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== QualityAssurance ==
== QualityAssurance ==


In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA</ref>.
In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA</ref>. For more information on the work of the QA team and how you can get involved, see the Joining page<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Join</ref>.
 
We apologize for the lack of a QA section for the last few issues of FWN: the QA team was very busy with Fedora 16 validation testing. This issue catches up with the QA team news from the last several weeks.


Contributing Writer: [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]]
Contributing Writer: [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]]
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=== Test Days ===
=== Test Days ===


There was no Test Day last week, and No Test Day is currently scheduled for next week. If you would like to propose a main track Test Day for the Fedora 12 cycle, please contact the QA team via email or IRC, or file a ticket in QA Trac<ref>https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/</ref>.
In the past few weeks, we finished up the Fedora 16 Test Day schedule, with Graphics Test Week taking place at the start of September<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-06_Nouveau</ref> ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-07_Radeon</ref> ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-07_Radeon</ref>, virtualization test day taking place on 2011-09-15<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-15_Virtualization</ref>, another i18n desktop test day on 2011-09-22<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-22_I18n_Desktop</ref>, an ABRT test day on 2011-09-26<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-26_ABRT</ref>, a power management test day on 2011-09-29<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-29_PowerManagement</ref>, printing test day on 2011-10-06<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-10-06_Printing</ref>, Fedora packager plugin for Eclipse test day on 2011-10-13<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-10-13_Fedora_Packager_for_Eclipse</ref>, and Cloud SIG test day on 2011-10-20<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-10-20_Cloud_SIG_Test_Day</ref>. Most of these test days passed off successfully with the work of the developers behind them, despite the QA team being very busy, so many thanks to those who organized and carried out these events, and those who turned up to do the testing.
 
The Fedora 17 Test Day cycle has not yet started. We welcome proposals for test days for the Fedora 17 cycle, and we usually accept all the proposals that are made. You can propose a test day for almost anything, and organize it yourself following the handy guide we provide<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/SOP_Test_Day_management</ref>, or alternatively we can help out with the organization of the event. Information on how to propose a test day is available on the Wiki<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/Create</ref>.


<references/>
<references/>


=== Weekly meetings ===
=== Fedora 16 preparation ===


The QA group weekly meeting<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings</ref> was held on 2009-07-27. The full log is available<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20090727</ref>. [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] reported that he had contacted the infrastructure team's [[User:Mmcgrath|Mike McGrath]] regarding whether alt.fedoraproject.org has enough resources to make test composes and release candidate builds publicly available. Mike believes it does, so the test composes for Fedora 12 Alpha will be made publicly available as a test. They will be announced to fedora-test-list. A ticket<ref>https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-infrastructure/ticket/1554</ref> is being used to track this.
As mentioned above, Fedora 16 release validation took up almost all of the QA team's time during the last few months, with very challenging Beta and Final releases. There were a total of 12 candidate builds for Beta and Final combined, and the whole team put in tireless work running the set of validation tests against each build and then investigating and verifying the large number of blocker bugs identified. The team was able to contribute to the release eventually going ahead with only a one week slip to the Beta schedule and no slip of the Final schedule, a considerable achievement in the light of the many complex changes in the Fedora 16 feature list.


[[User:Johannbg|Jóhann Guðmundsson]] had not yet been able to contact [[User:Harald|Harald Hoyer]] regarding testing and contingency plans for the Fedora 12 Dracut feature<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Dracut</ref>. He will update again at the next meeting.
<references/>


The group discussed the state of Rawhide in regards to the Alpha test compose that was due the Wednesday following the meeting. [[User:poelstra|John Poelstra]] noted that a bug was currently preventing install images from being generated in Rawhide's daily updates. [[User:jkeating|Jesse Keating]] said a bug should be filed on this and added to the Alpha blocker bug list. [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] mentioned there were known to be two bugs entirely blocking Rawhide installation from working. [[User:Kparal|Kamil Paral]] mentioned two more bugs which were breaking installation in KVM-based virtual machines. As these are essentially QA's reference platform, the group asked Kamil to add them to the Alpha release blocker list.
=== Release criteria updates ===


[[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] noted that a Fedora 12 Alpha blocker bug review meeting was scheduled for Friday 2009-07-31. It was agreed that [[User:poelstra|John Poelstra]] would send out an announcement of the meeting, and [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] would send out a recap after it had finished.
Largely as a result of the Fedora 16 validation process, there were several adjustments and additions to the release criteria in recent weeks. After discussion of the proposed kickstart / unattended installation release criterion concluded, [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] reported that he had committed his proposed modifications<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102599.html</ref>. He also committed a change to reflect the increased priority of EFI installations from Fedora 17 onwards<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102600.html</ref>.


