Difference between revisions of "Become a beta tester"

Latest revision as of 04:15, 26 January 2020

Introduction[edit]

If you like playing around with operating systems and have a bit of spare time, one of the most effective ways you can assist the GhostBSD community is by reporting problems you encounter while using GhostBSD.

If you have a spare system, or virtual machine, you can also download and try out the latest stable, beta or release candidate available. These versions are still in testing and have not been officially released yet. Having as many people as possible using GhostBSD on many different hardware configurations assists the project in finding and fixing bugs. This makes using GhostBSD better for everyone. Subscribing to the GhostBSD Development mailing list is a good way to keep up-to-date on the availability of testing snapshots and any major bugs that are found within a snapshot.

If becoming a tester interests you, subscribe to the development mailing list. As new testing versions become available they will be announced on this list. You will also be able to see what problems other testers are finding and can check to see if the problem exists on your hardware as well.

Anyone can become a beta tester. Follow these tips so that you can accurately describe your findings so they can be fixed as soon as possible:

• before sending an email, search the testing mailing list to see if anyone else has reported a similar problem.
• when reporting a new issue, use a descriptive subject in your email that includes the error and the version of GhostBSD. Ideally, the subject should be short (8 words or less), and contains key words about the error. An example would be "bxPKG on 3.0-BETA1 Error while fetching".
• ensure that the body of your email includes the GhostBSD version and architecture (e.g. 3.0-BETA1, Gnome 32-bit ISO version).
• give a short (2-3 sentences) description of how to recreate the error. If there is an error message, include its text.
• include any other info that may be useful (e.g. this seems to work on my 32 bit system or this used to work on 2.5).
• if the problem appears to be hardware related, include a copy of /var/run/dmesg.boot as this file shows the hardware that was probed the last time the GhostBSD system booted.

How To Do That[edit]

If you like playing around with operating systems and have a bit of spare time, one of the most effective ways you can assist the GhostBSD community is by reporting problems you encounter while using GhostBSD.

If you have a spare computer system or virtual machine, try our latest alpha, beta or release candidate snapshot. These versions are still in testing and have not been officially released yet. Having as many people as possible using GhostBSD on many different hardware configurations assists the project in finding and fixing bugs. This makes using GhostBSD better for everyone.

To become a tester, contact us at one of the following online locations:

• Telegram at https://t.me/ghostbsd
• The IRC channels are #ghostbsd and #ghostbsd-dev on irc://irc.freenode.net.
• You can access the IRC channel via our web user interface.
• The forums are available at http://forums.ghostbsd.org/

Download the latest development release[edit]

The latest installation media for testing can be found here.

Reporting issues[edit]

Everyone is eligible to become a beta tester. To aid us in fixing problems as quickly as possible, please accurately report findings using these tips:

• Before reporting a bug, search the forum to see if anyone else has reported a similar problem.

• When reporting a new issue, use a descriptive subject that includes the error and the version of GhostBSD. Ideally, the subject should be concise and contain key words about the error.

• Ensure that the body of the bug report includes the GhostBSD version.

• Give a good description of how to recreate the error. If there is an error message, include its text.

• Include any additional info that may be useful.

• If the problem appears to be hardware related, include a copy of the dmesg.boot file located in the /var/run directory.

Eric Turgeon, [08.04.20 13:46] on Telegram[edit]

We moved our project management to GitHub and we will be using GitHub for bug and feature reports.

• If you need to report a bug related to the ISO or installation report them at
  ISO-Issues.
• If you need to report a bug related to OS, kernel, drivers report them at
  Kernel issues
• If you need to report a bug related to software report them at
  Software issues

• If you need help or want to give feedback please visit
  GhostBSD-Forum
  or
  on Telegram

Eric Turgeon, [08.04.20 13:47]

• I think an new feature request should go at ghostbsd-build.