Debian Bug Tracking System

The reportbug program can ease filing bugs by guiding you through the bug reporting process step by step. The querybts tool, available from the same package as reportbug, provides a convenient text-based interface to the bug tracking system.

Emacs users can also use the debian-bug command provided by the debian-el package. When called with M-x debian-bug, it will ask for all necessary information in a similar way to reportbug.

To me, using the Debian bug-tracking system is pro's job, not for normal Johns like me. jamesw's article on using the Debian bug-tracking system eliminate most of its mysteries for me. However, Debian bugs reporting normally requires you to have a working MTA that can relay you local email onto the Internet. But I just found that if you don't have a working MTA for any reason, you can still report bugs. The following is a step by step example showing how I sent a bug report via my yahoo mail web interface.

First identify the severity for reportbug:

1 critical        makes unrelated software on the system (or the whole system)
                  break, or causes serious data loss, or introduces a security
                  hole on systems where you install the package.
2 grave           makes the package in question unusable by most or all users,
                  or causes data loss, or introduces a security hole allowing
                  access to the accounts of users who use the package.
3 serious         is a severe violation of Debian policy (that is, the problem
                  is a violation of a 'must' or 'required' directive); may or
                  may not affect the usability of the package. Note that non-
                  severe policy violations may be 'normal,' 'minor,' or
                  'wishlist' bugs. (Package maintainers may also designate
                  other bugs as 'serious' and thus release-critical; however,
                  end users should not do so.)
4 important       a bug which has a major effect on the usability of a package,
                  without rendering it completely unusable to everyone.
5 does-not-build  a bug that stops the package from being built from source.
                  (This is a 'virtual severity'.)
6 normal          a bug that does not undermine the usability of the whole
                  package; for example, a problem with a particular option or
                  menu item.
7 minor           things like spelling mistakes and other minor cosmetic errors
                  that do not affect the core functionality of the package.
8 wishlist        suggestions and requests for new features.

The best way to report bug is to use "reportbug —template" to create a template first with all the relevant information being automatically gathered:

$ reportbug --template --bts debian -S normal xsel
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
 From: Tong Sun <my.email@noexist.com>
 To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
 Subject: none
X-Debbugs-Cc: my.email@noexist.com

 Package: xsel
 Version: 0.9.6-1.1
 Severity: normal



-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (600, 'testing'), (50, 'unstable')
 Architecture: i386 (i686)
 Kernel: Linux 2.6.17-grml
 Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C

Versions of packages xsel depends on:
ii  libc6                        2.3.6.ds1-4 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libice6                      1:1.0.1-2   X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libsm6                       1:1.0.1-2   X11 Session Management library
ii  libx11-6                     2:1.0.0-9   X11 client-side library
ii  libxext6                     1:1.0.1-2   X11 miscellaneous extension librar

-- no debconf information

Notes,

Next is to fill in the actual bug report and sent it (via yahoo mail web interface). I chose the subject as "xsel does not get selections from emacs", and put the following into my (yahoo) email message body:

 Package: xsel
 Version: 0.9.6-1.1
 Severity: normal

Hi,

the xsel cannot get selections from emacs:

 $ xprop -root CUT_BUFFER0
 CUT_BUFFER0(STRING) = "text from emacs"

 $ xsel | wc
       0       0       0

 $ wish
 % selection get -selection PRIMARY -type STRING
 text from emacs
 %

I.e., all others tools can see/get the selections from emacs while xsel
can't.

I really hope that it can be fixed.

thanks a lot.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (600, 'testing'), (50, 'unstable')
 Architecture: i386 (i686)
 Kernel: Linux 2.6.17-grml
 Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C

Versions of packages xsel depends on:
ii  libc6                        2.3.6.ds1-4 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libice6                      1:1.0.1-2   X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libsm6                       1:1.0.1-2   X11 Session Management library
ii  libx11-6                     2:1.0.0-9   X11 client-side library
ii  libxext6                     1:1.0.1-2   X11 miscellaneous extension librar

-- no debconf information

About 20~30 minutes after I sent it, I received the bug report acknowledgment in my email, with a bug number specific for my bug report.