What are Test Days?
Test Days are an opportunity to exercise a completed, or in-development, Feature planned for an upcoming Fedora release. Each Test Day brings something unique and you're encouraged to join and share your ideas, tests, and results.
When are Test Days?
Test Days occur every Thursday between the Alpha and GA milestones of a Fedora release.
The Test Day schedule for previous releases is available at:
For a list of planned test day topics, see below.
| Date | Topic(s) |
|---|---|
| 2009-01-20 | Alpha Freeze |
| 2009-01-22 | Open Slot |
| 2009-01-29 | Open Slot |
| 2009-02-03 | Alpha Release |
| 2009-02-05 | Open Slot |
| 2009-02-12 | Open Slot |
| 2009-02-19 | Open Slot |
| 2009-02-26 | Open Slot |
| 2009-03-03 | Feature Freeze--Planning & Development Ends |
| 2009-03-05 | Open Slot |
| 2009-03-10 | Beta Freeze |
| 2009-03-12 | Open Slot |
| 2009-03-19 | Open Slot |
| 2009-03-24 | Beta Release |
| 2009-03-26 | Open Slot |
| 2009-04-02 | Open Slot |
| 2009-04-07 | Software Translation Deadline |
| 2009-04-09 | Open Slot |
| 2009-04-14 | Final Development Freeze |
| 2009-04-16 | Open Slot |
| 2009-04-23 | Open Slot |
| 2009-04-28 | Preview Release |
| 2009-04-30 | Open Slot |
| 2009-05-07 | Open Slot |
| 2009-05-12 | Compose & Stage Release Candidate |
| 2009-05-14 | Open Slot |
| 2009-05-21 | Open Slot |
| 2009-05-26 | Fedora 11 Final Release |
Where are Test Days held?
Discussion is typically held on IRC in the #fedora-qa channel. There are quite a few different IRC clients out there you can use to join the discussion, including:
- Web-based mibbit (no additional software required)
- Chatzilla firefox extension
- A list of popular linux clients
How To Get Involved
Bug Triage
Much like a field hospital, bug triage describes the art of quickly addressing the big issues in a bug, and moving it on for further review by the development team. Unlike a field hospital, there should be no blood or gunfire. The triage process has generated quite a following. As outlined on the BugZappers home, triage is a several step process:
- Getting started
- Finding bugs to triage
- The list of bugs will be included in each Test Day
- Taking action
One should not spend more than 5 minutes triaging a single bug. If you have more time to spare, and are looking to get a bit more involved, please proceed with Bug Verification or Test Execution.
Bug Verification
FIXME
Test Execution
Often a Test Day will include focus areas for which to target when testing a Feature. These areas have been identified as critical components of the feature. If looking for a quick list of areas to target, these make great candidates.
Exploratory Testing
Exploratory testing is an approach to software testing that is not scripted or planned in as much detail as a more traditional test plan. Rather than walking through a series of pre-defined test cases, the tester is asked to think about the high-level test areas in the software. From there, the tester is encouraged to use their knowledge of the product and the code in order to navigate through different areas of the software. As they walk through the software, their emphasis is to find bugs, expose new test areas, and learn more about the product to help guide future test efforts.
The simplest definition from Exploratory Testing Explained by James Bach works the best:
Exploratory testing is simultaneous learning, test design, and test execution.
For further reading on exploratory testing can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratory_testing.
FAQ
What build should I test?
Each Test Day will indicate which build will be under test. Note, the nature of the build may also depend on the Feature being tested. For example, testing of a kernel feature may only require updating to the rawhide kernel package. However, testing of a custom spin of Fedora may require downloading, or building, a LiveCD.
I found a bug, what now?
FIXME
Feedback
FIXME