Nominate your favorite Ubuntu Server papercuts !

An Ubuntu Server LTS release stays around for 5 years, so during the development cycle there is an increased focus in QA, bugfixing and stability. During Lucid UDS in Dallas, we discussed of various ways of translating that effort into clear actions. One of those discussions was geared towards improving the Ubuntu Server user (sysadmin) experience: we could focus on fixing lots of minor annoyances, low-hanging-fruit bugs that traditionally get less attention than others. On the footsteps of the excellent One hundred papercuts project (from the User experience team), this project was named Server papercuts.

This project is led by the Ubuntu Server community, for the Ubuntu Server community. We discussed the implementation details during our weekly IRC meetings, a specific Launchpad project was created, together with a team to triage the candidates (with a cool badge).

Now it’s time to nominate your personal pet bug, your favorite minor annoyance, your preferred PITA ! Here is the process to follow:

1. If the papercut isn’t already filed as an Ubuntu bug in Launchpad, file a bug against the affected Ubuntu package
2. Look up the bug you want to nominate as a Server papercut, then click on “Also affects project”
3. Click “Choose another project” and type in “server-papercuts”, click “Continue”
4. Click on “Add to Bug report”

That’s it ! Your bug will now show up on the Server papercuts buglist and we’ll Confirm or Invalid-ate it soon, when we start getting a good list.

Here are a few guidelines on what makes a good Server papercut:

• Bug affects a server package
• Bug has an obvious and easy fix
• Bug makes the life of the sysadmin more miserable

Here are a few guidelines on what doesn’t make a good Server papercut:

• New features
• Large-scale improvements that affect multiple packages
• Your solution is likely to result in a new papercut for someone else

For more details, complete acceptation criteria is described in the project spec.

Good hunt !