing bug reports, buying the boxed set and doing all I can to promote Suse in my workplace. Even if these contributions aren't globally visible and well known, what does it hurt to ask a question or two if you didn't get enough information to help, or just not answer at all if all you can respond with is a nasty RTFM. Here's a suggestion. Don't suddenly turn on people who are trying to help you and accuse them of playing games and starting a pissing contest becuase _you_ screwed something up. Quite frankely if people were being "snarky" with you, it's because you were being a wanker. That totaly depends on the type of initial reply you get and first replys i have seen recently would get a thup on the nose from me in a face to face situation because they are completely uncalled for and out of line with

On Monday 21 November 2011 16:25:54 Graham Anderson wrote: the question being asked , I have seen very few helpfull first second or third replys to peoples problems for quite a long time now more in the way of you are wrong cus i said you are wrong not good at all .

That is why i am still on 11.3 i have looked at 12.1 had problems tried to get help got a sarcastic comment far as i am concerned 12.1 is now officially dead

Pete . Part of the problem is people don't do early testing so we can catch bugs better before release. Everybody wants it stable, but few are willing to risk some instability to assure a better result for us all. And I'm as much to blame for that as any others :(

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Monday 21 November 2011 22:09:12 Roger Luedecke wrote:

On Monday, November 21, 2011 06:57:53 PM Peter Nikolic wrote:

...

On Monday 21 November 2011 16:25:54 Graham Anderson wrote:

...

On Monday 21 Nov 2011 01:41:24 Bruce Ferrell wrote:

...

What I've noted is a tendency to short, less informative answers, a tendency to react defensively, deny or debate reports of difficulties and just a general level of snarkiness. I don't think the list has seen a massive influx of windows converts (who, even if we want to, shouldn't be treated like idiots), I could be wrong. This isn't a "them" and "us" situation. Please, lets try not to turn it into one. I for one, even if I don't write patches, do contribute by doing bug reports, buying the boxed set and doing all I can to promote Suse in my workplace. Even if these contributions aren't globally visible and well known, what does it hurt to ask a question or two if you didn't get enough information to help, or just not answer at all if all you can respond with is a nasty RTFM.

Here's a suggestion. Don't suddenly turn on people who are trying to help you and accuse them of playing games and starting a pissing contest becuase _you_ screwed something up. Quite frankely if people were being "snarky" with you, it's because you were being a wanker.

That totaly depends on the type of initial reply you get and first replys i have seen recently would get a thup on the nose from me in a face to face situation because they are completely uncalled for and out of line with the question being asked , I have seen very few helpfull first second or third replys to peoples problems for quite a long time now more in the way of you are wrong cus i said you are wrong not good at all .

That is why i am still on 11.3 i have looked at 12.1 had problems tried to get help got a sarcastic comment far as i am concerned 12.1 is now officially dead

Pete .

Part of the problem is people don't do early testing so we can catch bugs better before release. Everybody wants it stable, but few are willing to risk some instability to assure a better result for us all.

But therein lies one of the other problems the bugzilla interface is well heathen to put it very politely Then there is the attitude you get on here of almost dont bother us just post the bug number not very nice very unhelpful and it puts people off reporting bugs at all Pete . -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34.10-0.4-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.6.5 (4.6.5) "release 7" 23:34 up 7 days 1:52, 4 users, load average: 0.08, 0.11, 0.08 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2011/11/21 23:38 (GMT) Peter Nikolic composed:

But therein lies one of the other problems the bugzilla interface is well heathen to put it very politely

I've been using about a dozen bug trackers over the past decade, and find the Bugzilla software superior in most regards to Launchpad and the rest of the others. Of those that keep the latest version of it or close thereto, I do like Novell's less than average because of one glaringly different field behavior (Comment matches on https://bugzilla.novell.com/query.cgi), and the totally different (apparently different DB entirely) interface for tracking feature requests. What about Bugzilla causes you to describe it so? -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Roger Luedecke wrote:

Part of the problem is people don't do early testing so we can catch bugs better before release. Everybody wants it stable, but few are willing to risk some instability to assure a better result for us all.

I'm not sure we has any data to really substantiate that. At some point, I did sort of half-way propose we should be using a test-case tracking system, but given the size of this project, it's probably not a very good idea. 15 years ago I helped write and document about 1000 test-cases for a project I was managing. There was about 20 people involved in total, and even those 1000 cases were too much. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (1.9°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Roger Luedecke wrote:

On Tuesday, November 22, 2011 07:59:50 AM Per Jessen wrote:

...

Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

Part of the problem is people don't do early testing so we can catch bugs better before release. Everybody wants it stable, but few are willing to risk some instability to assure a better result for us all.

I'm not sure we have any data to really substantiate that. At some point, I did sort of half-way propose we should be using a test-case tracking system, but given the size of this project, it's probably not a very good idea. 15 years ago I helped write and document about 1000 test-cases for a project I was managing. There was about 20 people involved in total, and even those 1000 cases were too much.

So a structured QA testing process?

Yep, that's it. More or less.

Could you explain this a bit further? The hamsters in my head are making the wheels whirl, and I sense an interesting idea coming on.

It's probably not very on-topic here, -project or -testing would be better, but very briefly: a test-case could be: "installation on a software RAID1 array" or "installation over WLAN (hardware #45)". Tracking the test progress could be a simple log of a) testcase b) software being tested (e.g. 11.4, 12.1RC1 etc.) c) optional/minor variations d) who tested it e) results At some point, as and if determined by the powers that be, it might be possible to add release-criteria such "X percent of tests-cases were successful". -- Per Jessen, Zürich (1.9°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Duaine Hechler wrote:

On 11/22/2011 12:59 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

Part of the problem is people don't do early testing so we can catch bugs better before release. Everybody wants it stable, but few are willing to risk some instability to assure a better result for us all. I'm not sure we has any data to really substantiate that. At some point, I did sort of half-way propose we should be using a test-case tracking system, but given the size of this project, it's probably not a very good idea. 15 years ago I helped write and document about 1000 test-cases for a project I was managing. There was about 20 people involved in total, and even those 1000 cases were too much.

