Student Application
Name:
Elhares Faiez
Contact/Email/IRC nick:
Email: faiez.hrs@gmail.com
IRC nickname: faiezdev
Background:
I am a second year student of software engineering at National Institute of Applied Sciences and Technologies of Tunis, i am very interested in software design and documentation, especially in a Linux environment. I came across Linux in university classes and i readed books about Linux internals design and architecture, therefore i would like to be guided by an expert in order to build software that interact with system components.
Project title:
Apport for Debian
Project details: In order to improve userspace applications crashes/bugs handling and feedback sending, and to make the report of problems reliable and beneficial. Apport need to be extended to be more flexible, well-integrated with other operating system components and to behave positively without an internet connection or with connection trouble.
Synopsis:
Notification tool, Integration with Reportbug, Integration with Debian Bug Tracking System, Offline functionality, network problems resolution and enhancements of the bug reporting tool.
Benefits to Debian:
bug detecting and reporting are going to be more reliable and user-friendly.
Deliverables:
Notification tool: Apport should provide a generic notification tool that can detect Apport crash reports and notify the user.
Integration with Reportbug: Apport should be integrated with Reportbug to stand as a secondary bug reporting tool.
Integration with Debian Bug Tracking System: Apport should interact well with Debian Bug Tracking System.
Display bug reports: Apport's bug reporting system should display bug reports waiting in the queue to the user, tag them and pull them in once they are confirmed.
Scan bug reports: Apport's bug reporting system should run crash signature scan before pulling bug reports.
Offline functionality: Apport should behave well without internet connection.
Project schedule:
before May 25 (Before the official coding time):
- To familiarize myself with Debian and other distributions' reporting tools.
- To understand Apport architecture and source code.
- To understand open source bugs reporting tools.
- To understand common bugs categories and causes.
after May 25 (Official coding period starts):
May 25 - Jun 08 (Notification tool):
- implementing, documenting and testing a listener sub-system to Apport crash reports.
- integrating the solution with the notification server.
Jun 09 - Jun 20 (Integration with Reportbug):
- implementing, documenting and testing an Integration sub-system with Reportbug.
Jun 21 - July 12 (Integration with Debian Bug Tracking System):
- adding Apport- specific tag to emails.
- extending email to track more reliable feedback about the crash.
- extending email generator sub-system to allow bug tagging.
- extending email to track the problem category.
July 13 - July 19 (Offline functionality):
- optimizing offline storage (structure and database).
- integration with Debian network system.
July 19 - July 25 (network problems resolution):
- adding trouble detection with the firewall on network access and handling it.
July 24 – Aug 12 (enhancements of the bug reporting tool):
- implementing hooks for the pulling sub-system.
- implementing bug reports scanning system to detect duplications.
- implementing bug reports management interface for the user (to remove/ modify reports before pulling).
Aug 13 – Aug 19 (bug reports management system):
- rigorous testing and bug fixes.
Aug 20 - Aug 24:
- additional fixing.
Nice to have
According to advancement in work on Apport and results, we want to:
- improving Apport user-experience. extending Apport to a distributed bug monitoring tool. integrating Apport with revision control systems.
Exams and other commitments:
may be the first four days.
Other summer plans:
no other plans
Why Debian?:
Debian is a huge project, it is a major Linux distribution with several software systems and active community of skillful developers, i must work on to improve open source software systems and to improve my knowledge.
Are you applying for other projects in SoC?
I am trying to apply for two other projects with Fedora and GNU.