More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

I believe that a lot of people here are not aware of the existence of this page:

http://maemo.org/packages/repository...extras-testing

Apps are getting getting backlog back to September.

Over the past few days, the number of apps entering extras-testing has been roughly 5-10 apps/version everyday. I think there's only about 10-20 people doing the commenting and voting so far => major backlog.

I don't see a lot of people voting or commenting on the apps so would appreciate if you have spare time to check out that page, write a few short comments to improve the apps which you will see in Extras.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

I would if they'd deliver my phone already :|

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

i didnt wanna try the extras testing and dev apps because they said i need to know what Im doing?

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

So what exactly does testing imply?

Just checking that it installs and seems to do what it is supposed to?

Or does the tester need to check, e.g., that it is properly optified?

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

it would help if the pages loaded within 10 secs and not 30-60 secs like now.
....

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

See http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

A clear check list for unexperienced testers would be a good idea?
As well as a guide for how the phone should be set up as that will affect battery life?
I for one wouldn't have a clue how to tell if something has been optified?

edit - just seen previous link..

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

http://wiki.maemo.org/Help_testing_software

those need to be somewhat merged or something, now two articles are very much duplicates of others...

e: and feel free to improve that article for example with info edgedemon reguested.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

I think it would be helpful to give some information on how the votes are made and who can wote...

EDIT: ok thanks ossipena

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

What about creattng a maemo-testers mailing list as an in-between of maemo-developers and maemo-users?
This might be handy to have a forum just about testing, where testers can ask if something is unclear and developers can explain, ask for more details, annnounce new apps and demand testers. Would streamline the process and improve communications, which currently happen inside the comments section of extras-testing.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

i wouldn't even be afraid of bricking my device while testing. it's just that i don't know how to easily check for the most basic things like is it optified, does it uninstall cleanly, are there memory issues or does it drain battery.... i read the wiki page, but it seems to be written for developers, not for end users.

so it boils down to: i don't feel competent enough to give my opinion.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Benny, the thanks is for the first part of your post and not the last part. :p

Checking for optification is where there is also confusion with me. The installed "Memory" app reports the 2 gig space but does it report the rootfs space as well? How do we tell the difference? What command line tools are useful with all this? etc., etc., yabba, dabba, doo.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

YoDude, the thanks is mainly for the first part of your post. :D

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Doesn't help that the website is being ran on a 286.
I mean come on, this is unacceptable for a multibillion euro company.

This is comical: http://wiki.maemo.org/ISP_Move
"Agreement with the new ISP has been signed. Now we are waiting for them to get the hardware to the server room." This has been the status for the last 2 months.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Relativistic, this is annoying, but only a minor nuisance; you will need to invest time to test the application... hours, maybe days to be sure it does what it claims to do, that it doesn't start acting up after being shut down and restarted, etc ... only then you interact with maemo.org to vote thumbs up or down and give a comment. - That this last part is taking a minute longer than it should needn't prevent anyone from voting if he already has tested the application.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

I totally agree - unfortunately fits into the overall behavior of Nokia regarding the N900/maemo...

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

The "Memory" app doesn't report the rootfs space at all. From the command-line you can run "df -h" to see the free space - the two rows you'll want to look at are "rootfs" (mounted on /) and "/dev/mmcblk0p2" (mounted on /home - /opt is a symlink to /home/opt).

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

It would be useful if this page allowed some sort of sorting or filtering or at least displaying all packages in testing so one could use ones browser's search to look for packages.

I've been trying to help use and test -testing packages but find the current maemo.org web response makes the process tedious (garage often seems to take forever to display).

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

It would be a lot easier, if I could create an account https://garage.maemo.org/account/register.php :)

Or gosh, I don't know, use one of my existing 2 Maemo.org accounts, and not create a 3rd (!) (Forum, bugtracker, extras)

Also, why do some of the applications I have already installed from extras also appear in extras-testing ? Very confusing.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Because they are updates for the old versions

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Mine reports:
rootfs use 76%
mmcblk0p2 use 6%

Is this normal?

How do I clear it up after installing then uninstalling apps from "testing"?

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

The site is just not usable at the moment!
(http://maemo.org/packages/)

Submitting my comment took several minutes if it worked at all.

Not very encouraging to comment and vote.

It's about time the new hardware comes online...

[EDIT]
And thanks to the connection I double and triple posted two of my comments... [/EDIT]

Cheers
Bjoern

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

The fact that it's impossible to find a link to http://maemo.org/packages/ doesn't help. At least I can't find it anywhere in maemo.org.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Finding Things and Getting Started
You don't need to get to /packages to do testing. If you go to the Extras-testing wiki page, it links directly to the queue of packages in extras-testing, and in chronological order, to boot (the ones at the top have been waiting the longest). The link directly there is also given in the first post. To reiterate an earlier post, you can add the testing repository like this.

Which to Test
When picking an app to test, note that those that already have 10 or more karma are "done". Don't waste your time on those. Ditto if the package is < -5 karma: such an app obviously needs to be fixed and re-released. Make sure you are testing the right version of the app: there may be an earlier version already in extras. In fact, there may even be a third version in extras-devel, but that won't show up unless you enable that repository. To check, see what version application manager is showing to be installed and make sure it matches the version in the extras-testing list..

In the case you have the extras version installed, the newest version should show up as an available upgrade if you have the extras-testing repository enabled. You should uninstall the extras version first (rather than upgrading directly) so you can properly check for optification.