[[User:Wwoods|Will Woods]] reported on the progress of the AutoQA project. He has now automated seven test cases in the Rawhide Acceptance Test Plan<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Rawhide_Acceptance_Test_Plan</ref>, and is working on a script to send out test status emails. He is also working on a blog post and possibly some Wiki documentation regarding the project. [[User:Dpravec|David Pravec]] noted that the latest autotest packages had some problems. [[User:jkeating|Jesse Keating]] would work on fixing those.
Adam also passed on a suggestion from [[User:Pjones|Peter Jones]] to improve the clarity of the virtualization criteria<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102601.html</ref>. After an extensive discussion, an elegant wording suggestion from Albert Graham<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102636.html</ref> was eventually accepted and committed<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103680.html</ref>.


[[User:jkeating|Jesse Keating]] alerted the group that a Rawhide mass rebuild would be starting during the week, due to the arch change from i586 to i686, new compression format for RPM payloads (XZ), new glibc, and new gcc. He asked everyone to be on the lookout for rebuild-related bugs. [[User:Wwoods|Will Woods]] noted that, after the rpm package itself was rebuilt with an XZ format payload, upgrades from Rawhide installs before the XZ change to current Rawhide would no longer work normally. The best workaround for this issue is to install the updated rpm package from Fedora 11 updates-testing, then update Rawhide as normal. The issue does not affect upgrades from Fedora 11 via yum or anaconda, only upgrades from older to newer Rawhide. [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] volunteered to submit the issue to [[User:Wtogami|Warren Togami]] for inclusion in the Rawhide Watch blog<ref>http://rawhidewatch.wordpress.com/</ref>.
[[User:Tflink|Tim Flink]] raised the question to what extent support for Xen virtualization should be included in the release criteria<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/103127.html</ref>. After a similarly enthusiastic discussion, it was eventually agreed that Xen DomU support - effectively, the ability to install successfully as a Xen guest - should be a Final release criterion<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103678.html</ref>.


[[User:Kparal|Kamil Paral]] noted that, at the time of the meeting, the guide to creating live images for test days<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/Live_Image</ref> had a problem which would cause anyone following it to create a live CD based on Fedora 11, not Rawhide. [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] thanked him for the report, and promised to look into the problem. (Editor's note: since the time of the meeting, this problem has been fixed, and the guide as it stands works correctly).
Adam also proposed downgrading some rarely-used kickstart deployment methods from Beta to Final in the criteria, requiring only the most commonly-used to be working at Beta stage<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103557.html</ref>.


[[User:Johannbg|Jóhann Guðmundsson]] brought up an old request he had filed for the QA team to have a web page / blog for hosting announcements of QA-related projects, and articles on QA-related topics. The issue was tabled for further discussion as it was not clear exactly what the scope of this page should be, or whether existing Fedora Project pages already sufficiently covered the perceived need. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] and [[User:Wwoods|Will Woods]] suggested that a QA team blog aggregator (a Planet) may be another way to achieve this goal.
Finally, Adam proposed a criterion for i18n (translation) issues<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103588.html</ref>. After discussion, the proposal was agreed upon at a blocker review meeting later in the week<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103679.html</ref>.


The Bugzappers group weekly meeting<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings</ref> was held on 2009-07-28. The full log is available<ref>http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-07-28/fedora-meeting.2009-07-28-15.04.log.html</ref>. The group discussed the latest revision of the critical path component list-based expansion of the priority triage packages list<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Arxs/CPCL</ref>. Since last week, Niels Haase had reduced the size of the list by removing dependencies. The group decided this was a sensible approach given the triaging resources available, and approved merging it into the main priority triage package list<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Components_and_Triagers</ref>.
<references/>


[[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] gave an update on the status of the kernel triage project. [[User:Rjune|Richard June]] had volunteered to start triaging wireless-related kernel bugs, as a test of the viability of the plan. Adam asked him to contact the kernel maintainer with responsibility for wireless, [[User:linville|John Linville]], to notify him of the project and ask for any advice or requests he had, and then to start triaging bugs. Adam would also send a follow-up mail to the group of people interested in the kernel triage project with this current status.
=== Update policy changes ===


