CrashCatcher
Summary
The tool to help non-power users with bug reporting, making it as easy as a few mouse clicks.
Owner
- Name: Zdenek Prikryl Jiri Moskovcak
- email: zprikryl@redhat.com, jmoskovc@redhat.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 11
- Last updated: 2009-02-04
- Percentage of completion: 100%
Detailed Description
This feature semi-automatically provides information about defects and crashes on user system. It collects necessary data about the crash, generates a report with all information and based on user interaction sends it to some bug reporting system. The gaol is to have this tool heavily plugin-able - so it can be used for any compiled/scripting language and bug reporting system (trac, BZ, 3rd party bug reporting tool ...)
Benefit to Fedora
Ease of bug reporting and quick response from maintainers based on info from CrashCatcher should make Fedora more stable and thus more attractive for users.
Scope
what has to be done:
- pluginable architecture
- daemon for detecting crashes
- authentication system
- system detecting if binary belongs to our package (PackageKit support)
- add-ons for languages
- plugins for reporters, databases of crashes, specific applications
- GUI and TUI
It shouldn't affect any part of Fedora, it's desing allows to easilly disable or remove this application completelly.
How To Test
- Install CrashCatcher with C/C++ language plugin.
- Run some app. This app has to be written in C or C++.
- kill -s SIGSEGV <pid of app>
- See if CrashCatcher detects it.
User Experience
- If an application crashes, the user is notified by a trayicon (or a message in a log) and a simple wizard will act as a guide through the bug reporting process. All required information is gathered automatically so bug reporting should be easy even for less experienced users.
Dependencies
- dbus
- gtk2
- PackageKit
- PolicyKit
- Archer
- sqlite
- gtkmm
- Python
- glade
Contingency Plan
None necessary, revert to previous release behaviour :)
Documentation
Release Notes
There is no simple tool for debugging programs and reporting bugs in Fedora and providing usefull information needed by package maintainer to fix a bug is often time-consuming and sometimes out of the skill range of an ordinary Fedora user. This tool should fill this gap and help users to fill a report with all required information in just a few mouse clicks.