Reporting a bug

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After you are sure you found a bug, it is important to make sure that your information gets to the right place. Try to find what program is causing the bug--if you can't find it, perhaps you could ask for help in comp.os.linux.help or comp.unix.misc. Once you find the program, try to read the manual page to see who wrote it.

The preferred method of sending bug reports in the world is via electronic mail. If you don't have access to electronic mail, you might want to contact whoever you got from--eventually, you're bound to encounter someone who either has electronic mail, or sells commercially and therefore wants to remove as many bugs as possible. Remember, though, that no one is under any obligation to fix any bugs unless you have a contract!

When you send a bug report in, include all the information you can think of. This includes:

• A description of what you think is incorrect. For instance, ``I get 5 when I compute 2+2'' or ``It says segmentation violation - core dumped.'' It is important to say exactly what is happening so the maintainer can fix your bug!
• Include any relevant environment variables.
• The version of your kernel (see the file /proc/version) and your system libraries (see the directory /lib--if you can't decipher it, send a listing of /lib).
• How you ran the program in question, or, if it was a kernel bug, what you were doing at the time.
• All peripheral information. For instance, the command w; may not be displaying the current process for certain users. Don't just say, ``w doesn't work when for a certain user''. The bug could occur because the user's name is eight characters long, or when he is logging in over the network. Instead say, ``w doesn't display the current process for use greenfie when he logs in over the network.''
• And remember, be polite. Most people work on free software for the fun of it, and because they have big hearts. Don't ruin it for them--the community has already disillusioned too many developers, and it's still early in 's life!