Daily Live-CD/VM image in beta phase

Rational

Our current test approach is handing source packages to the distros, waiting for them to have packages and hope that users will install them. Distros often try building the next version for the first time with the first beta release and they need too long. When the packages hit the user the next beta is already in preparation. New reported bugs are very often already fixed and just create overhead.

Distros provide the packages in a way that it replaces the stable packages, so users who don't want to use beta quality packages cannot help during beta testing.

Providing a daily live-cd/vm image could help here: users can just use a virtual machine to perform testing or download the CD and give it a try. As it is a daily build we don't run into the issue that it is already outdated when the user tries it.

For daily images project neon of Kubuntu could be used or susestudio. Of course maybe sysadmins could setup something to build the image directly from Jenkins. --Mgraesslin 18:37, 6 April 2012 (BST)

I think, LiveCDs are the only way to keep this project up and running. Building KDE is always very cumbersome. Packages may fail with strange errors for which there is no solution yet because hardly anybody had experienced this before and custom packages break with the rest of the system. When I was using Gentoo, it was less of a problem (I merely had to struggle with the first issue) but since I'm using Sabayon I always have to struggle with the latter problem as well. Although Sabayon natively provides Portage for building from sources, the main package manager is Equo which only provides pre-built binaries. Building such a huge and central set of packages from sources and copying it over the existing installation can easily break the whole system and building packages is much more likely to fail due to bad or unsatisfied dependencies. --Manko10 09:40, 5 June 2012 (BST)

Beta Tester need special group in bugtracker

Rational

Developers need to know that a bug has been created by a dedicated beta tester. Why is that important? If the developers know that the reporter is capable of producing high quality reports it is not needed to do the usual developer-user interaction but it can be assumed that the bug is valid. --Mgraesslin 19:38, 5 April 2012 (BST)

Personalized Thank You Letter

Proposal

Every user who reported e.g. ten high quality bug reports during the beta testing which got fixed before the release receive a personalized Thank You Letter signed by a prominent KDE developer. --Mgraesslin 19:38, 5 April 2012 (BST)

Competition For Best Bug Reporters

Proposal

The users who report most bugs during the beta test which get fixed before the release can win a prize. Of course the bug reports have to be of high quality. --Mgraesslin 19:38, 5 April 2012 (BST) How about a badge created for testers? Mamarok

Use the forums to coordinate testing

Proposal

Make a new testing subforum where testers (and developers) can gather. There are sticky topics with information on needed packages, info on how to submit good bug reports, links to live images, ... everything somebody needs to know to become a beta tester. Testers that found issues can open a new topic where others can quickly confirm if its a bug.

There could be a weekly/monthly bug squash party for a specific component. SeeMageia Testing Forum

Or re-introduce theBug Weeks

Beta testing shouldn't only happen during the beta periods. It should be an ongoing process, so I think such a forum where developers can post their new versions to be tested (even if they have not yet been merged upstream) is an essential part of KDE quality assurance. --Manko10 09:44, 5 June 2012 (BST)

Rational

Forums are less imposing to new (beta) users. Where mailing lists and irc often are a bit scary in the beginning. Testing announcements on the forum are easier to find. (not everybody reads the planet or the dot) --mdemeyer 14:29, 21 April 2012 (BST)