Interactive Hooks: Apport to Improve Ubuntu Bug Tracking
Apport immediately kicks in when an application crashes. In the future the program should be user-interactive in detecting bugs faster and more efficiently.
Stumbling over a bug and having to write a report has concerned many users over time. A short symptom description in a Launchpad platform is no problem. But followup questions from developers requesting log and trace reports irked a lot of users and bugs thus often stayed unresolved.
All this could be made easier for Ubuntu developers and users. Enter Apport with its interactive solution. Previously the software simply notified the user when a program hit a bug and urged her to file a report. Apport would search its bug database and provide hints for pre-existing ones. Some time soon Apport will go to an interactive system to help pinpoint the error and prevent duplication.
The new functions should also provide hooks to collect data that the user perhaps can't collect on his own. Apport would do this through hints as simple as to request the user to plug in the device so that it can send the logged data automatically. Or it can ask the user to send an OpenOffice document where a particular problem arose. It can also help focus certain conditions: if your sound drops out, Apport checks the parameters involved and helps developers pinpoint where the error came from.
The GNOME and KDE GUIs for the applicaton are still in the works. Developers who want to build Apport Hooks into their programs can go to the Ubuntu wiki page. Further details also come from Martin Pitt's Blog and the project page from the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Barcelona where the new Apport ideas first emerged.
Issue 210/2018
Buy this issue as a PDF
News
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 Released
The latest release is focused on hybrid cloud.
-
Microsoft Releases a Linux-Based OS
The company is building a new IoT environment powered by Linux.
-
Solomon Hykes Leaves Docker
In a surprise move, Solomon Hykes, the creator of Docker has left the company.
-
Red Hat Celebrates 25th Anniversary with a New Code Portal
The company announces a GitHub page with links to source code for all its projects
-
Gnome 3.28 Released
The latest GNOME rolls out with better contact management and new features for handling virtual machines.
-
Install Firefox in a Snap on Linux
Mozilla has picked the Snap package system to deliver its application to Linux users.
-
OpenStack Queens Released
The new release comes with new features for mission critical workloads.
-
Kali Linux Comes to Windows
The Kali Linux developers even managed to run full blown XFCE desktop via WSL.
-
Ubuntu to Start Collecting Some Data with Ubuntu 18.04
It will be an ‘opt-out’ feature.
-
CNCF Illuminates Serverless Vision
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation announces a paper describing their model for a serverless ecosystem.