New tester

[John Summerfield]

Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> On 2/27/06, John Summerfield <debian at herakles.homelinux.org> wrote:
> 
>>Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I have just setup a machine solely for the purpose of testing, I shall
>>>append the specs to this post. For now, I have yummed to
>>
>>updates-released,
>>
>>>adn then updates-testing. What do I do as a tester? I have no familiarity
>>>with the processs, just the will to help.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>What do you intend to test?
> 
> 
> 
> Currently, I am interested in helping with testing into FC5. My currently
> assumption is that the path to do this was to install FC4 and update to
> fedora-testing. Please correct me if this assumption is incorrect.

Read the release notes: I expect you will find that upgrading is not 
supported (but it might be, and even if not it might be worth testing).

upgrading from test to final is almost certainly _not_ supported.

I would guess that most hardware compatibility concerns are with the 
latest and greates (such as does not work on FC4), but then I had 
problems with nahant betas on hardware not too different from yours: 
intel 815 chipset, integrated graphics (same graphics as yours).

Not a lot of point following beaten paths, test first what's important 
to you, what you need to run. Including anything you're likely to add.

If you have a new box too, consider an extra disk drive and a caddy to 
enable you to swap drives quickly so you can check the software works on 
that too.

If you're a software developer, make sure your tools work. If you create 
custom distros, make sure you can (practice by building another as each 
batch of changes comes out, do a daily build if you can[1]). If you 
install lotsa boxes, make sure _your_ kickstart selections work, that 
PXE works with your hardware. If you want to run Windows programs, check 
that they work, document what you need to do, file bug reports and 
documentation as necessary.

Keep a record of what tests you run so you can do them all again 
whenever FC5{T,}[0-9] changes.

[1] If you do a daily build, have your build process create a list of 
packages (eg find Fedora -type f -name \*.rpm | xargs rpm --qf 
'{whatever}') will do so you can documennt what's in _your_ packages.