Bug #372011 (or: how we could help with anaconda beta tests)

[André Costa]

Hi Martin,

On Nov 23, 2007 6:35 PM, Martin Marques <martin at marquesminen.com.ar> wrote:
> I'm adding the fedora-devel-list as I think this should be discussed there.
>
> Andre Costa escribió:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > bug #372011 [https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=372011] is
> > hosting a heated debate about anaconda & F8, how this dreadful bug has
> > been hurting F8 reputation and so on (I'm one of the poor souls that
> > have been affected by it -- and have been saved by patched .img
> > provided by Jeremy Katz
> > [http://katzj.fedorapeople.org/updates-f8-yumloop.img]).
>
> It has hurted very much I must say.

I have to agree with that. I was very pissed off myself after 4
attempts to upgrade, wasting literally _hours_ to realize it would go
nowhere. This was Fedora's version that demanded the highest degree of
effort to be installed IMO. And I've been messing with Linux since
before RH 5.2.

> > One thing that's clear is that anaconda QA missed some key spots, and
> > also that we (users) didn't help much on the process, allowing the bugs
> > to remain hidden until the version was officially released, which led to
> > a lot of stress among users and developers.
>
> The problem is that most users don't have time and resources to test
> twice a year a new release. 6 months for development+beta testing+RC
> testing is just too little. IMHO.

Yeah, agreed about the resources. That's exactly why I am proposing
that Fedora developers release early versions of anaconda's deps
solver only -- not the whole thing. It wouldn't even need to be a
bootable cd/dvd, just some standalone executable with the logic that
will try to realize what's installed and decide what will be upgraded
and how it will be. It could also show some stats, and even prompt the
user if he would like to send an automated report back to RedHat so
that developers would know what worked and what didn't.

As for the short release cycle, that's one of Fedora's purposes. And,
just to compare with another (very) popular distro, Ubuntu doesn't go
too far: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes

> Also, what kind of QA does Fedora have today? I'm not throwing mud at
> anyone, it's just that I don't have the slightest idea! (As Lucy used to
> say in the Peanuts Gang). There should be a list of things that have to
> be tested, and for each one of them, testers should report on the output
> of the test. Some items are more critical then others, and so should
> have more test reports.
>
> Just some ideas that just cracked out of my head. :-D
>
> > I would really like to participate more during the beta stage of new
> > Fedora versions. However, as I stated on Comment #97
> > [https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=372011#c97] I can't really
> > install beta versions on my system at home, I use it daily, including
> > for work.
>
> This is exactly what I stated before: you don't have the resources.

Well, don't speak for me =) As I said, it's not the release cycle that
worries me, it's the fact that I can't risk ruining a working (stable)
installation with a beta upgrade. But I wouldn't mind helping to test
some parts of the installer if I were sure it would not mess my
system.

> > But, AFAICS the other aspects of the installation process are pretty
> > much stable and independent from the current installation (language
> > selection, keyboard selection etc.), and the critical step for an
> > upgrade is dependency solving / package selection.
> >
> > So, what if the developers provided early access to this particular
> > part of anaconda only? I mean, in read-only mode, it would just gather
> > information about the packages currently installed and confirm if it
> > would be able to handle an upgrade on a "real" installation scenario?
> > It could for instance stop right after depsolve and show some
> > statistics.
>
> Well, nobody could ensure that the beta anaconda will not bite your
> disk. It is pre-beta.

It shouldn't be too hard to leave the "replace current RPMs with new
ones" code out ;-) Also, if this is provided as a standalone dep
solver, it wouldn't have nowhere to download new RPMs from.

> > Believe me, if I was sure that I could test anaconda in read-only mode I
> > would gladly do it, at any step before the official release. Chances
> > are that test coverage would improve considerably, and no installation
> > would be touched during this process.
> >
> > Does this make any sense to anyone? Would this help? Is it already
> > possible somehow?
>
> What I do see as something Fedora Project should do is whats commented
> in comment #104
> [https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=372011#c104] about
> information on the web page of how to collaborate with the project.
>
> What would be a hugh plus for the project.

Agreed again.

Regards,

Andre