Installation test is a very important service offered by the QA team. It provides coordinated and focused testing of official Fedora installation media prior to a release milestone (e.g. Alpha or Beta). This page describes the steps involved when coordinating an installation test event. For any concerns, please contact the QA group.
Set a date for install test
Install test date is always set to some day before milestone release (Beta,Preview,etc...). So it's necessary to prepare it a few weeks before milestone release day.Milestone release day of fedora 12, please see at:Releases/12/Schedule . In general, we organize install test one or two weeks before milestone release. Install test set to the day when:
- Some day one or two weeks before milestone release day.
- DVD/CD/LiveCD images for download will be available.
- The time should not conflict with other important events of fedora.
Create test result page
Test result page is used to gather test result of installation against Fedora 12 Release Candidate builds. This page mainly includes test cases which are required to execute in this test and tables to gather test result. Some previous test result pages, please see at. Testers should choose some test cases which match their environment from this page to test and add result to corresponding table. create a test result page is not that difficult according to existing template.For fedora 12 , Here is the guide to create a test result page according to template of QA:Fedora_12_Install_Results_Template
Announce install test
Currently, we mainly announce install test in fedora mailing list. The announcement mail should provide enough information for testers. Some essential information related to test is necessary. Having these contents will be better:
- Introduction of this test event(Date, what to test, known bugs, etc...).
- What test cases need to execute.
- Download address of DVD/CD/LiveCD images.
- How and where to add test result.
- Contact information of QA who are available during install test. If encounter issues during test,testers could get help from these QA.
It would be better to announce this event in mailing list at least 3 days in advance. This could give testers sufficient time to arrange time and prepare environment for test. And sending a mail for reminder the day before is necessary.
If possible, try to consider timezone, this will be more convenient for testers from different regions or countries.
Provide help during install test
During install test day, lots of people will be involved in test, including experienced users and new comers. Make sure the QA whose contact information was announced to mailing list in this test event are available during install test. These QA will provide guide or help to those who encounter issues. QA should be available at：
- IRC: #fedora-qa on irc.freenode.net
- Mailing list: fedora-test-list
- Reference of ways to communicate at Communicate
Rearrange test result and give feedback
After test, will get a lot of test results. Some of results were not posted with the unified format. If get time, try to correct them to make the results look clear and orderly. If possible,try to analyze gathered results, give feedback and appreciate the effects from testers in mailing list.