Fedora 12 Graphics Issues: Cancel F13 and concentrate on fixing F12 ?

[Terry Barnaby]

On 11/27/2009 08:12 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-11-27 at 20:04 +0000, Terry Barnaby wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I did take part in the Radeon test day. Unfortunately the tests did not
>> really cover 3D and it was difficult to test this using the Live system.
>> I did feed back this.
>
> Right...that is mainly a product of what Dave mentioned, that general 3D
> functionality is unfortunately right at the bottom of the priority list,
> at least until we have drivers that work really solidly for basic
> desktop functionality. But I'd be happy to have more extensive 3D tests
> in the list for future test days, please do feel free to submit some.
>
>> But they are a good idea and I would have thought
>> could be extended to having a test day after a release has been going
>> for a month or so so more users could take part.
>
> It's not a bad idea, for sure. I'm not sure _I'd_ do it, though, it's
> enough work organizing the test days for the upcoming release without
> doing ones for the last release too. :) However, we do have a process
> for allowing anyone to organize a Test Day. You can propose one just by
> mailing test-list or filing a ticket in QA trac, and we have an SOP for
> the whole process of actually hosting one:
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/SOP_Test_Day_management
>
> so it'd be perfectly feasible for a community member to organize
> post-release graphics test events for the stable release. I'd be happy
> to work those into the upcoming test day schedule if you'd be interested
> in doing it.
>
>> Actually it was not me with NVIDIA. I don't have any systems using this
>> chipset.
>
> sorry, yes, mistaken identity :)
>
>> Yes I take your points, but it is hard for users, quite often, to test the
>> system and know how to track down where a bug is occurring and report it.
>> Generally users and volunteers do not have the experience of how the
>> Fedora developer community and its systems work, how the graphics system
>> works and how to test and report issues. So some involvement of developers
>> to getting a relatively simple testing regime going may help get this
>> underway.
>
> We do have a page on reporting X.org bugs:
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_debug_Xorg_problems
>
> which should cover the major points, and which we try to direct people
> to wherever we can. Do you think there's anything missing from that?
>
>> Anyway, I have been convinced, from what Dave has said, that things are being
>> done and have now started trying to use F12 and will attempt to report back
>> issues I see.
>
> Thanks a lot.
>
Some really useful info in How_to_debug_Xorg_problems. I couldn't easily
find it from the main wiki home page however. Maybe a link to this page marked 
"Graphics issues" could be made on the front page (focus users on improving the
graphics) ?
Could improve the title "Graphics problems and bug reporting" ?
and add some search terms such as "Graphics Problems", "3D problems" etc.
Add some info on what to set for "Bugzilla" fields ?
Maybe the bug reports should include the package version numbers ?
Maybe some simple user tools could be generated to ease and make bug reporting 
more useful. Something simple like the following might be useful:

#!/bin/sh
date > bug1
lspci | grep VGA >> bug1
(echo -n "kernel: "; uname -r) >> bug1
rpm -q --qf "%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\n" xorg-x11-server-Xorg >> bug1
rpm -q --qf "%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\n" xorg-x11-drv-ati >> bug1
rpm -q --qf "%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\n" mesa-dri-drivers >> bug1
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer string" >> bug1

It might be worth including info on how to update from fedora-testing just 
graphics related packages. Ie add something like:
"includepkgs=kernel* xorg-x11-* mesa*"
to the "updates-testing" section of fedora-updates-testing.repo and
enable the repo ? Also how to revert. Should it state that all tests
should be done with fedora-updates-testing packages ?

I notice there is a new xorg-x11-drv-ati. It does look like things are moving :)
All we need now is 2 months down the line for Fedora 12.1 to be released with
updated anaconda and all updated packages in ISO form so that
Joe public can easily install a good working Fedora release ...

Cheers


Terry