Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:04:08 -0800 From: Mehmet Erol Sanliturk <m.e.sanliturk@gmail.com> To: freebsd-current <freebsd-current@freebsd.org> Subject: FreeBSD Testing Facility Message-ID: <CAOgwaMsbupU0NB7TA6RMJW0erWBGwcsGO16xt3GPLsPuh-rpRA@mail.gmail.com>
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Dear All , During development of FreeBSD , testing is very vital . To my knowledge ( which may not be correct ) , at present , Tinderbox is used to only compilation correctness , means "Syntax" is tested . I have downloaded ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/amd64/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/10.0/FreeBSD-10.0-CURRENT-amd64-20130216-r246877-release.iso and tried to install it on an Intel DG965WH main board . During the first booting , it generated a panic message and entered into debug mode . For me it has crashed , because I do not know what to do in debug mode . On this main board , it is possible to completely install and successfully run Windows 7 , Fedora 15 , 17 , 18 , Mageia OpenSuSE and some others , all of them being 64 bits . The above failure shows that "Semantics" of FreeBSD is NOT tested well . My suggestion is as follows : Establish a mailing list only devoted to FreeBSD testing activities . To the subscribers , present a form to get information which parts of the FreeBSD he/she can test by selecting from supplied parts list . Establish a testing ftp site and introduce into it testing scripts and their parts , or iso files , etc. , directed toward testing a whole or a part . In that site , classify tests in directories such as FATAL ( requires a new , complete install , or can not be applied in a production system ) DANGEROUS ( can not be applied in a production system ) HARMLESS With respect to forms filled by the testing list subscribers , send a mail to inform that a testing step is available with related links . The subscriber , may download the testing parts and apply them . If it is planned and implemented to return a mail showing test results on behalf of user approval , it may be very good . In that way , automated analysis of returned mails will be possible . If this is not easy , the user may send a message about result . Due to irregular message structure , automatic processing of such messages will be difficult . With the above structure , it will be possible to test the FreeBSD as much as possible . The subscribers may maintain a USB hard disk or stick or memory card to be used only for testing purposes . Some subscribers may have free computers to apply tests . Some subscribers may disconnect power of a production hard disk and apply tests on a spare disk , etc. , if they can find time . Any testing step in any way conceived by the subscribers will be useful . There are such community testing programs , for example , using BOINC . There is a port about this already . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOINC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOINC_client%E2%80%93server_technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects https://boinc.berkeley.edu/ http://www.freshports.org/net/boinc-client/ http://www.freshports.org/net/boinc_curses/ http://www.freshports.org/astro/boinc-astropulse/ http://www.freshports.org/astro/boinc-setiathome-enhanced/ http://www.freshports.org/biology/boinc-simap/ Thank you very much . Mehmet Erol Sanliturk
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