 All right guys, this is just a vlog today one of these quick and dirty boomer vlogs that I'm gonna do on my cell phone I'm not gonna do a proper video today cuz I just haven't had time to do you know One of my usual videos that I actually set up cameras and lights and do proper video editing and things like that You're not getting that today It's the last three days from the time I wake up in the morning to the time I go to bed in the last three days All I have done is worked on DTOS my X-mone ad post installation script So you install Arch Linux or any arch based distribution and then you can run my DTOS script and get my X-mone ad Desktop with doomy max and the alacrity terminal and the fish shell and all of that and It's been a fun experience But it's been a ton of work because obviously there's bugs people are reporting bugs and I've been trying to fix them and Adding new things to the script as well, although I haven't really pushed a whole lot of new features to the script yet because What's already in the script? There's enough bugs already in the script I want to fix the bugs before I start adding new stuff, you know creating more bugs But what I wanted to do Since I've only done DTOS in the last three days, and I'm kind of wore out and tired I'm on my third cup of coffee here. What I'm gonna do. I'm shutting it down for the day I'm gonna go home and relax May not do anything tomorrow may take tomorrow off. We'll see I feel like I need to recuperate a little bit But I'm glad we finally got an initial release of DTOS Completed but this this vlog today what I wanted to talk to you guys is About support requests, you know And if you have a bug of any kind not about DTOS But any kind of software or project and you have an issue and you want to raise that issue What's the proper way to file a bug or open an issue and where should you file that bug or or issue? You know, how should you talk to the developers of that project things like this? This is actually a video I've wanted to make for a while way before DTOS But I've talked a little bit about some of this stuff before I know I've done some hey DT videos where Mentioned the proper venues to open support requests But I wanted to revisit this again because now that I've done the DTOS script, you know I'm getting a ton of these support requests People are filing bugs opening issues in all kinds of places Obviously the most appropriate place to do this would be on my get lab the DTOS repository on get lab file an issue Just open an issue tell me what your problem is make sure you include relevant information One of the biggest problems especially to people that are not used to filing bug reports is Typically people don't give you any information other than I'm having a problem That's it. Hey, I tried to use your script. It ain't working No other information, right? I probably half of the people that have opened issues not on get lab But even on YouTube and reddit and email mastodon direct messages I've gotten support request about DTOS and all of those venues more than half of them They never tell me what operating system they're running as far as what Linux distribution They were actually trying to install the thing on so number one Tell me a little information what Linux distribution what version of that distribution where you're trying to install DTOS on You know, tell me the error message if you got an error message in the terminal Copy it and actually put that in your bug report because there's so much time wasted When you file a bug report and you give the developer no information Then his very first question is going to be you're gonna have to tell me some information Right, so he wasted his time having to tell you that and your time is wasted because now you have to post a second time To actually post the correct information that was needed to be in that first post anyway You know, just just think before you file a bug report give all the information that you can if it was a problem And you tried to solve the problem let the developer know hey, I got this bug I thought this would solve it. I tried this this didn't work And the reason you want to tell him that it's because so he doesn't tell you to go try that Solution that you've already tried right again, don't waste his time and also don't waste your own time So give people as much information and a bug report as you can if their project has any kind of Read me or anything and it actually tells you exactly what they expect to be in a bug report Read that and try to give them all of that information Again, it just takes a few seconds to read a little bit Maybe read some of the other issues people have opened on that github or that get lab or wherever it is You're filing this bug report bugzilla Wherever people file bugs these days and see what other people are putting in their bug reports You know, they're giving a lot of detailed information that will give you some clue as to what you need to put in your bug report Another thing to consider is are you actually filing your bug report in the correct forum? For example, I see a lot of people that Let's take our Linux base distributions right or our Linux operating systems I have some bug and you know, I'm running We'll just say arch Linux with the GNOME desktop environment and you know what? I have this bug that happens every time I open the GNOME Nautilus file manager or whatever and I'm not sure what the problem is I'm going to go to the arch forms and Open an issue there and you know, it'll be all about problems. I have in GNOME But do the arch devs have anything to do with GNOME as a project or the Nautilus file manager, which is GNOME's file manager I mean if unless you're sure that that bug has anything to do with the underlying Linux distribution in this case arch and going to the arch forms to post about that may not be the best place You know, there's GNOME support channels, right? IRC channels and probably mailing lists and support forms and things like that That's probably where I would start first now if they you know look at your issue and then tell you hey This really isn't our problem It's an issue with the underlying distribution in this case arch Linux and then go to the arch forms But a lot of times a lot of times people don't think you know They just figure I can open this issue and anybody's support form and they'll help me with that issue and a