Brennan Ashton gave an update on the triage metrics project. His development version of the code was not functional at the time of a meeting due to problems with its database code. He had reverted the public instance of the triage system to the last stable working code, but it had only one day's data available at the time of the meeting. More data would be available shortly after. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] asked if, when the development code was ready for production, it would be able to use the existing data, or whether the data would have to be re-generated again. Brennan said that since the development version could use more information than the current stable version, re-generating the data would be faster. Brennan also plans in future to branch the code to use TurboGears 2.0<ref>http://turbogears.org/2.0/</ref>. Adam also asked if Brennan was happy to have co-maintainers on the project, to speed up the work and ensure more reliable availability of maintainers. Brennan said that this was fine, and Adam and Brennan agreed to work together to put out a call for volunteers to help work on the project.
In September, [[User:Karsten|Karsten Hopp]] raised the issue of a security update for Fedora 14 which had been languishing in the updates-testing repository for some time<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102493.html</ref>. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] explained that the amount of testers working on older releases was limited, and that the actual karma requirements for updates to be accepted were controlled by FESCo (the Fedora engineering steering committee), not the QA group<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102497.html</ref>. [[User:Cra|Chuck Anderson]] noted that he had the update in question installed, but was struggling for lack of information on how to test it properly<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102503.html</ref>. [[User:Sundaram|Rahul Sundaram]] suggested that Karsten file a ticket with FESCo to raise the issue<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102502.html</ref>, and Karsten did<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/664</ref>.


The group discussed again the 'Bugzilla Semantics' proposal [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] had made to the mailing list. The current feeling on the mailing list and in the meeting seemed to be most in favour of the second option presented in Adam's last email on the topic<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-July/msg00411.html</ref>. The group agreed to propose option #2 as the way forward on the mailing list, and proceed with it if no serious objections were raised.
That ticket was merged with another similar one reported by Doug Ledford<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/667</ref>, which became a topic of concern to FESCo. After several rounds of discussions, FESCo first decided to relax the requirements for critical path updates somewhat by allowing them to be sent through to the stable repository without the 'required' karma after a period of two weeks had elapsed<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/bodhi/ticket/642</ref>, and later proposed removing the requirement for critical path updates to receive positive karma from a proven tester<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/667#comment:26</ref>, effectively a proposal to end the proven tester system, as this is the only function it serves.


The next QA weekly meeting will be held on 2009-08-03 at 1600 UTC in #fedora-meeting, and the next Bugzappers weekly meeting on 2009-08-04 at 1500 UTC in #fedora-meeting.
The QA group discussed this proposal at the weekly meeting of 2011-11-07<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20111107</ref>, agreeing that, while they had some reservations about the proposal, they were not definitely opposed to it, and recognized that critical path updates not receiving the currently-required karma is a significant problem.


<references/>
<references/>


=== Benchmarking discussion ===
=== Update candidate notification ===


[[User:Covex|Adam Pribyl]] brought up<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-July/msg00632.html</ref> Phoronix's benchmarking of Fedora Rawhide in comparison with OpenSUSE, Ubuntu and Mandriva<ref>http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=14045</ref>, suggesting that Fedora's supposed poor performance in these benchmarks should be an issue for concern, in terms of the image of the distribution if nothing else. [[User:Johannbg|Jóhann Guðmundsson]] felt<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-July/msg00542.html</ref> that benchmarking of a development distribution was fundamentally meaningless. He said ongoing performance monitoring of Rawhide may be useful to development, but would have to properly managed. [[User:frankly3d|Frank Murphy]] agreed with Adam<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-July/msg00544.html</ref> that, irrespective of the quality of Phoronix's benchmarks, the fact that the site was widely read meant apparent 'poor performance' in Fedora was a problem. As a source of the apparent poor performance, several people pointed out that Rawhide has debugging code enabled that stable releases don't have, and [[DaveJones|Dave Jones]] went into more detail<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-July/msg00649.html</ref> about some debugging code Fedora enables and which other distributions do not.
Samuel Greenfeld asked if there was any system to notify testers of new candidate updates for specific packages, and to determine what packages are being actively used on a system<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102981.html</ref>. There were no takers for the second question, but for the first, [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] suggested using yum parameters that would allow one to specify only certain packages be pulled from the updates-testing repository<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102982.html</ref>, and [[User:till|Till Maas]] pointed out that Bodhi can actually provide per-package RSS notifications<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102992.html</ref>.


