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Make a real difference to Ubuntu with 5-A-Day

wiki.ubuntu.com — Today, the 5-A-Day initiative was announced in which the Ubuntu community are encouraging everyone to work on at least 5 bugs a day, and users, developers and upstreams can all help. There are also tools to share bugs that have been tended to in email signatures and else. This is an excellent way for everyone to make a real difference to Ubuntu!

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  • gfxmethod, on 02/22/2008, -30/+9Very cool:)
    by the way, the new version is Intrepid Ibex
    Intrepid
  • nlke182, on 02/22/2008, -8/+26Why should I be doing work on a product I just purchased. Oh wait, nevermind.
    • rotten777, on 02/22/2008, -1/+7Why would someone improve something they use 8 hours a day? Gee I don't know. I can't possibly see the benefit from them improving it. Other than the 10,400 hours a year they spend on their computer (8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks).
      • finanigan, on 02/22/2008, -0/+3You mean 2,080 hours? Your number comes out to 40 hours a day! But this is digg, so that's probably a good estimate. :'p
        • rotten777, on 02/22/2008, -0/+2Yeah I fat fingered it I guess

          I'm surprised someone checked the math though honesty
        • marx2k, on 02/23/2008, -0/+0And that IS the best policy
      • JQP123, on 02/22/2008, -0/+1"You mean 2,080 hours? "

        Even that number is grossly inflated. The average user does not spend every hour of every work day on the computer.

        "The average time spent on a computer at work was almost 16 hours a week last year..."
        http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/02/70 ...
        • MeneerR, on 02/23/2008, -0/+1Average users don't exists. Its just you, me and yo momma'.
        • dacheetah, on 02/25/2008, -0/+1I use my computer for exactly 7 hours of my 8 hour work day, 5 days a week.
          (The 1 hour I don't is for lunch, and sometimes I eat lunch in front of the computer and use the interwebs... Kind of like I am now actually.)
      • bagboyrebel, on 02/22/2008, -0/+1did you even read his comment?
  • wolfger, on 02/22/2008, -5/+47Wow. 75 diggs, and not one worthwhile comment. Including, apparently, this one.
  • paintpro, on 02/22/2008, -9/+22can't someone else do it
    • thadiusdean, on 02/22/2008, -2/+15The Garbage Man Can!
      • chinpo, on 02/22/2008, -2/+13
        Who can take your trash out?
        Stomp it down for you?
        Shake the plastic bag and do the twisty thingy too?
        THE GARBAGE MAN!!
        Oh the Garbage Man can
        The Garbage Man can and he does it with a smile and never judges you.
        Who can take this diaper?
        I don't mind at all
        Who can clean me up before the big policeman's ball?
        THE GARBAGE MAN
        yes the garbage man can
        The sanitation folks are jolly friendly blokes courteous
        and easy going they mop up when your over flowing and tell you when
        your arse is showing
        Who can.....
        Who can.....
        Who can.....
        Who can.....
        THE GARBAGE MAN CAN!!
        'Cause he's Homer Simpson Man
        HE CLEANS THE WORRRRLD FOOOORRR YOOOUUU
  • mikewhite314, on 02/22/2008, -5/+22what bugs?
  • phoenixp3k, on 02/22/2008, -1/+13Well automatic bug reporting seems like a good thing to do.
    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day#Log
  • Kingoftherings, on 02/22/2008, -2/+45I'd gladly do it if I knew how to fix bugs.
    • Gagle, on 02/22/2008, -8/+15Exactly ! Not every Linux user is a friggin software developer.
      • daftman, on 02/22/2008, -0/+51You don't have to be a developer to help
        Just run the software, and if it crash, email them about it. Take screenshot, crash description, etc.
        • L0g1X, on 02/22/2008, -11/+4That's a lot of work to do five times... especially everyday.
      • Giga, on 02/22/2008, -2/+6I'm a software engineer, and 5 bug fixes a day is quite a tall order.
    • svivian, on 02/22/2008, -0/+1RTFA: "If you want to just confirm new bugs, you can do that."

