GNU/Linux Desktop Testing Project

Nagappan writes "The GNU/Linux Desktop Testing Project (GNU/LDTP) is aimed at producing high quality test automation framework and cutting-edge tools that can be used to test GNU/Linux Desktop and improve it. It uses the 'Accessibility' libraries to poke through the application's user interface. The framework has tools to generate 'AppMap' by reading through the user interface components of an application. The framework also has tools to record test-cases based on user-selection on the application. As of now, GNU/LDTP can test any GNOME application which is accessibility enabled: Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, any Java application (UI based on swing) and KDE 4.0 applications based on QT 4.0. We encourage you to join the project and help us to create robust, reliable and stable test tool/framework for Linux Desktops. Thanks to Luis Villa for trying to integrate GNU/LDTP with GNOME tinderbox."

Follow the first link.

[Rhinobird]

It's the GNU/Linux Desktop Testing Project wiki.

If they are used...

[bluGill]

This post [kde.org] to kfm-devel [kde.org] yesterday is important to bring up. Tests are useless if nobody runs them an fixes failures. Hopefully the khtml developers will be embarrassed enough by this post to /. + the mailing list message to stop and fix the problems.

Will the other projects? For that matter will kde clean this up? Fixing failing tests is often hard and boring.

Re:If they are used...

[Uncle_Al]

>Hopefully the khtml developers will be embarrassed enough...

Wow. What a great way to motivate people!
You must be a manager right?

Do you know which Testcases fail? (Are they important ones?)

I do believe that your basic point is a valid one. Tests are only usefull if you look at them, especially if you run them as regression tests.

But I do believe that there are more efficient ways of motivating people than by embarrassment.

Re:If they are used...

[Profound]

>> Hopefully the khtml developers will be embarrassed enough...

> Wow. What a great way to motivate people!
> You must be a manager right?

> But I do believe that there are more efficient
> ways of motivating people than by embarrassment.

At my work, we have a lighthearted "hat of shame" that developers must put on their desk if they break the build or cause a test to fail. It stays there, visible to all until the problem is fixed.

It works wonders, but only because we're all in the same location and can see who has it on their desk. For distributed opensource development over the internet, perhaps a similar badge of shame could be implemented by displaying a small icon of a silly hat or a cockroach next to a developer's name when they post in a forum?

The trick is to give some motivation (to remove a silly little tag), but not overwhelm or piss them off. It has to be done in good humor.

Re:If they are used...

[hitmark]

basicly, people need to have the guts to say that they where wrong or screwed up. sadly, very few these days seems to have that.

but one person that seems to have the guts is the guy on top of the linux kernel ;)

Re:If they are used...

[Brandybuck]

It was Coolo that made that post. The khtml developers will of course listen. But don't expect them to drop everything. New bugs need fixing just as much as old bugs.

Needed for Linux to compete in the Big Leagues.

[CyricZ]

This is the sort of thing that is needed for Linux to compete in the Big Leagues, against the Big Boys like Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Indeed, if this testsuite can grow large enough, then a role reversal may occur: Microsoft and Apple will have to catch up to desktop Linux in the stability, efficiency and testability areas.