lot of people a lot of devs For one thing they don't have a lot of time So if you open an issue and they immediately know this issue has nothing to do with my software my project It's really somebody else's problem typically they're going to immediately tell you I'm not going to help you You need to go file this bug with these people They may even be rude about it and I don't want that to happen to you I'm not this way, you know I've gotten a lot of newbie kind of questions here in the last couple of days about DTOS But I understand that I mean I'm I'm a YouTube video content creator And I'm trying to convert a lot of people a lot of new to Linux users over to Linux So I expect a lot of new questions and I really You open anything on my get lab It may have nothing to do with the DTOS script and I've actually gotten several of those in the last few days Questions that have absolutely nothing to do with my script I've gotten several people that have opened issues about DTOS and the issue underlying issue That's really causing them the problem is they didn't know how to install Arch Linux correctly It has nothing to do with my script that several people that didn't know how to set up virtual machines correctly and they assumed The DTOS script after they ran it was causing issues in their virtual machine graphics drivers problems and the virtual machine It's just they didn't set up Virtual box correctly or whatever it was they were using you know again not an issue with DTOS But I'm a nice guy I helped them with their problems because if I know the answer I'm gonna help you with your problem anyway But a lot of people are not like this on the internet a lot of developers will just tell you go away and they may be rude about it and I Know that's a bad experience and it's gonna really put a sour taste on a lot of people's mouths because hey Maybe that was your very first bug report you ever filed and then somebody was mean to you You may never file a bug report again And I don't want that to happen to you that and the best way for this not to happen to you Is to actually think for a couple of minutes before you file that bug report did I give them the information? They needed all the all the relevant information everything I can think of and is this the proper place to actually post this bug report if it if you think it might not be Then again think before you you open that issue one other thing I want to talk about it's not just you guys opening issues in a wrong form as as far as hey This isn't my problem. This is the another projects problem. You should go open this issue there I'm talking about some people open issues on completely inappropriate places for example YouTube now I posted a video yesterday about DTOS the launch of DTOS and I know immediately people are trying to script some of these people are getting errors And they're gonna report those errors in the comment thread on YouTube. I know that and that's cool I'm not gonna tell them to go to GitLab to open the issue I'm gonna I spent all day yesterday monitoring the comments for that video and responding to all the support requests And I did the same thing today as well, but here's the thing. I'm not gonna do that tomorrow I'm not gonna do that next week right at some point. I'm not gonna go back to these old videos and Monitor comments for support kinds of questions. There's no way YouTube sucks as far as a Support channel you can't properly support people on YouTube because YouTube is not a bulletin board system or a web form It's more like a social media site. It's not designed For that kind of task. So yes, you guys that ask questions the last couple of days you guys you got answers to your support Questions you're probably not gonna get it on that video going forward because again YouTube I can't support people through YouTube comments That's not it's just not the right venue because one of the things about YouTube as a content creator when I upload Almost all of the views that that video is gonna get are within the first 24 hours after that Nobody else is watching that video. That's not entirely true But the views go drastically down after that meaning if you opened a support request on that video today That I posted yesterday Very few people are watching that video today if you had done it yesterday You had a much better a much larger audience That have a chance to actually read your comment and maybe give you an answer today Not so much and the truth is most of the people that watch a video don't read the comments And the very few people that do watch a video and read the comments most of those people don't post comments You know most people watch YouTube to watch videos. They don't well go to YouTube to chat You know that that's not what most people do. It's just a bad form as far as a support form That's not don't post any kind of support questions on YouTube again. That's a video content creator I know that not everybody knows this and some people just have never been told this That's why I'm telling you guys today on video It's just a bad place to ask any kind of support question And one final thing I want to mention is wherever it is you open a bug or file an issue get hub get lab Anybody's forms it doesn't matter make sure that when your issue hasn't been resolved Mark that issue has having been resolved Maybe do one final post in that thread letting people know your issue was fixed and exactly what you did to fix it So many issues get opened and they never get resolved or they get resolved you fixed your problem But you know that issue that I filed on get hub or get lab I never go back and tell people how I fixed the problem So it just stays open which means down the road somebody else is gonna have that exact same problem They're gonna do a Google search. They're gonna find your thread on this bug reporting site And they're like well, I wonder if he fixed his problem if he fixed his problem. What did he do to fix his problem? Well You did nothing to help them because you didn't go back and actually report that if you take the time to follow A bug report, please see it all the way through and because most people that follow bug report They get their bugs resolved rather quickly and make sure you let everyone know exactly what you did to fix that problem again It's just paying it forward. It's gonna help the next guy. Anyway, that's all for today guys. Peace