      5-a-day is still quite a stretch, but anything you do to help the community is a good thing I guess. I've submitted a few bugs in the past couple weeks so I've earnt my karma ;)
    • kazamx, on 02/22/2008, -1/+8I am fairly new to Linux and Ubuntu, but wanted to do my bit and give something back. I found a great way to help is on the official forums. One forums is for people who are VERY new to Linux. On this forum there are many really really noob questions. I don't know a lot, but I can help them change their desktop, screen res, install aps.

      I figure if I am doing that, then the people with more skills can help the people with bigger problems
      • Rha7dotCom, on 02/22/2008, -0/+4That's the spirit. In a very personal way, thanks.
    • sloppychris, on 02/23/2008, -0/+2It is people like you who helped myself and lots of others in our first weeks. Now we're converts, working on the next batch of converts. Thank you!
  • LordBoreal51, on 02/22/2008, -0/+13I think this is a great thing for the OS since most of the problems I've had were minor bugs that ended up interfering with my use of the OS in general.
    I'm looking forward to do my part to develop this up and coming Linux flavor.
    • millerftw, on 02/22/2008, -2/+4I love ubuntu except for the fact i can't use steam and i can't get audio from flash, It's these two things that hold me back from it alone.
      • Giga, on 02/22/2008, -0/+4...except that steam and flash generally work fine. The games you get through steam may be a different story on the other hand.
        • MeneerR, on 02/23/2008, -0/+1Source engines games run fine. But off course nowadays they offer a lot of games that come with rootkits. (securarom etc.) .. Somehow installing a rootkit doesn't work as nicely as it should when using wine.
  • chingy1788, on 02/22/2008, -17/+8pfffsshh Microsoft fixes 10 bugs a day
    and create 100 more! :D
    • zmjone2992, on 02/22/2008, -3/+10I'd like to personally thank you for making ***** up.
    • dacheetah, on 02/25/2008, -0/+1I'd say it's probably more like a few bug fixes a week, as well as a reasonably similar number of new bugs introduced/discovered. Windows may suck, but if there were 90 more bugs each day, XP would have over 150,000 bugs. Actaully that doesn't sound THAT far off. lol
  • daftman, on 02/22/2008, -0/+42There are many ways people can help without actually being a developer.

    1. email report any crashes, inconsistencies to the developers including screenshots, description of what happened. Launchpad is a good tool for this.
    2. Contribute to documentation. Alot of FOSS are not properly documented. Just open up any kde or gnome app and you will find that the help section is either empty or very poorly written.
    3. Inform other user about the correct pros and cons. There are alot of misinformation about the software functionalites and that hurts the adoption.
    4. Contribute artwork. I hear alot of people complain about how things look ugly in FOSS, but not many has the balls to send in their own concept art and ideas.
    5. Translate the software to your own language.

    Remember that this doesn't have to be Ubuntu exclusive. However since Linux distros share most of the app codebase, helping one would be helping the others.
    • Giga, on 02/22/2008, -3/+0"Inform other user about the correct pros and cons"

      I wouldn't suggest encouraging everyone to do that as you will inevitably end up spreading even more misinformation (even if it is unintentional).
  • pHr34kY, on 02/22/2008, -0/+11I've taken the initiative of running the Alpha build on one of my machines and submitting bugs on Launchpad as I come across them. I haven't actually fixed any myself, but letting them know they're there helps the dev team a lot :)
    • muzzle, on 02/22/2008, -0/+2I installed alpha 4 two days ago, apparently when there was an issue upgrading :P ptython-apt would not upgrade, due o a problem with another python source. Anyways, that was an easy bug to find. Otherwise, alpha 5 is a bit smooth for me to report bugs, and most bugs i find are already being worked on.
  • mikewill7seven, on 02/22/2008, -13/+3Who do I submit complaints to about the ***** of my synaptics touchpad driver for Ubuntu?
    • daftman, on 02/22/2008, -1/+19Complaints are pointless and waste of time. Unless you can actually construct a proper complaint with coherent reasons, explanation and recommendation, shouting "It is ***** *****!!!" is like farting in the wind, everyone can hear it but nobody likes it.
      You might do a better job complain to the hardware vendor or stop buying their products. It sends a louder and clearer message to them to support in developing better driver.
      • Stonekeeper, on 02/22/2008, -0/+4to be fair, synaptics touchpad is on the vast majority of laptops.
        • muzzle, on 02/22/2008, -1/+6Works fine on my acer, so "***** of my synaptics touchpad driver" means nothing to me
    • Giga, on 02/22/2008, -1/+2Try the command "man synaptics". That generally provides a contact email address for one of the developers.
      • mikewill7seven, on 02/23/2008, -0/+2Man Thanks alot I didn't even think about the man pages. I checked it out and found what I needed.
    • starsky51, on 02/22/2008, -0/+1http://www.synaptics.com/contact/index.cfm
    • rdoger6424, on 02/22/2008, -0/+3What's your problem and on what version is this not working?
  • socomoddjob, on 02/22/2008, -1/+9Id like to help but i dont know to fix bugs...i rarely run into them anyway in ubuntu.
  • schnikies79, on 02/22/2008, -14/+1I don't code.

