Mandrake 10.2

[Rainer]

Bit of a vague query really - how flakey does everyone think 10.2 beta 1 'll be in early January - worth installing for play etc on another partition, or possibly better waiting for RC1.

[devries]

If you want to play and be bleeding edge why not install cooker. If you want to help Mandrake, find bugs and report them, install 10.2B

[Rainer]

For interest - does anyone here test the beta's and send bug reports in and such - any starting point tips etc - thanks

Edited December 14, 2004 by Rainer

[Guest Adriano]

There are 2 places where you can post bugs for mandrake:

http://bugs.mandrakelinux.com/index.php (Anthill) is for stable mandrake releases,

http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/index.cgi (Bugzilla) is for cooker bugs.

 

Normally what you do is try to isolate the bug you want to report (that is, make sure it only depends on a minimum set of conditions) if it is possible, then check that no one else has posted it already. If you find your bug was already posted, you can (should) post any new relevant information. And do pester the developers a bit, in a nice way. Especially if you report a stable-release bug.

 

Examples: you find a bug on FooApp 2.

 

First, make sure it's not caused by anything else (such as the desktop environment you use: say the bug appears when opening/using FooApp in Gnome but not in KDE).

 

Then check if the latest version (or a previous stable one if you run the latest) has the bug.

 

Then try to discover what exactly causes the bug: is it a wide range of things, or just a specific action?

 

Last, write a bug report to Anthill or Bugzilla.

 

Concrete example: I noticed Totem will not accept me dragging files to the playlist (I have to use the playlist interface to add files, or drag them directly to the main window and lose the current playlist) even though the mouse pointer shows a + sign telling me it should. I can download the latest stable (and perhaps an older version, since I seem to remember this wasn't happening before) and test if it's still happening, and file a bug within totem's bugzilla and mandrake's Anthill.

 

So let's get to work, shall we?

[Guest Adriano]

Ok, I posted my bug just to discover it was already solved in Cooker (a newer version of totem fixed it). I did post another totem annoyance directly on gnome's bugzilla.

[Rainer]

Thanks Adrian, good information - I'll into those - on a similar point - do you have to have some king of Bugzilla account etc to submit ideas to this page here: (ideas for 10.2)

 

http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/...andrakelinux102

 

Thanks.

Edited December 14, 2004 by Rainer

[Guest Adriano]

Yes, you do need a login and password. They are your bugzilla account name and password (so yes, you have to register on bugzilla first).

[Rainer]

Thanks for that Adrian.

[adamw]

adriano - your information would've been perfect a couple of weeks ago, but it's now out of date :). Anthill is scrapped - Bugzilla is now the correct place for bug reports on Cooker *and* stable releases. There's an extra step in the Bugzilla reporting process, now, where you can pick the Mandrake version you're running.

 

One thing that annoys me with Totem but isn't really a bug is that if you select multiple media files then do an 'open' it just opens the one you selected last. It would be so nice if it opened them all, as a playlist. Running an empty Totem, opening the playlist window, selecting all the files, dragging them into the playlist window and closing it again is...uh...much more of a pain. Oh well, I guess I'll go bug the author. :)

 

The first 10.2 snapshot and the early betas may be flaky in some areas. Biggest is likely to be menu methods, as Cooker is currently in the process of switching to the new XDG freedesktop.org menu standard (which will finally make menus from multiple desktops play nice together without ugly hacks like the menu method we currently use, and will also allow us to kill menudrake. There will be much rejoicing.) Hard to say what else might be 'interesting', particularly since we haven't really had a kernel update since 10.1 yet (Cooker is on 2.6.8.1-20mdk, which is really just 12mdk with some miscellaneous x86-64 fixes merged in from the x86-64 release).

[Guest Adriano]

I agree with you there. My desktop opens a ton of gstreamer windows if I select many music files and right-click-open. I'd like an "Enqueue in Totem" option.

You can just drag the new files to the totem window. That creates a new playlist and starts with the first file. You do lose the old playlist, though. Actually, here's another bug: the mouse pointer tells you you're adding files (there's a + icon), and that makes you think the new files will be appended to the current playlist.

 

Thanks for the Anthill info. I did think something was wrong when I couldn't find 10.1 there yesterday, but I didn't know.

[Rainer]

Thanks guys - I've created a Bugzilla account - probably will look towards the 10.2 ideas page here first:

 

http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/...andrakelinux102

 

Btw - do the devs tend to add a little feedabck over the months in the Status column or have we sort of missed the boat for 10.2 ideas.

 

Also - does anyone know whether there's a Cooker snapshot out before Beta 1.

 

Thanks.

[adamw]

adrian - thanks for the tip on just dragging to the Totem window! Didn't try that before, can't think why. Makes it marginally more bearable.

 

rainer - some of the devs are, erm, more community-minded than others :). Even if the status column never gets updated you may find the idea gets adopted anyway. It's not too late to add new ideas, either, Cooker's nowhere near any kind of 10.2 freeze yet. There'll probably be a snapshot, but it's overdue - according to the schedule, http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/...andrakelinux102 , it was due two days ago. Ah well. Might bug someone about it.

[Rainer]

Thanks Adam.