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==== Write 5 manual pages ====
Mentor: Vincent Cheng

Debian packages which provide binaries in /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /bin, /sbin or /usr/games should have a manual page; a missing manpage is considered a bug (refer to [[http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html|Debian Policy section 12.1]] for details). Your task is to write at least 5 manual pages of substantial length for packages with missing manual pages (check [[http://qa.debian.org/man-pages.html|here]] for a list of such packages), and file bug reports to the Debian BTS with your completed manpages.

You may find [[http://liw.fi/manpages/|this webpage]] to be a useful resource; also consider using help2man(1) to start you off on the right track.

Task List

Code

Easy

dpatch->quilt

Mentor: Gergely Nagy

The task would consist of migrating packages from dpatch to something else (preferably quilt). Most of this can be easily done very easily, and could almost be automated (there's even scripts to help one do this), but manual review is still highly preferred. The goal would be to convert a handful of packages, and submit bugs to the BTS. While working on this task, one would learn a couple of tools related to Debian package building, and would learn a lot about packaging in general aswell. But extensive packaging knowledge is not needed for the task. There are many packages still build-depending on dpatch, and it's very easy to choose a couple of easy ones. An added benefit of this task is that multiple people can work on it simultaneously, thus increasing the benefit for Debian.

Handling bugs filed against unknown packages

Mentor: Gergely Nagy

There are a few subtasks within this task, as handling bugs filed against unknown packages involves a few different things.

  • One subtask would be to go through the backlog, and close any bugs that have been triaged before, and can be safely closed (ie, the package is no longer in Debian, neither in stable, nor unstable). Participants going for this sub-task would be advised to first assemble the list of bugs to close, before actually closing them. The benefit of the subtask is that the number of open bugs could be decreased significantly.
  • Another subtask would be to triage misfiled bugs, that weren't responded to yet. Find out if the bugs need to be reassigned (typos in package names, etc), closed (package not in Debian) or whatever.
  • The last subtask would be a bit of coding: writing scripts that would assist one in determining what to do with a misfiled bug:
    • It would check incoming.d.o
    • It would check the removal logs
    • Bonus points if it recognises kernel images, and suggests reassigning the bug to src:linux-2.6 :>

    • The handiest part would be if it would check a few other, known repositories (ubuntu, debian-multimedia, oracle [virtualbox]), and see if the package exists there.
    • It could also look for garbage before or after the package name (I've seen many bugs get misfiled due to the Package: name header having an unbreaking space after the :).
    • It could check whether parts of the Package line are valid package names (I've seen stuff filed against "package in squeeze (amd64)" or similar, which end up getting assigned to the appropriate package AND 3 other, unknown packages ["squeeze", "in" and "(amd64)"])
    • Detecting typos in package names would also be grand.

Medium

Team Metrics web interface

Mentor: Sukhbir Singh

Develop a website for the Team Metrics project that has an interface to present the statistical data from blends.debian.net .

Hard

Documentation

Easy

Write 5 manual pages

Mentor: Vincent Cheng

Debian packages which provide binaries in /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /bin, /sbin or /usr/games should have a manual page; a missing manpage is considered a bug (refer to Debian Policy section 12.1 for details). Your task is to write at least 5 manual pages of substantial length for packages with missing manual pages (check here for a list of such packages), and file bug reports to the Debian BTS with your completed manpages.

You may find this webpage to be a useful resource; also consider using help2man(1) to start you off on the right track.

Medium

Documentation for Team Metrics

Mentor: Sukhbir Singh

We have no documentation for the Debian Teams Activity Metrics project. Your task is to write documentation for the project and reflect what it is about. This involves understanding the project and how it works.

usercategories documentation

Mentor: Gergely Nagy

I "recently" discovered usertags, and while they're pretty simple, and reasonably well documented, the documentation on usercategories is... lacking. Researching and documenting this part of the BTS would be welcomed by many.

Hard

Outreach

Easy

Create a default set of user data to make a demo machine non-empty

Mentor: Sune Vuorela

Create a video showing how to install Debian in your language, and upload it to YouTube

Mentor: Ana Guerrero

Add more screenshots to screenshot.d.n

Mentor: Ana Guerrero

Medium

Hard

Quality Assurance

Easy

Medium

Cleaning up QA-maintained / orphaned packages

Mentor: Gergely Nagy

One thing that I would find useful, is finding packages that are no longer relevant. Packages that are abandoned either upstream, or in Debian (or both), have little to no users, and better alternatives. These could be removed from the archive.

Another thing would be upping the quality of orphaned and QA maintained packages: these are often in a very sorry state (like, debhelper compat level 2 sorry) and if we want to keep them in the archive, they could use a serious face lift.

The task in this second case would be identifying such packages, and bringing them up to speed: format 3.0 (quilt) and debhelper updates, where appropriate.

The list is fairly long, and there's lot of packages to choose from.

Hard

Validate tools used in the Team Metrics project

Mentor: Sukhbir Singh

For the Debian Teams Activity Metrics project, we measure the performance using a variety of metrics. Your job will be to test the statistical output generated, compare them with the raw data and help us to identify possible flaws in our tools that generate these statistics. Please note that this task will require lots of investigation of perhaps large amounts of data. Bonus points if you can automate your approach.

Research

Easy

Medium

Hard

Suggest new metrics for measuring team performance

Mentor: Sukhbir Singh

For the Debian Teams Activity Metrics project, find and suggest new metrics that will help in gauging team performance. Ideas that are not perfect (or nowhere near it), are also welcome.

Training

Easy

Medium

Hard

Translation

Easy

Medium

Hard

User Interface

Easy

Show four different desktop environments in Debian, and showcase their strenghts and weaknesses

Mentor: Sukhbir Singh

Create a video titled '''The Unstable Desktop''', showing how Debian unstable is useful as a desktop, despite its scary name

Mentor: Sukhbir Singh

Create a video showing how to upgrade an older version of Debian to a newer one, and upload it to YouTube

Mentor: Sukhbir Singh

Medium

Hard