Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:38:55 +0100 From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk@phk.freebsd.dk> To: njc <njc@fightevil.net> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The case for FreeBSD Message-ID: <41056.1107844735@critter.freebsd.dk> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:05:35 PST." <4207F43F.3040300@fightevil.net>
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In message <4207F43F.3040300@fightevil.net>, njc writes:
>Scott Long wrote:
>> We need more people
>> who will write articles and papers and do benchmarks and regression
>> testing. That's not to say that we don't already have people filling
>> these roles, it's to say that we need more.
>
>Scott -
>
> Do you, or possibly other developers, have any suggestions on the best way to organize
>a community-driven testbed and quality assurance effort? Specifically - what would be the most
>convenient form and method for a BSD developer to receive feedback for patch testing, are there
>any recommended testing procedures (methods && tools), etc?
Here's what I'm looking for in a good bug report (in no particular order):
Stack backtrace if the kernel croaks.
Ktrace if the kernel does something wrong.
Elimination of unrelated factors.
If you see the error compiling ports/x11/xorg, try to find out how little of it
you can get away with doing to provoke the error ?
If you are using complex disk geometries, try if you can reproduce on a plain
single disk system ?
Does it happen on other computers as well ?
Does it happen only under SMP or also UP ?
Does it happen also in single user mode ?
Does enabling WITNESS/DIAGNOSTICS in the kernel catch something ?
Can you write a shell script which fails every time ?
Can you find another way to provoke it ?
A patch.
It is really very very simple, the easier you make it for me to reproduce the
error here, the faster I can find out what's wrong and fix it.
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
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