Trivial and non-trivial enhancements for bugreport

[Ricardo Pérez López]

1. A bug report written in reportbug must go into launchpad/malone, instead of <email address hidden> (or maybe both).

2. A localized reportbug, showing messages in the local language.

3. Two versions of reportbug: one in text mode and one in graphics mode. If I am in X Window, running "reportbug" must shows the graphical version. If I am in console text mode, running "reportbug" must shows the textual version. I think you can borrow the behavior of debconf's front-ends.

Thanks, and good job :)

[GerhardGaußling (ggrubbish-web)]

(In reply to comment #0)
> 1. A bug report written in reportbug must goes into bugzilla.ubuntu.com, instead
> of <email address hidden> (or maybe both).
>
> 2. A localized reportbug, showing messages in the local language.
>
> 3. Two versions of reportbug: one in text mode and one in graphics mode. If I am
> in X Window, running "reportbug" must shows the graphical version. If I am in
> console text mode, running "reportbug" must shows the textual version. I think
> you can borrow the behavior of debconf's front-ends.
>

I totally agree with your points.
I'm a little upset about how to report bugs in ubuntu.
It's a shame that it's not possible to report a bug with report bug, which I
liked a lot in debian (beside some downsides it's good to have a tool which
reports all dependant files annd system informations, and which offers a list of
already reported bugs and sverity levels). *Almost nothing* works in the ubuntu
bugsystem.
I wanted to file a bug against nvu, but that's impossible, because bugzuilla or
in that case "Malone Bugtracker" couldn't find that package.
I'm a little experienced, but what with novices? If the bugsystem stays that
buggy they will never report a bug in ubuntu.
So, is this ubuntu's philosopgy: Let debian do all of the work?

> Thanks, and good job :)
I hope one will do a good job on this, too.

Kind regards

Gerhard Gaußling

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Another reference:

<dooglus> here's the GNU bug:
http://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?func=detailitem&item_id=3803

[Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn (zooko)]

Dear Ubuntu:

I love you, but I refuse to load up a web browser and type freeform text into a form in order to report bugs. (Aside from
this one.)

Over the many years of my using Debian, I reported many bugs, sometimes including patches to fix the bugs.

In my many months of using Ubuntu, I have discovered several (small) bugs, and have submitted bug reports with
"reportbug". In one case I included a patch to fix the bug. However, as far as I can tell, my efforts were redirected
into /dev/null (or ubuntu-users, not sure which).

Please either remove the reportbug package from Ubuntu, or fix it so that it actually reports a bug in such a way that the
Ubuntu developers learn about the bug.

Since I haven't seen any improvement on this issue in several months, I'm considering switching back to Debian.

Sincerely,

Zooko

[Antony Gelberg (antony-wayforth)]

(In reply to comment #0)
> 1. A bug report written in reportbug must goes into bugzilla.ubuntu.com, instead
> of <email address hidden> (or maybe both).

This is a separate issue, and deserves more than enhancement severity. I have
just wasted ten minutes typing into reportbug only to find out the my bug gets
sent to the user mailing list, which I don't even subscribe to. To echo Zooko
in comment #3, please remove reportbug or fix it. That is, unless you want some
bugs floating on the user mailing list, and others in bugzilla. I suspect that
it will be easier to remove the package. I'm going to raise a new bug for this
in bugzilla with appropriate severity.

[Johan Walles (walles)]

Antony, if you open a new bug, can you put the bug number in here? Maybe even
mark your new bug as blocking this one?

[GerhardGaußling (ggrubbish-web)]

This is still ANNOYING.
Sorry, I don't want to go to a website to report a bug!, nor keep all the email
commands in mind to handle malone with mail!
Please, give information about the status of a similar tool of reportbug (it
shuld be enhancede compared to reportbug) to get finally rid of this insane
reportbug issue.

Regards

Gerhard Gaußling

[James Andrewartha (trs80)]

Should probably be changed to report to malone, which I think even has a mail interface https://wiki.launchpad.canonical.com/MaloneEmailInterfaceUserDoc although it requires GPG signing. Yay. In the end I went reportbug --bts debian because I know my bug'll get fixed there. Also got the crash of malone 2866

[James Andrewartha (trs80)]

malone https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/reportbug/+bug/28666 even.

[Kai Henningsen (kai-bugs)]

IMO, a working reportbug is pretty much essential these days; the current state should really have been a release blocker for the whole distribution.

And directing people to use a web browser, days after sending the bug, certainly does not seem to match any of this "Ubuntu philosophy" stuff your web pages make so much of.

[Marco Rodrigues (gothicx)]

I think this bug don't need to exist with the new apport and the new way to report bugs on ubuntu =)

[James Andrewartha (trs80)]

apport is only for crashes, reportbug is for all kinds of bugs.