<references/>
<references/>


=== Test Day live image creation ===
=== Proven tester meetings ===
 
As a response to the concerns about candidate updates not receiving enough karma, [[User:Kevin|Kevin Fenzi]] ran a series of weekly proven tester meetups<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102869.html</ref> from 2011-09-21 to 2011-10-26. Recaps of these meetings are available in the mailing list archives<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/103000.html</ref> <ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103341.html</ref> <ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103585.html</ref> <ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103840.html</ref> <ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/104043.html</ref>.


[[User:Kparal|Kamil Paral]] announced<ref>https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-July/msg00549.html</ref> that he had fixed the Test Day live image creation guide<ref>https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/Live_Image</ref> so that images are generated from Rawhide as intended, rather than Fedora 11 as was previously the case.
Kevin also proposed an updates-testing-info mailing list, containing only the mails about new packages in updates-testing<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/103163.html</ref>. However, the consensus was against the idea, as it was felt that it was easy enough to simply filter the desired mails from the test mailing list for those who did not want to read the other traffic.


<references/>
<references/>


=== Fedora 12 Alpha test compose delay ===
=== QA group representation at FUDCon Pune ===


[[User:Liam|Liam Li]] announced<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-July/msg00656.html</ref> that the test compose for Fedora 12 Alpha had been delayed from 2009-07-29 to 2009-08-06, due to multiple bugs entirely blocking Rawhide installation from working.
[[User:Ankursinha|Ankur Sinha]] asked whether anyone from the QA team would be present at the upcoming FUDCon in Pune, India and able to do a presentation on the group's activities<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103712.html</ref>. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] replied that unfortunately none of the Red Hat team would be at the conference, but encouraged Ankur to take a shot at giving a presentation himself<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103728.html</ref>. A S Alam then stepped up to volunteer to lead a QA session<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103739.html</ref>. His session was scheduled for 2011-11-04<ref>http://fudcon.in/sessions/fedora-testing</ref>, but we have no report on the event - if you were present, please write to the mailing list and let us know how it went!


<references/>
<references/>

Latest revision as of 05:10, 17 November 2011

QualityAssurance

In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team[1]. For more information on the work of the QA team and how you can get involved, see the Joining page[2].

We apologize for the lack of a QA section for the last few issues of FWN: the QA team was very busy with Fedora 16 validation testing. This issue catches up with the QA team news from the last several weeks.

Contributing Writer: Adam Williamson

  1. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA
  2. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Join

Test Days

In the past few weeks, we finished up the Fedora 16 Test Day schedule, with Graphics Test Week taking place at the start of September[1] ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-07_Radeon</ref> ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-07_Radeon</ref>, virtualization test day taking place on 2011-09-15[2], another i18n desktop test day on 2011-09-22[3], an ABRT test day on 2011-09-26[4], a power management test day on 2011-09-29[5], printing test day on 2011-10-06[6], Fedora packager plugin for Eclipse test day on 2011-10-13[7], and Cloud SIG test day on 2011-10-20[8]. Most of these test days passed off successfully with the work of the developers behind them, despite the QA team being very busy, so many thanks to those who organized and carried out these events, and those who turned up to do the testing.

The Fedora 17 Test Day cycle has not yet started. We welcome proposals for test days for the Fedora 17 cycle, and we usually accept all the proposals that are made. You can propose a test day for almost anything, and organize it yourself following the handy guide we provide[9], or alternatively we can help out with the organization of the event. Information on how to propose a test day is available on the Wiki[10].

  1. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-06_Nouveau
  2. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-15_Virtualization
  3. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-22_I18n_Desktop
  4. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-26_ABRT
  5. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-29_PowerManagement
  6. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-10-06_Printing
  7. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-10-13_Fedora_Packager_for_Eclipse
  8. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-10-20_Cloud_SIG_Test_Day
  9. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/SOP_Test_Day_management
  10. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/Create

Fedora 16 preparation

As mentioned above, Fedora 16 release validation took up almost all of the QA team's time during the last few months, with very challenging Beta and Final releases. There were a total of 12 candidate builds for Beta and Final combined, and the whole team put in tireless work running the set of validation tests against each build and then investigating and verifying the large number of blocker bugs identified. The team was able to contribute to the release eventually going ahead with only a one week slip to the Beta schedule and no slip of the Final schedule, a considerable achievement in the light of the many complex changes in the Fedora 16 feature list.


Release criteria updates

Largely as a result of the Fedora 16 validation process, there were several adjustments and additions to the release criteria in recent weeks. After discussion of the proposed kickstart / unattended installation release criterion concluded, Adam Williamson reported that he had committed his proposed modifications[1]. He also committed a change to reflect the increased priority of EFI installations from Fedora 17 onwards[2].