Testing for Optification
"Optification" means moving anything of significant size out of the root partition and into the 2 GB /opt partition so that the very cramped 256 MB rootfs doesn't fill up (which can really ruin your day). You see disk usage by using the disk free command (df).
Yes, that's normal. What you want to do is run
before and after you install and see how much the usage of each changes. If more than, say, 300 kb (0.3 MB) are added to usage of rootfs, it's too much and the package needs to be optified (so vote it down with that comment). BTW, the above command just filters out the unnecessary lines; you can just type if you want. The '-h' gives you the numbers in "human-readable" numbers like MB instead of bytes/blocks/kb.

One of the other tests is that the package uninstalls cleanly. A (partial) way to check this is to uninstall it and see if the df returns to what it was before you installed.

Commenting
Please don't let the server speed stop you from testing. Just start it doing something and do something else for a while. Your browser has tabs? In my experience, comments always go through but don't always show up right away, so just assume they work.

Plug
Anyone who already has uqm installed could start out with an easy test subject: uqm-3do-data. It's not an actual program so there's a bit less to test. Check that i optified it right and that it installs and uninstalls cleanly and actually adds the 3DO audio to your uqm experience and that's most of it.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Ack., there is no way to the repositories.

Really not helpful.

Kind regards
Bjoern

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

My biggest complaint about some of the testing criteria is they are binary "Yes" or "No" and do not need everyone to check them. Its even worst for optification because that can and has been automated but not integrated into the process (due to adding more time to the promotion process). I feel like its a waste of my time testing for these things. Instead I focus on bugs, being able to get out of the app (Ctrl + Backspace working if nothing else), are there obvious trademark issues (like using Maemo in the name).

For battery I mainly focused on the obvious things like for games should they pause when they are running in the background? When a game is paused and in the background, should it be playing music, doing animations ,etc draining the battery?

I another issue that has been brought up before that I think is on a task list is that some apps need to be removed from Extras Testing. Two examples "Maemo Recorder" renamed to "Recorder" and "Maemo Periodic" renamed to "Copernicum" due to trademarks but both version of the app still appearing.

Though I do admit I need to go back and rate some applications..

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

I share the concerns of many other posters, and would love to get in on the testing of apps.

What would make me a lot happier is a clear guide on exactly how to get my device back to how it is now once i screw it up. My Rootfs partition already shows apparently 74% use which is worrying seeing as ive hardly installed anything?

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

why as the FM Radio Player gone into that list and is now not listed at all in the main list, is there a big problem?????

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

I think this will also be mitigated with what I mentioned yesterday:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=37447

I have been testing, but frankly without knowing the differences (in the case up upgraded packages) or even the basics from the developer of what may not be working, etc. it can be a little frustrating. -- Thor

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Can we get this into the Wiki rather than lost in a thread?

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

After enabling extra-testing, I noticed that the yellow box started blinking. Xournal and Load-applet had new versions available. I assume from extra-testing side?

While I wait garage registration complete, very very slow, quick notes:

Xournal seems to work, thumbs up.

Load-app seems to require reboot :-/ My first reboot since getting N900 (been running it two weeks straight).

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

It's a lot more time-consuming to edit the wiki, but i hacked most of that into the http://wiki.maemo.org/Help_testing_software page. I was going to just merge everything into extras-testing, but some of the material seemed a bit verbose and trivial for that page. If someone else can find a good way to consolidate everything into extras-testing and redirect the help-testing-software page to it, that would be great. Just remember that we need a concise but simple description of how to test. The extras-testing page is getting rather long, so the best bet might be to split it into one page describing the nature of the repo and how to add it, and put everything else into the qa checklist page it links to.

So much to do, so little time. Anyway, fresh pair of eyes now that i distilled that new info into the wiki would be good. We really do need a better/more complete testing guide.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

It would be helpful if the authors of those applications indicated if they were optified or not.

Edit: Some comments on those apps do tell you if it's optified or not. But it would be helpful if it was indicated in the overview itself.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Agree. Optified indicator would be very beneficial

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

What is "optified"? I assume its not "optimized" as everyone seems to use that term.

Clearly, if I don't even know that I should not be alpha/beta testing (see , I do know a couple of geek terms though)! :D

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Being optified means it installs most stuff into /opt rather than / (rootfs), because the latter has very limited space available due to being on a 256MB flash chip. /opt, on the other hand, is on a 2GB partition on the internal memory card. Apps over 500kB are supposed to install mostly to /opt.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

there's a nice wiki page about that topic.

the current solution in place (referred to as "optification") is the second on that page... moving everythign >500kB to /opt.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Is there any sort of list of what tests are considered to have been pased when an app makes it from extras-devel to -testing?

Like is there a battery of automated tests run by Nokia/Maemo that can confirm simple go/no go before Testers start to look at a new build? What having lots of Testers looking at builds should be focused on is finding more in depth issues that a dev might not have anticipated. Aditionally it helps find if something behaves differently than expected on your specific device and configuration. Things like, are all dependencies there or, does an install go to where ALL apps are expected to go should be simple automated entry requirements and Testers should not be expected to have to worry about wasting their valuable time on code that doesn't meet this bar.

If this system of testing 'quality gates' doesn't exist now thats fine, but it would be nice to know the Nokia/Maemo plan to provide and how we can help once the resources are available.

thanks

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

Go right ahead!

If you don't I will later.

Re: More testers needed to push apps out of extras-testing
 

If we don't actually have this at present then I think we ought to at least get a list of manual checks together and then document a standard way of achieving this. automated testing could then be built from this framework.

Does anyone have a starting point on this. Not sure I will retain my sanity editing it direct on the Wiki but I can do it offline and paste in enbulk I suppose.