  • neocognitism, on 02/22/2008, -21/+3Make KDE default in Ubuntu!
    • fredmv, on 02/22/2008, -3/+13Just use Kubuntu.
      • neocognitism, on 02/22/2008, -9/+4I know, I do, but I wish the default was KDE on ubuntu. Ubuntu is such a good distro, but they torture all the noobs with the hell of Gnome.
        • Giga, on 02/22/2008, -3/+6Shut up already. They shouldn't make KDE default just because of your personal preference. Gnome fits the requirements just fine.

          (This comment coming from a KDE user)
      • muzzle, on 02/22/2008, -1/+5I've used, KDE, gnome, xfce, enlightenment, and blackbox, but I personally find gnome to be the best for me. xfce works well on my eee tho.
  • lovekudu, on 02/22/2008, -0/+13I'd visit help.ubuntu.com, get a wiki account, and start making sure that tutorials are as simple as possible.

    Currently a lot of older tutorials use the command line for everything, when the same task could be accomplished using graphical tools that are available in Ubuntu and preferable to most new Linux users.

    (and before you ask, yes I'm already doing that - see lovekudu@launchpad.net)
  • l800LEMMINGS, on 02/22/2008, -21/+2:cough: make drivers ,and replace terminal with a descent GUI and get rid of the need for extravagant code :cough,cough:
    • Jak08, on 02/22/2008, -2/+5Your sick, I think you should see a doctor
    • mvent2, on 02/22/2008, -0/+5If they get rid of the terminal then what will we open with the GUI to use the command line if we want to?
    • Kalimotxo, on 02/22/2008, -0/+41. Make drivers. There are drivers, and a lot of them are quite good. Video drivers, could benefit from being opened up, which looks to be on the horizon in the future.
      2. Replace the terminal with a decent gui? I think you mean "add more gui's to alleviate using the terminal for most general users" (I hope).
      3. Get rid of the need for extravagant code? Now that makes no sense. That sounds like an armchair quarterback comment aimed at programmers.
    • DMC12jz, on 02/22/2008, -9/+1Dugg! Because its true!
    • andycr512, on 02/22/2008, -0/+3"replace terminal with a descent GUI"

      I don't know, I think I would prefer a mortal kombat GUI.
  • d0onut, on 02/22/2008, -6/+21Sorry, I'm not into pokemon.
  • brad016, on 02/22/2008, -15/+4They could work on getting rid of the "sudo rm -rf /" command
  • hwy9nightkid, on 02/22/2008, -7/+2how about getting it to install on my HP dv6119 without crashing. Thanks!
    • Giga, on 02/22/2008, -0/+10Sure. I'll just assume the crash was caused by a race condition on line 56 of message.cpp. I've made a code change that should fix the problem.

      /end sarcasm

      The whole point of the 5-A-Day is to get bugs fixed, not just state that ***** doesn't work. How the hell are we supposed to know why it doesn't work on your machine without explaining what crashes and when (and other useful information).
  • baobab68, on 02/22/2008, -8/+4In case anyone is tempted to try the above command, maybe don't as it will remove all files form your machine. *ALL*. Why is digg full of idiots?
  • DestroyFascism, on 02/22/2008, -7/+1oh lol it does too.....

