Subject: Re: bug#12478: cat SEGV when I press Ctrl-Alt-SysRq-1 on text console

From: Bob Proulx <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2012 12:58:00 -0600

bronek wrote:
> Yes, coreutils was a mistake, because they've stupid autocomplete
> textfield, when typing kernel, ubuntu or other keywords which I've tried,
> all the time was too general, so how do I know what other options are if I
> don't see any results (at last first 10?)? So I was happy to type anything
> there with the idea to change it later.

I assume that as the bug submitter you would be able to edit the bug
and make changes and reassign it.

> I'm not much community person, once I was posting some problems/bugs on
> FreeBSD forum, they call me crazy, that nobody has that kind of problems
> (they call it magic), so mostly everything was ignored.

I have the benefit of having a number of machines available to me.
When I run into a hard problem I take a victim machine and install the
system fresh from pristine released sources upon it.  Then on that
fresh system I try to see if the problem is present.  If not then I
know that it is something I created myself on the system after
installation through the course of events.

This type of problem is the usual one for people to describe such as
you have done.  If it isn't a problem that other people are
experiencing then it must be one that has been created through the use
and modifications of the system.  In which case it won't be present
upon a pristine installation.  And if not then I know that it is my
problem because I created it.

> So basically I hate forums.

If by forum you mean a web based message board where people hold
conversations in the form of posted messages then I agree that I do
not like them.  But if you are using the term generically as a medium
for discussion such as this mailing list then I disagree since those
have been most helpful.

> In example Apple has some community forum (instead of bug tracker),
> I've posted all my kernel crash backtraces (generated almost once a
> day) and other stuff and the problem was ignored as well, so
> basically problem exists, but nobody care.

I am sad to hear of your trouble with Apple's software.  Of course the
advantage of GNU free software is that everything is available and it
is possible debug the problem outside of others.  However I admit that
skill either must exist or must be developed to be able to do this.

> Secondly I'm not doing this for a pleasure, most of the time it
> preventing me to work properly (I'm not inventing this stuff, this
> just happens).

Oh no!  The curse!  :-)

I am sorry for laughing at this.  We have all been there.  But stuff
doesn't just happen.  Really!  There is always a reason.  While people
have good days and bad days and just cantankerous days the machine
does not.  Unless there is a hardware problem the machine will always
behave exactly as it is programmed to do.  That is a good thing.

> If I'm spending couple of hours daily (if not the whole day) only
> creating the bugs, so I would spent the whole day on forums
> analysing and discussing the problem and from my experience most of
> the time people on the forum have no any technical knowledge at all,
> if they do - they say google it (even if they don't understand the
> problem). So I'm kind of bug guy by the choice. And I clearly see
> that this is the bug, but I don't know where yet.

And we are doing exactly the same thing here.  This is a labor of
love.  We don't get paid for it.  Well most of us don't.  And even
those that do work on the software on their free time too.  We do this
because we want to make the world a better place.

This is really drifting off topic for this bug ticket.  It would be
different if we were discussing this on the discussion list.  To bring
it back on topic let me ask...

Do you have a spare scratch machine?  I don't believe it makes sense
that this problem isn't being seen by others.  If you could install a
fresh copy of your operating system on a scratch victim machine and
then try your problem there then it would be possible to determine if
it is something in the upstream to you pristine installation or if it
is something that has been changed on your installation since then.
With the problems you are lamenting I think this might be useful to
help to solve many of the issues you have been having.

If you have more discussion and it is discussion and not data to add
to this bug ticket then please start a new message thread on the
[email-masked] mailing list.  That is the better place for it.

Good luck!
Bob