Clarify what a "URL to the hardware profile" is in tracker

[Elizabeth K. Joseph]

A lot of people ask what a "URL to the hardware profile" is, thinking this is some specific type of link that they should know about, either from Ubuntu Friendly or some other Ubuntu resource, but there are no references to help them figure out what this is.

According to the U+1 team at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/U+1/iso-testing-qa#Step_2:_Hardware_Profile it is very specific, but QA teams vary in what they recommend, some people put Ubuntu Friendly links here, others create pages on wiki.ubuntu.com linking to hardware details, etc.

Clarification on the tracker itself saying that this link can be "any link describing their hardware" (or, if there is a specific thing we want people to be using, a link to what that is) instead of just "URL to the hardware profile" would be helpful.

[Nicholas Skaggs (nskaggs)]

I agree this needs to be clarified.

@stgraber, what's the status of linking this to ubuntu friendly?

[Nicholas Skaggs (nskaggs)]

This will be linked to the forthcoming community hwdb; until that time, it can be used to point to any link describing the hardware used for testing, as you mention. I think the next release of the qatracker won't happen until after the hwdb is launched, so I don't think we'll be able to change it on the tracker side sadly. However, "soon" this problem will be solved.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1017207

[Daniel Kessel (dkessel)]

As the hwdb (hardware database) never came to exist, the input box for the hardware URL should better be removed now, as it only confuses people and there are no reports of people using the input box.

[Nicholas Skaggs (nskaggs)]

I agree with Daniel. The 'fix' for this bug is much simpler than before.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I'd prefer we just create instructions that are simple follow. I have started using it (of course sometimes I forget) and it's easy to collect info by simply running:

sudo lshw | pastebinit

Then it's a simple matter of copy-n-paste.

[Nicholas Skaggs (nskaggs)]

Erick, one of the issues is pastebins expiring :-(

However, I wonder if we might be better served by actually placing this information in a bug report, or evene perhaps in the comment section. The majority of the time the information might be needed is in relation to a bug. If you are reporting a result on the tracker, in general we know the arch you are testing; the only information missing is if you tested using a virtual machine or real hardware.

Since I do feel the box until now has mostly been a source of confusion, and the information is better related in a bug report my vote is to simply remove it as I said above.

For those in favor of keeping it, any suggestions on making it more useful / less confusing? For new testers it's simply an extra step that really isn't needed. I will say I agree it would have been useful in the era of wanting / creating a hardware database, but that never happened.

[Pasi Lallinaho (knome)]

On 2015-02-17 23:53, Nicholas Skaggs wrote:
> Erick, one of the issues is pastebins expiring :-(
>
> However, I wonder if we might be better served by actually placing this
> information in a bug report, or evene perhaps in the comment section.
> The majority of the time the information might be needed is in relation
> to a bug. If you are reporting a result on the tracker, in general we
> know the arch you are testing; the only information missing is if you
> tested using a virtual machine or real hardware.
>
> Since I do feel the box until now has mostly been a source of confusion,
> and the information is better related in a bug report my vote is to
> simply remove it as I said above.
>
> For those in favor of keeping it, any suggestions on making it more
> useful / less confusing? For new testers it's simply an extra step that
> really isn't needed. I will say I agree it would have been useful in the
> era of wanting / creating a hardware database, but that never happened.
>

If it's mainly a pick between hardware and virtual machine, why not drop
in two radio boxes with those options instead of the current input?

It is relatively easy to store this data in the database as it's
practically a boolean value... It also gives us one more field that's
simple to filter. If cross-examined with other data in the reports, you
could even get some insight of which bugs only seem to happen with
hardware/VMs.

Cheers,
Pasi

--
Pasi Lallinaho (knome) » http://open.knome.fi/
Leader of Shimmer Project » http://shimmerproject.org/
Ubuntu member, Xubuntu Website Lead » http://xubuntu.org/

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I'm OK with you removing it, as you say it's just more time consuming and probably seldom read.

I guess one example of it being helpful would be in reference to bug #1412602. I've done some testing on this affected hardware:

AMD Sempron Processor LE-1250 @ 2.2 GHz
nVidia C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a] (rev a2)
nVidia MCP61 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
nVidia MCP61 Ethernet (rev a2)
2GB DDR2 RAM

But I'll probably do some additional testing on this unaffected hardware:

Intel Atom CPU 230 @ 1.60GHz
Intel 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
Intel N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
2GB DDR2 RAM

So i suppose one could argue that a project leader could look at the results and wonder why the same tester is showing both pass and fail results for the same test. But whenever there is a fail it's accompanied by a bug report so I imagine it's almost self explanatory.

Or, as you said, in a case where a tester is reporting mixed results he could just drop a snippet of hardware info in comments - the snippet being similar to what I used above.

[Nicholas Skaggs (nskaggs)]

Erick, yes I too have done things like report both pass and fail on the same testcase.. fun stuff :-)

Pasi, I am also open to having a selection, but I do want to streamline the reporting process as much as possible for new folks. It's clear adding options has proven to be a stumbling block for new contributors. That said, I want to be careful to not oversimplify. At this point, I would support an MP that removes it or makes it a radio box selection of hw/vm, though the latter is much simpler.

May the one who takes action first win :p

[Nicholas Skaggs (nskaggs)]

I'd like to see this fixed; I'm leaning towards removing it altogether and leaving such information for bug reports if needed.

[Kev Bowring (flocculant)]

I'd agree with removing it altogether

[Kev Bowring (flocculant)]

See bug 1526461