[scoopex (ms-ubuntu)]

Reportbug seems to be broken on ubuntu. Please remove it. In my opition is is a good idea
to write a new and very simple utility which is implemented the following way:

- to prevent duplicate bugs, the tool provides information about existing bugs directly after startup
- the tool should be runnable with and without x-windows
- information is submitted by a https-post
  (should also support proxy-access)
- the user has to enter the launchpad login and password to file a bug
- the tool collects the same information like debian`s "reportbug"

[Johan Walles (walles)]

Scoopex, except for the communication with launchpad reportbug does everything you want.

Extending reportbug seems like a better idea than to replace it when it's just a few new features that are needed.

[scoopex (ms-ubuntu)]

Johan, a few comments:
- reportbug is no capable to run on X11
  (this would be useful for users which are not using the commandline)
- all communication methods are currently not compatible with launchpad
- Maybe the bug-attributes of the debian-bts and launchpad are not compatible.
  (this might by a time consuming task adapting "reportbug" to launchpad-infrastructure)

I agree, extending "reportbug" sounds to be the better idea...but maybe writing a small tool which satisfies 90% of the requirements will be more easy.
Maybe we can simply write a tool which automates the collection of debugging-data, and reuses the
bug-forms on launchpad.net by embedding launchpad (w3m,lynx,konqueror-plugin,....) directly in the application.

What´s your opinion ?

[Scott Beamer (angrykeyboarder)]

Why reportbug even in the archive in it's current state? It serves no purpose as is.

And what is the logic behind it's sending emails to the Ubuntu Users mailing list?

reportbug is to report bugs, not to ask questions of other users.

And lastly, how has this package continually migrated from one Ubuntu version to another?

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2007-October/127163.html

[GerhardGaußling (ggrubbish-web)]

I thought, that the development on apport etc. are fixed also reportbug, or at least reportbug-ng would fix all these issues on reportbug.
But ist has got still the same issues.
I strongly recommend to give reportbug, or at least reportbug-ng the capabilities, to communicate with launchpad.
reportbug sends still all bugreports to the mailing list, that's not what we could expect of it.

We need a functional commandline bug reporting tool, at least for ubuntu-server:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2007-October/127218.html

BTW: reportbug-ng doesn't work either: It pulls all bug reports from the debian BTS instead of launchpad, and tries to report the bug to debian. I don't know, if it will work without an xserver, I doubt that...

[Johan Walles (walles)]

>- reportbug is no capable to run on X11
> (this would be useful for users which are not using the commandline)

I use it under X11 all the time and I think it's great (on Debian Testing). But if it's a GUI you want you're right, it doesn't have that.

> - Maybe the bug-attributes of the debian-bts and launchpad are not compatible.
> (this might by a time consuming task adapting "reportbug" to launchpad-infrastructure)

Getting all real-world testing that reportbug has gone through into a new tool could be time-consuming as well. I'm not qualified to judge which would be the most amount of work. Try asking Chris Lawrence <email address hidden>, he wrote it and is still maintaining it for Debian.

Since I don't know much about reportbug apart from how to use it and that it's quite broken on Ubuntu, I think sending the rest of your questions as well to Chris would be your best bet, he should know.

  Cheers //Johan

[Joris Mooij (j-mooij)]

The least thing that should be done IMHO is to issue a warning to the user when reportbug is started that, contrary to what one might expect, reportbug will NOT report a bug in the bug tracking system, but only send an email to the ubuntu-users list; furthermore, it should direct the user to the bug tracking system.

Also, the man page is outdated (it says that reportbug will send a bug report to the Debian bug tracking system, which does not seem to be the case).

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

Are there people still using reportbug? Are the wishes of the original reporter satisfied or they won't be?
Can this bug be closed?

[Josh Lee (jleedev)]

As long as reportbug is still in the repository and the man page does not make it clear that reported bugs will be silently dropped, then yes, this bug should still be open. Ideally, of course, if reportbug is to stay, then launchpad should be modified to accept bug reports by email.

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

On Sun, 2008-03-30 at 23:36 +0000, Josh Lee wrote:
> As long as reportbug is still in the repository and the man page does
> not make it clear that reported bugs will be silently dropped, then yes,
> this bug should still be open. Ideally, of course, if reportbug is to
> stay, then launchpad should be modified to accept bug reports by email.

https://help.launchpad.net/BugTrackerEmailInterface perhaps ? :)

--
GPG key available at: <http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt>.

[James Andrewartha (trs80)]

To quote that page, "Email for reporting and editing bugs must be GPG-signed" which is not something bug reporters should be expected to do.

[Antony Gelberg (antony-wayforth)]

Several years later :) I got round to opening bug #228183.

[Sarah Kowalik (hobbsee-deactivatedaccount)]

Please fix it, instead of removing it. A lot of us file legitimate bugs to debian with it.

Perhaps create a message about reportbug being deprecated for Ubuntu, and an offer to launch apport, or something, or to specify a bug tracker.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

Unfortunately, this report does not adfere to "one issue, one report". I'll pick #1 as the most important issue, it is the one that all the following discussion focused on. Consequently, I am marking it as dupe to bug 310741.

Please open separate issues about #2 and #3. Thank you.