    Just kidding....
    Ubuntu bugs at least for me begin with $ sudo install wine
    On Xubuntu I installed wine and exe files work strait up. In ubuntu its a freaking nightmare...(bugs? mofo need BBQ)
    • lovekudu, on 02/22/2008, -0/+2If you need Wine, Wine-Doors makes it easier. Maybe you could try it out and improve the documentation where you see it lacking?
  • nytel, on 02/22/2008, -1/+23I made the jump to Ubuntu as of last night and so far I have all my applications in Linux!

    I'm really stoked to learn something new!
    • sk8bomb1067, on 02/22/2008, -0/+17I made the switch about a month ago as well. Everything worked great, all I needed to get was a video card driver. Vista just feels so damn slow and boring in comparison now.
    • sloppychris, on 02/23/2008, -0/+1Congratulations! I made the jump about a year ago now and haven't looked back.
  • rock774, on 02/22/2008, -5/+3# 1 bug get rid of all these different software packages and have 1 compiler that will work on all versions !
    • baalzebub, on 02/22/2008, -5/+4you said a mouthful, the inconsistencies with some distros is worth mention, you want a distro that uses one compiler version you are going to have to get a real distro like Arch, Crux or Slackware, you wont find system integrity with ubuntu "too many cooks spoil the stew"
  • cmost, on 02/22/2008, -9/+2I don't know why anyone would bother...it's common knowledge that Ubuntu devs don't fix bugs anyway. Some have persisted since Ubuntu 5.04.
    • rdoger6424, on 02/22/2008, -0/+4Common knowledge... to microsoft?
  • BlackOwl, on 02/22/2008, -1/+2Maybe then they could take more time to solve the system bugs if they didn't have to write a zillion drivers for the distro which should be the job of hardware manufacturers.
    • piratehead, on 02/22/2008, -0/+1The day may come when hardware manufacturers produce good Linux drivers, but one of the strength Linux users have got today is that the drivers we've cobbled together are Free Software, which the manufacturers probably would not have provided. What would help the most is detailed hardware documentation, allowing us to write high-quality Free drivers!
  • Kalimotxo, on 02/22/2008, -0/+55 a day is pretty ambitious. 1 a day per developer would be a better and more realistic start. I personally, really like the bounty system. I think that can be improved. Let users donate to bounties, and watch the bugs dissappear. That way, the most annoying bugs would have larger bounties and it would create more incentive for developers to pay attention to them.
  • kentifer, on 02/22/2008, -2/+7Communism Works!
  • angers, on 02/22/2008, -0/+4For those of you that don't know much about software development, perhaps you can tell 5 people a day about Ubuntu. That way you'll also be making a difference.
  • wolfger, on 02/22/2008, -0/+3@Kingoftherings: You don't need to know how to fix bugs to participate. There's a mountain of work to be done, and much of it requires no more skill than knowing how to use a web browser:
    1) Pick a bug at random, do searches to find similar bugs, if any are duplicates, mark them as such. This is a *huge* help.
    2) Search through old "incomplete" bugs in which a developer or triager has asked a question, and no response has been given for over 30 days. Paste in the canned response indicating the bug is dead for lack of info and close as "invalid".
    3) As a result of (2), people may actually respond with the needed info, and you will need to re-open the bug (if they didn't do it themselves).
    No skill required, and a huge help to the bug squad.
  • NickPresta, on 02/22/2008, -0/+3I am sort of doing this. I don't have the time commitment to promise 5 bug-related fixes a day.
    I have been going through older bug reports and confirming bugs or issuing them fixed.
    • stix213, on 02/22/2008, -0/+0Yes, I think 5 bugs per day is a little much to ask from "everyone." How about 1-a-day?
  • atezun, on 02/22/2008, -1/+35-A-Day
    Eat 5-A-Day
    We all know that's the healthy way
    Fruits and vegetables, they're okay!
    The healthy way is 5-A-Day
  • mmgrinberg, on 02/22/2008, -0/+1Guys, to get bugs from ordinary users, you need to work on bug-filing infrastructure every day: clients and crash reporters (!), web forms, guides, etc. I've filed lots of bugs and crashes to Apple just because they have a 'report a bug' form inside Safari. When a user opens Launchpad or whatever, he/she should have a simple list of alternative actions that take, let's say, 1 / 5 / 15 / 40 minutes. For example, I should have a choice to find or not to find duplicates of my bug, and if I choose not to bother with finding them, the data I submit should still be useable in a way. The same thing with having an account in the tracker, reproducing, uploading logs, making clarifications etc. If you make a consumer desktop os, a simple bug tracker on the web is not sufficient – you need to be flexible and ask little.
  • ubersolid, on 02/22/2008, -3/+1I too love ubuntu, except for all the bugs ;-) ... and i find opensuse more stable.
    • Weejay, on 02/22/2008, -0/+2So let me get this straight, you love buggy software? Oh wait, you were just posting a comment to advertise your niche distribution by spreading FUD. Good job hurting the FOSS community.
  • TwenT4, on 02/22/2008, -0/+5Can someone make KDE4 unsuck?
    • Kingoftherings, on 02/24/2008, -0/+1Yeah, like how do I make my K Menu Button reappear?
  • ileftfark, on 02/22/2008, -0/+1I know very little about programming, other than creating simple bash scripts, BUT I still contribute, and you guys can too. The best way to contribute if you're not a codemonkey is to write tutorials on compiling, installing, editing - anything you were looking for a tutorial for before you just went ahead and figured it out on your own.

