Testing/Testing teams

From openSUSE

Basic idea

A distro as large as openSUSE needs a lot of resources for Quality Assurance (QA). It is very hard for "generic" testers to test all the software in the distro, as some may not be experienced with some software (if you don't have Bluetooth gadgets, you probably don't even know which Bluetooth-related software to test).

The idea is to form teams of people with common interests:

• People who do graphic design, so they use Inkscape, Krita, Gimp, the photo applications, printing, lots of PDF work, etc.
• People who have mobile gadgets: Bluetooth, PDAs and phones to synchronize, laptop docking stations, etc.
• People who use non-English languages: SCIM and input methods, non-UTF-8 encodings, right-to-left languages, etc.

Then, each team makes up its own set of basic test cases for smoke testing, and they actually perform those tests on openSUSE betas. Graphic designers may want to ensure that they can import photos, retouch them and print them. Mobile users may want to ensure that the basic Bluetooth and syncing functionality is working.

Basically, each team knows what basic functionality it needs to absolutely work. So, they make a checklist of that functionality and ensure that it does not get broken while the distro is in development.

Suggested teams

Graphic design

Inkscape, Krita, Gimp, Evince. Can you print to PDF? Can you print at all? Can you scan and import photos?

Photographers

F-spot, digiKam. Can you import photos? Edit them, print them? Export to Flickr and other photo services?

Mobile users

Does Bluetooth work? Can you sync to your PDA / phone? Does NetworkManager handle the kinds of networks you use with your laptop? Docking stations?

Non-Latin languages

Do you use SCIM and input methods? Righ-to-left languages? Character encodings that are not UTF-8?

Multimedia / TV / Video / Audio

Can you view videos? Are the instructions to install funny codecs easy to find and do they actually work? Can you play/encode MP3 audio? Can you rip CDs? Do cover art and song metadata get pulled from the right places? Does your iPod or other music player work?

See also

• GNOME/HowTos/Helping Hands Topics