Linux bugs: Whaddaya want for nothin’?

Ever stay up 'til 3 a.m. working on a vexing computer problem?

I have.

In fact, I recently ran into a frustrating Ubuntu bug and found that I was in the company of hundreds (maybe thousands?) of other users.

Take a look at the angst displayed in this forum thread --  initramfs + busybox trouble installing -- covering 39 pages and more than 380 posts, dating from April 24, 2008, to today.

-- "Sorry Ubuntu, I gave it a try and you lost me for life.
Ubuntu 'just works'?? yea...right"

-- "I never knew trying out a distro was this hard. I'm back to Windows for now."

-- "Back to XP for me....pity."

-- "No dice...
this as far as I'm concerned is a showstopper... a biggy and should never have made it out of the gate..."

-- "I'm reverting back to windows: I've not so much time to waste."

-- "This does not speak well for the people responsible for Ubuntu !!"

-- "This dumping people into busybox is, as far as I'm concerned, a serious showstopper and will really give a sour taste for both newcomers and experienced hands."

-- "WHY CAN'T THEY FIX IT!???"

Well, read on.

 I'm a Linux newbie who just replaced a Win 98 system with Ubuntu 8.10 in order to get all my computers (Win XP, Vista, Mac OS X, Linux) to fully connect (i.e., share MP3 files) with one another on my home Wi-Fi network.

While I already had one Ubuntu box connected, I had some problems installing it on the old Win 98 PC.

The infamous 'BusyBox' bug

No matter what I tried, I kept getting an error that indicated Ubuntu couldn’t find boot-up info on a certain partition or disk, and I was "dropped" into a BusyBox command line.

I eventually fixed the problem with suggestions from the forum, but many people weren’t so lucky.

So I wondered about the Ubuntu bug-fixing process, in view of all the anger and frustration expressed by so many users. Was the company eroding its customer base and alienating thousands of users by ignoring them?

London Calling: 'It is a showstopper'

So I contacted Ubuntu's owner, Canonical.

Gerry Carr, head of platform marketing, rang me up from across the Pond and acknowledged that "It is a showstopper for those newbies who aren't experienced with Linux and decide to give it a go who download the CD and put the CD in their machine and run it off as a graphical install off the live CD … and it won't read the partition, it won't read the disk. I won’t deny it. It's tough."

"The fact that it’s free software we don’t take as an excuse for it not working as well as it should," he said.

"But it's a big wide world of hardware out there" Carr continued. "So really what we try to do is make a product and test and integrate this product with as many types and common hardware profiles as we possibly can. But, obviously, that's just thousands of machines with various graphic drivers, various hard drives, various screens … there's so many variables."

He pointed out various installation problems with Windows and said Ubuntu comparatively actually does a better job at working on the wide range of machines it could be downloaded onto.

Older machine? Prepare to get your hands dirty

Of course, he noted that the older the machine, the more likely the user will have to resort to some manual intervention to get Ubuntu to work properly.

Carr said the experience of being dropped to the command line doesn't happen that much when compared to the vast number of user installations, and he said "it will never happen" on machines bought with Ubuntu installed and preconfigured by Canonical or one of its partners.

So how do they fix these things for those others who self-install?

You could buy support from Canonical, but that's more likely for businesses or a few power users, not the typical desktop user, he noted.

To the forums

Most people go to the forums, Carr said, just like I did.

In the forums, he said, "There's an 'Ubuntu Code of Practice,' which means that you sign up, you're going to participate to help newbies, to be friendly, to not assume that people are stupid ... and people are extremely helpful and they are volunteering their time."

"If it's a commonly observed issue… our developers to an extent monitor the forums" and may take action on problems, he said. "Far more commonly there are established routes through Launchpad, the company’s bug reporting facility."

For pros only

There, he said, "Someone who is in the know, [who can use] the correct language, files it as a bug and pushes it through to developers. And if that bug gets enough attachments and enough people say, 'yes, I've also had that bug,' or the bug seems severe enough, then it will go through to our developers and a patch will get issued."

"If it's a problem with Ubuntu, it will get pushed to a project to get fixed. If it's a problem in an ... Intel driver of some sort that's on your machine, it will get pushed to Intel to get fixed. So there is a network for pushing these bugs into the appropriate place in order for them to get triaged and then to get fixed and then get issued in an update, in order for it to not happen again."

He claimed that this system is usually far more efficient than proprietary systems where you send in a bug to, say, Microsoft, and "it's highly unlikely even if you have a support contract, that you ever get to speak to somebody who understands what your issue is in order to fix it."

Do the developers listen?

None of the company's 180 developers participate officially in the forums, Carr said, though many often do so on their own to stay in touch with the community and what the serious issues are.

And the community is certainly active, with a recent listing of 1,005,214 threads, 6,428,318 posts, 801,019 members and 64,546 active members (Carr believes these are members who have posted in the past 30 days).

Canonical pays to host the forums sites but doesn’t strictly control them.

"They’re controlled to the extent that they are by the Ubuntu Community Council which is made up by some people from Canonical and many more people from the Ubuntu community," Carr said.

There's also a Ubuntu IRC chat room with live interaction with people who will try to fix your problem.

And Ubuntu blogs are aggregated here.

Become part of the solution

Another site of interest is Ubuntu Brainstorm, where people can suggest ideas or requests for future Ubuntu distros. Recently the site had received 14,378 ideas, which garnered 90,192 comments and received 1,760,170 votes on their quality, which is done by clicking on an up arrow or a down arrow, much like Digg or Slashdot.

The site also features a "Sandbox" where ideas await moderator validation before going to the "Popular ideas" section, an "Ideas in development" page and an "Implemented ideas" page.

Launchpad, on the other hand, is for extremely talented coders to submit bugs or blueprints for features that are considered in twice-yearly development meetings for inclusion in future projects.

Launchpad is used by a few hundred officially recognized developers with highly advanced skill sets who try to get their code accepted into an Ubuntu project. "You have to be very good for that to happen," Carr said.

Of course, most of us don't fit that description. So if you're a newbie like me, or even a proficient Ubuntu user with a problem, you can vent on the forums if you like, but you should consider going to Ubuntu Brainstorm and suggesting a change.

Who knows, maybe millions of users will someday be using a feature you suggested.