    For example, I recently bought an Acer laptop, and could not get the headphones and microphone working. Luckily, some helpful folks on the Ubuntu forums were nice enough to share their wisdom, and I eventually got the webcam and sound working perfectly! Ubuntu is about community, and doesn't take much to contribute, and you can easily make someone's day. If nothing else, help out some people on the Ubuntu Forums or IRC or anywhere where people may have questions. It's a great OS almost entirely due to the fact it has probably the biggest, and certainly the most helpful commnunity of any Linux distro out there.
  • stix213, on 02/22/2008, -0/+1Anyone know where to get access to all the various Ubuntu sources? Such as kernel modules like ipw3945? I can't seem to figure out where to find them, at least the Ubuntu Gutsy versions. (maybe I just need to try harder)
  • darkzeroman, on 02/23/2008, -0/+2I have a question, a real question. What do Ubuntu developers do?
    I've dabbled in Linux, but from what I can see is that the GUI(be it Gnome, Xfce, KDE) are made and coded by their own set of developers. And I do realize that maybe each Window Manager(right term?) has to have a few changes to fit into the distribution, but what else?
    Are Ubuntu(or any big distribution) developers like all around developers? Do they work on the kernel, maybe include some driver support, and work on a bug say in Gnome? And if there is a bug in Gnome is this "upstreamed(?)" to the main developers back into the original code? Or are "Ubuntu developers" a bigger collection of developers, say like in the Gnome, KDE developers?
    What I'm asking is like, do Ubuntu developers work on software? Do they work on making everything work together?(Sound Drivers, Video, Partitioning, etc) What do they do?
    I'm not trying to be like "THEY DONT DO *****,"(because I know they do lots of stuff), but what? Just a question thats been on my mind.
    • Kingoftherings, on 02/24/2008, -0/+1I'm not absolutely positive, but I think all they do is tie all the packages together and make sure it all works, and fix a few bugs. Like if a new version of GCC or something came out, they would test it and see if it worked well with everything else in Ubuntu, then put it in the repository. But that's made a little easier because they just get everything from the unstable Debian repo.
      • mmgrinberg, on 02/24/2008, -0/+1First off all, this is not true (see below). Secondly, yeah, they just tie all the packages together and make sure it all works. Yeah, this is pretty easy.
    • hindenburg, on 02/24/2008, -0/+2They do this stuff:
      https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/
    • danielholbach, on 02/28/2008, -0/+1Hardy development: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/
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