The Ubuntu bugs mailing list contains a wealth of information. I was curious about how often bugs are reported using apport whether it be from an application’s “Help -> Report a Problem” menu entry, using ‘ubuntu-bug’ or ‘apport-cli’. These are identifiable by the presence of the tag ‘apport-bug’. I’m curious because these are the preferred methods for filing bug reports since a wealth of information is gathered automatically. The answer is a depressingly small amount.
While the number has increased in the past couple of months it is only a slight increase. Which is surprising because everyone benefits when you use apport to report a bug about Ubuntu. The reporter doesn’t need to manually add their release of Ubuntu, package versions or log files. The triager doesn’t need to ask for that information and can more easily triage the bug report. The developer has a lot more information accessible to them to work on the report.
So when you report a bug about Ubuntu report the bug using apport!
Usually I report new bugs while testing Ubuntu on another system, and use the browser on my desktop system for reporting. This is easier than using the browser on the testing system. But maybe tools like apport-collect can help there.
It’s great that you pointed this out, but I’ve been using Ubuntu for a couple years and, pardon my ignorance, but I don’t know what it means when you say “report the bug using apport!”.
Could you be more specific about how to report a bug the right way?
Thanks!
and how do we get and use apport?
A link will be appreciated.
Ubuntu - Apport is installed by default on nearly every Ubuntu system so nothing needs to be done to get it.
Jeff - Support for Apport is built into a lot of applications so you can go to an application’s Help menu and choose “Report a Problem” - that’s it! In the event that the application you want to report a problem about doesn’t have apport support built in you can open a terminal emulator, like gnome-terminal, and execute the command ‘ubuntu-bug usplash’. This will report a bug about the usplash application, replace ‘usplash’ with whatever the name of the application you are having a problem with. You can learn more at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs.
My first instinct was to look under “System” for a way to report a bug. Maybe there should be an entry there?