Should I report these bugs?

[theYinYeti]

I usually don't have time to get involved with Mandriva betas and RCs. This time, things change, though.

 

I've just bought a new laptop (DELL Inspiron 1501), and given some important changes from 2007.1 to 2008 (modular IDE, no xfs service, new wifi stack, more freedesktop.org standards...), I thought it would be easier and cleaner to keep up to date daily for one month, than install 2007.1, and then upgrade to 2008 in one month from now. So I did install 2008 RC1 from CDs and updated all, based on cooker.

 

I have a few problems. Should I report them, or is it too late in the pre-release process?

 

Here they are:

- The laptop freezes at boot if ACPI is enabled, about problems with IRQ7 and IRQ8 if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, no ACPI means: no suspend-to-ram, no battery status, and most annoying no auto-switch-off after the "system halted" message. The boot screen suggests "pci=routeirq" and the web suggests "pci=nomsi" but neither works.

- Open Office's cursor disappears (not just graphically, keyboard doesn't act too) when it comes to a list-item line. One mouse click and all's fine, but it is unnerving when you are working at typing text.

- X config test fails because it checks for the presence of xfs before accepting to run. xfs is not there anymore so I had to edit a file (from memory: /usr/lib/.../X.../test.pm line 42 or near) and comment out the test for xfs presence.

- Auto-login does not work as expected simply because the .dmrc file is created with the wrong permissions: 664 instead of 644.

- Fresh install from DVD did not work, and never worked for me with any version (>=2007.0) on any PC: it freezes at a random step, from DVD recognition by the BIOS to Mandriva first install screen...

- The Gnome panels lack their background bitmap file, and thus appear plain gray.

 

Aside from that, I have some trouble with my bcm43xx wifi, but that's probably due to my inexperience with wifi, and Mystified's recent posts should help.

 

Yves.

Edited September 17, 2007 by theYinYeti

[spinynorman]

I have a few problems. Should I report them, or is it too late in the pre-release process?

You can if you're quick. :) Otherwise you can check if fixes are in RC2, which is due out on 18 September, and report them then, if necessary.

[iphitus]

You can if you're quick. :) Otherwise you can check if fixes are in RC2, which is due out on 18 September, and report them then, if necessary.

 

They should be reported regardless. Sometimes there's multiple things which cause a symptom, or if nobody has noticed them, he's reducing the time developers have to fix it. The earlier the better, he might make it in time for 2009 RC2 given the average mandriva bug fix rate.

 

James

[AussieJohn]

Hello YinYeti.

 

At this stage I wouldn't bother. RC2 is due any time soon. (days maybe).

 

I wasted huge amounts of my download meter trying to get beta2 working. RC1 was worse with same problems as beta2 plus a couple more.

Updates on RC1 finally put KDE Control Centre into the menu. It also finally fixed Ksensors. Sound was fixed for a while but again has disappeared. Xsane and Sane still cannot detect my Firewire connected Epson Perfection 2450 Scanner.

 

I still cannot install the NVIDIA video driver which usually only takes me about 7 or 8 clicks and is easy as pie to do.

 

The Kernel rearranging is to me a crash scene. It used to be fairly simple to understand but now it seems to be a totally confusing mess. I think it is the reason I cannot install the driver because somehow I still haven't got the correct kernel and source necessary to do it even though the version numbers match. It maybe that the new kernel titling is not yet recognized by the NVIDIA driver.

 

I am not doing anything more until RC2 comes out. I hope to have a quicker response for our great AdamW on RC2 issues.

 

I do like the newer look which is looking sleeker and more professional all the time.

 

 

Cheers. John.

[iphitus]

Seriously, developers don't want you holding back on bugs. They want information.

 

One bug may affect another, you not reporting, may cause further regression, or make yours more difficult to solve.

 

In some cases, it's common sense, if it's a widely reported issue, then you may be ok, but even then -- you might have a subtle variation that needs special handling -- or an entirely different bug with the same symptoms.

 

James

[theYinYeti]

Thank you for your input. I'll report the bugs then. I already asked my wife to check the "repeat-ability" of the Open-Office bug. I'll input them this evening, if possible.

 

Yves.

[arctic]

The earlier the better, he might make it in time for 2009 RC2 given the average mandriva bug fix rate.

[adamw]

The kernel bug is critical and should definitely be reported. Most of the others are out of date by now.

 

John, the NVIDIA driver works fine in current Cooker. Just set up the Cooker non-free repository (using Easy URPMI or rpmdrake or whatever you like), re-run XFdrake, and it can enable it for you. No need to install it manually.

[AussieJohn]

Thanks Adam. Although I was aware of that, I was so used to doing it the Nvidia way that I was really at ease with it and rarely ever had a problem with it.

 

I can't try it out anyway now since I downloaded a number of cooker updates and it carked the RC1 install.

When I rebooted it would not boot from my floppy which it was set up to do as always. I decided to go the pretend up grade path to re-set things but found that the bootloader still did not install on to the floppy.

When I rebooted into my Spring and looked at the RC1 on my 2nd Hard Drive via MCC I discovered the the root / partition had magically been turned into a swap partition. :D :D :D

I decided to wipe RC1 by resetting the entire Drive back to a Raid 1 Array again and breaking it again. So my 2nd drive is acting as a back up at the moment again.

I am not going to waste any more of my download resource on RC1 but save until RC2 is out and try again.

 

Cheers. John.

Edited September 18, 2007 by AussieJohn

[theYinYeti]

All bugs reported at last. Except the "Install from DVD" bit, because I don't know how to write it down into a bug, except as "It doesn't work"... which is not suitable: no hard facts.

 

Unfortunately, it is my wife's laptop and she's using it for work 24h/24 except when sleeping and eating these days, so I had no chance of checking things again or updating packages before entering the bugs. I relied on my memory and some observations on my 2007.1 install (Before going to sleep, I could get hold of the laptop a few moments for the ACPI bug).

 

In this context, I thank adamw very much for dispatching those bugs so fast and efficiently. I'll do my best to answer them. The laptop updated itself while we were sleeping, and hopefully, I'll answer the NEEDINFO, and DUPLICATE, and so on, this evening.

 

Yves.

Edited September 20, 2007 by theYinYeti