"Also affects: Distribution" doesn't accept binary package names while "Report a bug" does

[Paul Perkins]

1. From <https://staging.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug-advanced>, report a dummy bug as occurring in "alsa-base".
2. Observe that the resulting bug report is filed under "alsa-driver", because that's the source package producing the "alsa-base" binary package.
3. Now from <https://bugs.staging.launchpad.net/>, go to any bug report that is not currently filed under Ubuntu "alsa-driver".
4. Choose "Also affects: Distribution...", with "Ubuntu" as the distribution, and "alsa-base" as the package, and click "Continue".

What happens: "There is no package in Ubuntu named 'alsa-base'."
What was expected: The bug is filed under "alsa-driver", because that's the source package producing the "alsa-base" binary package.

[James Henstridge (jamesh)]

Hi Paul,

The packages you usually install with apt are known as "binary packages". One or more "binary packages" are built from a "source package". In this particular case, "alsa-base" is a binary package built from the "alsa-driver" source package.

That said, if you are reporting a bug at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug, you may enter a binary package name and Launchpad will pick the appropriate source package.

Could you provide some more information about what you were trying to do when you ran into this problem?

[Paul Perkins (thirdspace)]

I think I had clicked the "Also affects ... package/distribution" link on an existing bug report. I had figured out which binary package contained a relevant file (not easily), but not which source package that binary package came from. If all places where a user of launchpad is asked for a package name, it would accept binary package names and translate them, that would be a step in the right direction. But where I was in the UI, it just said "no such package" when in a valid interpretation, there was such a package.

If the user interface of a distribution talks about packages and means binary packages, but launchpad talks about packages and means source packages, launchpad will get more bug reports with wrong or no package associated.