Re: [Qemu-devel] Norton Ghost crashes with page fault for me too.

[<jeebs@yango.us>]

"Jim C. Brown"


>> Some of us do a bit more, by deliberately testing qemu with lots of
>> software, looking for bugs.  And reporting bugs when they are found.
>
> If you really want a bug to be fixed badly, and you have no idea of how to 
> fix
> it, what you need to do is contact the developer of that code and let that
> person know about the bug.

That's not really practical, because most of us would have no idea who to 
contact.


> E.g. I'm the developer of the gtk2 interface for qemu, and I have no idea 
> about
> what bugs it may have as no one has reported any to me. In fact, I have no 
> idea
> if anyone is even using it because I get no direct feedback. This is 
> especially
> true for using the gtk2 interface under Windows, because I am unable to 
> test
> the code there. If someone who could test it did, and told me about the 
> bug,
> I'd fix it right away.

I do use the Windows builds...

I'm willing to do some testing.  But you'll have to tell me how to do the 
gtk2 interface under windows.....

The only interface I know of is the regular SDL interface in the windows 
version.

But yes, if you really do want somebody to test it, and do want feedback, 
then I am willing to try.  It wont be a major test for hours and hours kind 
of thing.  But I can play around with it for a while and see if there are 
any obvious problems.


Contrary to what some might suspect, I *am* willing to test qemu and report 
bugs.  But only for as long as I think it might do any good, and that I'm 
not being ignored.

Even the acknowledgement of a bug can be a major encouragement to find and 
report new problems.


> over anymore). In that case, there isn't much you can do. Documenting bugs 
> is
> still good because a) we can let other users know its a known bug and b) 
> when
> a new maintainer for that section of code comes along, they'll be able to 
> get
> started on the fixes right away. But this is only satisfactory if you are 
> a very
> patient person.

I have been willing to do that.

But it gets significantly frustrating when you see the same problems month 
after month after month, etc.

Bug reporting tends to feel a lot like shouting in a room full of deaf 
people...

And bug reports get lost so easily.

If you aren't the developer of that piece of code, what are the odds that 
you are actually going to remember the bug in a few days?


> No one looks at the Savanah bug tracker because its never been used. If 
> you were
> to say submit every unfixed bug you found there, just maybe those of us 
> who
> bother to look every once in a while will see it and fix it.

I have thought about it.

I've even started to do it a few times.  Come to think of it, I even did 
that a few times in the past year.

But since it's not used, and none of the developers suggest it being used, I 
tend to get the feeling that it'd be a waste of time.

Right now, there are 50 bugs reported, and 50 bugs open.

http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=qemu


> Do this often enough and others will use it, etc... the qemu user forum 
> and
> the qemu irc channel developed in much the same way.

The qemu user forum does get regular comments about bugs etc.

About the best we can tell them is something like "Yes, that looks like a 
bug.  No, it probaly isn't going to get fixed any time soon.  No, most of 
the qemu developers don't visit here."