Comment 21 for bug 876146

Hi, question: How does the upgrade QA work? Does it rely solely on users that do the upgrade at Alpha and Beta stages? Do you have a simple way to repeat upgrade processes to test the progress of stabilization?

Actually I'd be happy to do upgrade tests (especially since my experience is that something always breaks). This scenario could work for me:
* Alpha/Beta is announced
* When I know I won't need my computer for the next few hours I will tell it to do a test upgrade
* The upgrade process creates a bootable USB key or CD to restore the system later
* First it tests whether this restore system boots, only if this works does the upgrade proceed
* After the upgrade is done I can check for problems and report them (this must be automated as much as possible)
* When done, I reboot into the restore CD/USB and get my old system back
* If I get notified that some of my issues should be fixed I can repeat the process to verify

Except for bootloader issues this should be easily possible given enough space on the harddrive...

PS: I installed Ubuntu for a friend and when the popup appeared that a distribution upgrade is available, the first thing I did was call my friend and tell him to not click that button - I was just in time to stop him (and I'm happy I did - two out of two Oneiric upgrades broke for me. I couldn't reserve enough time yet for the remaining computers that want to upgrade.).