Ubuntu Wiki

Preparations

What you need

• A laptop to be tested in a live environment or in an installed system. (A virtual machine cannot be used because we need to test real hardware.)

• A moderate level of Linux experience so you are able to find the relevant log files and produce useful bug reports: ReportingBugs

• Some available time just after a milestone release to perform tests and file reports.

Setting up

• If you do not already have one, set up a Launchpad account so you can report bugs. If you have signed up to edit the Ubuntu wiki you will already have a Launchpad account.

• Join the Ubuntu Laptop Testing Team on Launchpad.

  1. Go to laptop.qa.ubuntu.com.

  2. Click on "Log In" button, enter your Launchpad account and authenticate using Single-Sign-On service.

Note: If your laptops have already been tested for the Ubuntu Friendly project (using checkbox) and so you have an hardware profile on the Ubuntu Friendly website you can skip the next step

• Now you need to set up an hardware profile for your laptop.

  • The best way (even if it's the longer one) is to create an hardware profile of your laptop in the Ubuntu Friendly website. To do so you need to launch Checkbox on laptop and do some tests, at the end of the process it creates a report for submission to the hardware database.

  • The quick way instead is to create a subpage under your personal wiki page for each laptop you want to test (e.g. http://wiki.ubuntu.com/YourProfilePage/AcerTM6593G) filling it with all these required following info:

    1. Laptop make and model the output of sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer and sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name command. On Lenovo laptops you need also to run 'sudo dmidecode -s system-version' to get the first part of the model name.

    2. Laptop hardware info the output of lspci -v, lsusb (without any external device attached) and lshw -short commands.
       
       (If you'll get a warning that you should be a super user or the list could be incomplete. Don't worry about that)

• Select the ISO images you expect to test and look over the relevant test cases, making sure you have the test setup you need.
• You can sign up for individual test cases on any ISO selecting them and clicking on Subscribe. This helps everyone to see which tests are being covered and sends you a notification email when a new milestone is available to be tested.

Downloading images

Milestone ISO images are found at releases.ubuntu.com.

The images currently being tested are listed on laptop.qa.ubuntu.com with a direct download link and the appropriate rsync command for your convenience (click for the download page). If you already have the previous milestone you can use rsync to update it , as this will reduce the turn around time on testing. Rsync only downloads the parts of the image that have changed. See instructions on using rsync.

Testing

On the tracker you will be presented with a list of available milestones to test, the stable ones like Oneiric Ocelot and those of the current development release of Ubuntu.

Every milestone we will be starting a new testing cycle. Everybody is free to submit their results in the weeks that follow the official release of a milestone (although we encourage you to run them as soon as possible, so developers can have enough time to fix the bugs).

You have to choose the milestone and the architecture (32 or 64 bit) you want to test and each one has a set of test cases associated with it. Click on the tracker to see details of the test case.

To subscribe to a specific ISO and tests, select the architecture from the list. Then mark the checkboxes next to the tests you wish to subscribe to and then hit Subscribe. You will receive an email announcing there are tests available.

Reporting results

The test results are tracked on the laptop testing tracker website at laptop.qa.ubuntu.com. You need to log in to report your test results. The website is divided into several sections, and results are reported based on the following criteria:

• Ubuntu architecture (e.g., Ubuntu i386 or amd64)
• Category of hardware (e.g., Audio, Video, Input/Output etc.)
• Piece of hardware to test (e.g., Speakers, Keyboard, Hotkeys, etc.)

Starting a test

Laptop test cases normally last for at least half an hour. To avoid duplicating efforts, it is good to let others know that a test is in progress.

To mark a test as "In progress" select the result "In progress" and submit the result. It will show up in the list with a "clock" icon.

Adding test reports

When you have conducted a test you can report the results in the Laptop tracker providing the link to you laptop hardware profile (Ubuntu Friendly or wiki one), a general comment and bug numbers if applicable.

You can mark a test as Passed or Failed. In the Laptop test tracker we mark as failures those experiences that prevented us to do what we wanted to achieve in that test case. I.e. If we want that Audio works, and you can't hear from speakers, that's a failure. If you hear slight noise from speaker, the test didn't fail as such. We would mark that as success, but will link the non-critical bugs that we find.

Filing bugs

As with all testing it is important to file bugs. If you find a bug, please, search if it has already been reported, and if it hasn't, report it yourself. You should also refer to the bug filing/debugging guide for that specific piece of hardware to make sure you are aware of known issues and have attached the relevant log files.

To mark a test as Failed it is mandatory to link the test report with at least one bug in Launchpad.