From owner-freebsd-current Tue Feb 19 10: 8:26 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from rn-re116a13.uwaterloo.ca (rn-re116a13.uwaterloo.ca [129.97.232.81]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 911CC37B42F for ; Tue, 19 Feb 2002 10:08:16 -0800 (PST) Received: (from munish@localhost) by rn-re116a13.uwaterloo.ca (8.11.6/8.11.6) id g1JI4Di25687 for current@FreeBSD.ORG; Tue, 19 Feb 2002 13:04:13 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from munish) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 13:04:13 -0500 From: Munish Chopra To: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: more -current testers Message-ID: <20020219130413.A25630@rn-re116a13.uwaterloo.ca> Mail-Followup-To: current@FreeBSD.ORG References: <20020219125011.A15871@blackhelicopters.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020219125011.A15871@blackhelicopters.org>; from mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org on Tue, Feb 19, 2002 at 12:50:11PM -0500 Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, Feb 19, 2002 at 12:50:11PM -0500, Michael Lucas wrote: > > It seems that the best we can hope for is to educate some of the > braver users who are ready to take the next step and are willing to > donate some time to us. > Very good idea. I probably qualify as a good representation of the type of users you are targetting. > I'm considering doing a series of articles on testing FreeBSD-current, > including: setting up for kernel dumps, what to type at the debugger > prompt after a crash, filing a decent bug report, what to expect from > -current, and so on. I would also make it clear when to not bother > filing a bug report (i.e., "You crashed, but had no WITNESS? Sorry, > enable WITNESS & try again."). This would be (I suspect) three > articles, running about a month and a half. > That sounds good. I'm more of a no-BS-get-down-to-business kinda guy though. I like quick instructions and explanations of why. I should be able to figure out most of the stuff through whatever comes out of this thread though. And there's always the handbooks... > My question to the community is: is it too early to do this? If I > start now, the articles would probably appear April-May. I'm not going to pretend I'm an authority on this, but I think it'd be a good time to start now. All I am more or less comfortable with is typing 'trace' and looking at stuff I don't know anything about :) Give people some time to experiment with how the tools work and why they do what they do. After they've had to use them for a little while and the feedback isn't complete garbage to them anymore, the bug reports will be much better and more concise (I'd hope so at least). That would give then -CURRENT branch a boost at a time when I would guess it'll really need it. Basically, people who are new to -CURRENT like me need some time and advice to get comfortable with the tools. Then we'll be of much more help than stumbling around blindly. -- Munish Chopra The FreeBSD NVIDIA Driver Initiative http://nvidia.netexplorer.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message