unity-design team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Ted Gould wrote on 05/07/12 14:26:
> 
> On Wed, 2012-07-04 at 12:55 -0400, Brandon Watkins wrote:
>> 
>> I've noticed with ubuntu 12.04 apport is enabled by default. Now
>> I see the value in having a larger base of users reporting crash
>> data, but this can really make ubuntu seem unstable and buggy to
>> a new user, definitely not a good impression if ubuntu wants
>> more mainstream usage. I get these damn popups every few days,
>> and they are always tiny crashes that don't have any real-world
>> effect on my system, and they are always bugs that are already
>> reported.
>> 
>> I think apport should either be disabled by default, or have an 
>> opt-in option (maybe an option that shows up during the install?)
>> to silently report crash data in the background if the bug is
>> already reported.
> ... So I believe the default setting should be that the crashes
> will be grabbed but only have the signature checked by default.  So
> there is no dialog.  There was a bug that was causing some systems
> to show the dialog, but I can't seem to find it.  I'm cc'ing Evan
> as I'm sure he'll know, perhaps you can contribute to that bug so
> that we can get this fixed.

(I'm replying on Evan's behalf.)

Every version of Ubuntu, until 12.04, had a small but silly design
flaw: when anything crashed, there was no explanation of what had
happened. A window could disappear, or a service could stop working,
without any explanation at all.

The primary purpose of Apport's new error alerts is to fix that
problem. They explain what has gone wrong, and what you might do about
it -- for example, offering to relaunch an application that has crashed.

If your admin allows it, the alerts *also* let you report each error,
but that is a secondary function.

Now, the tradeoff is that Apport has no way of telling the difference
between "tiny crashes that don't have any real-world effect" and
errors that do. We believe it's a reasonable position that most
crashes do have a real-world effect. And this will become more true
over time, as common but previously-ignored errors are fixed because
the error tracker is reporting them as common.

We can, and will, fine-tune the wording of the error messages. But
when programs crash, blaming the *error messages* for a poor
mainstream impression is shooting the messenger.

Finally, this is not related to Unity in particular, so unity-design@
is not a good place to discuss it. I suggest ubuntu-desktop@ instead.

Cheers
- -- 
mpt
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