Testing Infrastructure

Getting ready to test

To successfully test for Xubuntu, you will need at a minimum 4 things: a Launchpad account, mailing list subscription, an image and something to test it on. This page will give you the basic information in order to do those things and more.

Contacts

You need a Launchpad account, in order to join the necessary team(s) on it, and log into the 2 QA trackers.

We use one mailing list to detail what we intend to test during a cycle, we use the same list when we are calling for tests. This list is also used by the team to discuss the development of Xubuntu. You will need to join the Xubuntu Devel Mailing list.

While it is not necessary to do so, we make much use of IRC, so having an account you can use to access the main #xubuntu-devel channel will help you, alternatively you can access the channel via the IRC tab of the Xubuntu development tracker.

Join the Xubuntu Testers Launchpad team.

Consider adding your details to the Hardware page. We can use this data to request specific testing from specific testers.

Getting the ISO

ISOs can be obtained through a few methods. The simplest method is to visit the ISO tracker. Follow the testcases through release codename to Xubuntu's group of tests. Then choose either 64 or 32 bit. Download links are available there.

When testing more regularly, you might find (especially where bandwidth is an issue for you) using the zsync link more appropriate. This is will just grab the difference between your local copy and the current one.

Methods of testing

Now you've set up your basic contact(s) and have your ISO, you are in a position to test it.

There are two main methods of testing the ISO:

Using a virtual machine enables you to carry on using a normal release when testing our ISOs. You can install a virtual machine by directly using your downloaded ISO.
Install the ISO to hardware where that possibility is available. This is more important towards the end of the development cycle. You will necessarily need to have the ISO in some bootable medium. A member of Xubuntu's Website team details a simple method for preparing a bootable USB stick with GNOME Disks.


	While it is possible to use VirtualBox, past experience has shown that issues found when testing in VirtualBox are hard to replicate elsewhere. You might want to look into using KVM. Members of Xubuntu QA have some experience with using this for testing and can help.

Reporting your result

There are two QA trackers we use.

The ISO tracker mentioned above for any testing done with an ISO either an install or an upgrade test.
The Package tracker, which is used when we are testing applications during a cycle.

These trackers form the backbone of what we are able to gain from your testing. It is important that you report your results.

The next two sections of these documents go into more detail on how you can test for us and how to report bugs for us.