Well, back in my day on the mainframe, I wrote many, many "system" level utilities and short cuts for the operators all the way up to higher management.

I used what is called a "devils advocate" approach. As I was writing the code, I would take a step back and try to think of all the possibilities of how and where it would break.

Right - engineers/programmers/developers test to see that things work, testers test to break things. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (2.6°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Duaine Hechler wrote:

On 11/22/2011 02:09 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Duaine Hechler wrote:

...

On 11/22/2011 12:59 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

Part of the problem is people don't do early testing so we can catch bugs better before release. Everybody wants it stable, but few are willing to risk some instability to assure a better result for us all. I'm not sure we has any data to really substantiate that. At some point, I did sort of half-way propose we should be using a test-case tracking system, but given the size of this project, it's probably not a very good idea. 15 years ago I helped write and document about 1000 test-cases for a project I was managing. There was about 20 people involved in total, and even those 1000 cases were too much. Well, back in my day on the mainframe, I wrote many, many "system" level utilities and short cuts for the operators all the way up to higher management.

I used what is called a "devils advocate" approach. As I was writing the code, I would take a step back and try to think of all the possibilities of how and where it would break. Right - engineers/programmers/developers test to see that things work, testers test to break things.

So....what would I be classified as - since I did - both - sides ?

Dunno, depends on the situation :-) -- Per Jessen, Zürich (2.8°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 2:40 AM, Duaine Hechler wrote:

On 11/22/2011 12:59 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Roger Luedecke wrote:

...

Part of the problem is people don't do early testing so we can catch bugs better before release. Everybody wants it stable, but few are willing to risk some instability to assure a better result for us all.

I'm not sure we has any data to really substantiate that.  At some point, I did sort of half-way propose we should be using a test-case tracking system, but given the size of this project, it's probably not a very good idea.  15 years ago I helped write and document about 1000 test-cases for a project I was managing. There was about 20 people involved in total, and even those 1000 cases were too much.

Well, back in my day on the mainframe, I wrote many, many "system" level utilities and short cuts for the operators all the way up to higher management.

I used what is called a "devils advocate" approach. As I was writing the code, I would take a step back and try to think of all the possibilities of how and where it would break. As part of this approach, I would take the main task and break it down into subtasks and begin testing at that level, then start putting it together. So by the time I released it into production, it would be nearly 100% error free.

The worst case was when my work wanted to take "line" mode (normal impact print data) and convert it to "page" mode a.k.a. AFP (Advanced Function Printing) data for the IBM 3800 Laser Printer. That meant building a HEX data stream to include actual print data, definition sequence numbers, font selection, X & Y coordinated, margins, page size definitions, a forms overlay stream (like adding a grid line - boxes with borders or line shading, etc.), adding an image hex stream (graphs, logos, etc) and, last but not least, handling multi-section pages. IF ANY PART of the data stream was wrong - the printer would either stop, print garbage or go completely nuts.

BTW, my part was the easy part, because once my data stream definition were right, I would pass them to the application programmers who had to - convert - and - build - the data stream to run on an OCTAL mainframe (Bull / Honeywell) which in turn meant they had to use COBOL COMP-3 fields which turned it into BINARY data field.

AND, if the application programs did not build the AFP data stream in the right sequence, it would do the same as above.

Ahhhhhh..... Those Were The Days ........

Duaine

Duane, You should check out some of Bernhard Wiedemann's work for openSUSE QA. He has some automated QA logic, but I think it aims at just ensuring we have basic installation, zypper, and desktop functionality. Check out: http://openqa.opensuse.org/results/?sort=-7&hours=300&match= So let's assume you want to know how a 64-bit install of opensuse with the lxde desktop from the NET install CD works. You can look it up on that page. First, you have basic quantitative results on that page, but on the left you find a link to this detail page: http://openqa.opensuse.org/results/openSUSE-NET-x86_64-Build0039-lxde It shows still images from various places in the install. Then you will also find a link to this movie: http://openqa.opensuse.org/opensuse/video/openSUSE-NET-x86_64-Build0039-lxde... The whole process is automated and recorded as you can see. As to how the magic happens: The opensuse factory process self-identifies consistent snapshots. They tend to happen once or twice a week, but sometimes its longer between snapshots. AIUI, for a snapshot to be identified everything in the factory repo has to be compiled and there can not be many build failures. That causes a factory snapshot to trigger automatically. For each snapshot various boot/live/install CDs/DVDs get created and Bernard's automated installs kickoff and update the QA page above. It is really pretty cool stuff as far as I'm concerned. Greg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 11/21/2011 11:49 PM, Linux Tyro wrote:

I agree with you, openSUSE list people don't answer the general questions when you raise any help, they just tell you to google and find yourself, for this reason i am leaving opensuse, fedora and ubuntu in this regard are far better, i don't know why opensuse mailing list is not for newbies! they tell you only the high things but not the basics, you are correct Bruce

Good bye opensuse.

As a newish convert from Ubuntu and Fedora (finally discovered zypper and I'm in love), I would like to point out that the same exists on their mailing lists from time to time (just try to bring up Unity issues), it is not unique to any distribution. I've seen the same thing happen in waves for the past ten years. People sometimes need to be reminded to respond with kindness and respect even if the answer sometimes seems obvious, or to admit when something really is broken so it can be fixed. Even pointing towards the manual can be done in a respectful manner. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org