Adam also passed on a suggestion from Peter Jones to improve the clarity of the virtualization criteria[3]. After an extensive discussion, an elegant wording suggestion from Albert Graham[4] was eventually accepted and committed[5].

Tim Flink raised the question to what extent support for Xen virtualization should be included in the release criteria[6]. After a similarly enthusiastic discussion, it was eventually agreed that Xen DomU support - effectively, the ability to install successfully as a Xen guest - should be a Final release criterion[7].

Adam also proposed downgrading some rarely-used kickstart deployment methods from Beta to Final in the criteria, requiring only the most commonly-used to be working at Beta stage[8].

Finally, Adam proposed a criterion for i18n (translation) issues[9]. After discussion, the proposal was agreed upon at a blocker review meeting later in the week[10].

  1. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102599.html
  2. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102600.html
  3. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102601.html
  4. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102636.html
  5. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103680.html
  6. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/103127.html
  7. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103678.html
  8. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103557.html
  9. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103588.html
  10. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103679.html

Update policy changes

In September, Karsten Hopp raised the issue of a security update for Fedora 14 which had been languishing in the updates-testing repository for some time[1]. Adam Williamson explained that the amount of testers working on older releases was limited, and that the actual karma requirements for updates to be accepted were controlled by FESCo (the Fedora engineering steering committee), not the QA group[2]. Chuck Anderson noted that he had the update in question installed, but was struggling for lack of information on how to test it properly[3]. Rahul Sundaram suggested that Karsten file a ticket with FESCo to raise the issue[4], and Karsten did[5].

That ticket was merged with another similar one reported by Doug Ledford[6], which became a topic of concern to FESCo. After several rounds of discussions, FESCo first decided to relax the requirements for critical path updates somewhat by allowing them to be sent through to the stable repository without the 'required' karma after a period of two weeks had elapsed[7], and later proposed removing the requirement for critical path updates to receive positive karma from a proven tester[8], effectively a proposal to end the proven tester system, as this is the only function it serves.

The QA group discussed this proposal at the weekly meeting of 2011-11-07[9], agreeing that, while they had some reservations about the proposal, they were not definitely opposed to it, and recognized that critical path updates not receiving the currently-required karma is a significant problem.

  1. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102493.html
  2. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102497.html
  3. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102503.html
  4. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102502.html
  5. ↑ http://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/664
  6. ↑ http://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/667
  7. ↑ http://fedorahosted.org/bodhi/ticket/642
  8. ↑ http://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/667#comment:26
  9. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20111107

Update candidate notification

Samuel Greenfeld asked if there was any system to notify testers of new candidate updates for specific packages, and to determine what packages are being actively used on a system[1]. There were no takers for the second question, but for the first, Adam Williamson suggested using yum parameters that would allow one to specify only certain packages be pulled from the updates-testing repository[2], and Till Maas pointed out that Bodhi can actually provide per-package RSS notifications[3].

  1. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102981.html
  2. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102982.html
  3. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102992.html

Proven tester meetings

As a response to the concerns about candidate updates not receiving enough karma, Kevin Fenzi ran a series of weekly proven tester meetups[1] from 2011-09-21 to 2011-10-26. Recaps of these meetings are available in the mailing list archives[2] [3] [4] [5] [6].

Kevin also proposed an updates-testing-info mailing list, containing only the mails about new packages in updates-testing[7]. However, the consensus was against the idea, as it was felt that it was easy enough to simply filter the desired mails from the test mailing list for those who did not want to read the other traffic.

  1. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102869.html
  2. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/103000.html
  3. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103341.html
  4. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103585.html
  5. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103840.html
  6. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/104043.html
  7. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/103163.html

QA group representation at FUDCon Pune

Ankur Sinha asked whether anyone from the QA team would be present at the upcoming FUDCon in Pune, India and able to do a presentation on the group's activities[1]. Adam Williamson replied that unfortunately none of the Red Hat team would be at the conference, but encouraged Ankur to take a shot at giving a presentation himself[2]. A S Alam then stepped up to volunteer to lead a QA session[3]. His session was scheduled for 2011-11-04[4], but we have no report on the event - if you were present, please write to the mailing list and let us know how it went!

  1. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103712.html
  2. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103728.html
  3. ↑ http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103739.html
  4. ↑ http://fudcon.in/sessions/fedora-testing
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