Re: [gentoo-releng] Checklists for testers and QA

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Rémi Cardona wrote:
> Do we know how many people actually use the software on the live media?
> Do they care if it's not 100% functional?

I don't know about new users, but I suspect many veteran users use 
Gentoo media only in the extremely unlikely event that they've blasted 
their system to the point where it's necessary, or when they've acquired 
a new box. The other major use case, of course, is giving media to 
friends who are unfamiliar with Gentoo.

There have been occasions where I would boot the Gentoo (and others') 
LiveDVD on my Windows workstation at my day job and use it as a Linux 
workstation, but VMware Server pretty much eliminated that use case. 
Corporate IT policy forbids me from running beta software, at least that 
of vendors, because of licensing issues, but that may not apply to open 
source betas.

> But, wouldn't it be interesting to find out the usage patterns for our
> users before making a big list of things to check?
>
> Maybe not enough users do care to make it block QA and releng's time
> when making new releases.

I can't speak for either QA or releng, but you may have a point. Veteran 
users most likely will have the tools and motivation to file accurate 
bugs without a checklist, and newbies probably will be looking for 
something simpler, like,

a. Does it come up to a desktop, find my network, can I browse the web, 
read email and edit a document in OpenOffice?

b. Why is the start button in the upper left corner?

c. Does the wireless work? Does the sound work? Where's the &$^#& virus 
scanner?

d. Well, I've had enough of Linux -- did it trash my Windows install, or 
can I eject the CD and give it to my 13-year-old gamer cousin and get 
back to work?

:)
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