Installation test is a very important service offered by the QA team. It provides coordinated and focused testing of official Fedora installation media prior to a release milestone (e.g. Alpha, Beta, Preview, GA). This page describes the steps involved when coordinating an installation test event. For any concerns, please contact the QA group.
Set a date for install test
The install test day is held one or two weeks before the release date for any given milestone. See Releases/12/Schedule for specific dates for Fedora 12. DVD/CD/LiveCD images for download need to be made available before this date, and this time should not conflict with other important Fedora events.
Create test result page
The test result page is used to gather test result of installation against Fedora Release Candidate builds. This page mainly includes test cases which need to be executed and tables to gather the results. For some previous test result pages, please see Category:Fedora 11 Test Results. On or around test day, testers should execute the test cases which match their environment, and add their results to the corresponding table.
Creating a test result page using the existing template is easy. For Fedora 12, here is the guide to create a test result page using QA:Fedora_12_Install_Results_Template.
Announce install test day
Currently, we mainly e-mail fedora-test-list to announce an install test day. The announcement mail should provide enough information for testers. Some essential information related to test is necessary. Having these contents will be better:
- Introduction of this test event (date, what to test, known bugs, etc...)
- What test cases need to be executed
- Download address of DVD/CD/LiveCD images
- How and where to add test results
- Contact information of QA members who are available on test day and can help testers who encounter problems.
It is best to announce this event on the mailing list at least 3 days in advance. This should give testers sufficient time to arrange their calendars and prepare a test environment. It is also a good idea to send a reminder e-mail the day before the test.
Try to take timezones into account, to maximize convenience for testers from different regions or countries.
Provide help during install test
During install test day, lots of people will be involved, including experienced users and new comers. Make sure the QA folks whose contact information was announced to mailing list in this test event are available during the testing period. They will provide assistance to those who encounter issues. QA people should be available at：
- IRC: #fedora-qa on irc.freenode.net
- Mailing list: fedora-test-list
- Reference of ways to communicate at Communicate
Rearrange test results and give feedback
After the test period, a lot of results will get posted, not all of them in a unified format. If there is time, try to clean up and make the results look clear and orderly. If possible, try to analyze the gathered results, give feedback and recognize the efforts of testers on the mailing list.