10 ms·

Despite just 5.8% sales, over 38% of bug reports come from the Linux community (2021)

448 points by sohkamyung 3y ago

elkos 3y ago
I tend to file bug reports all the time on the Linux systems I work with because that's the least I can do to assist the developers of the open source projects involved.
- jjgreen 3y ago
  I do the same for smaller projects, for larger ones that is not always appreciated https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37672074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37672074
vikramkr 3y ago
Honestly I think the whole "having a title that leads to the opposite conclusion as the details" move is a very bad idea. I think it likely most people will not read the article or the comments and the outcome of writing and sharing this article in that case will be increasing anti-linux sentiment, the exact opposite of what the author would have hoped for.
- blahgeek 3y ago
  Interesting. I didn’t misinterpret this title as you did. I assume if the content is really about what you think, the title should be something like “38% of bugs comes from…” or “38% of crashes comes from…” instead of this
  - manicennui 3y ago
    I think the point is that ultimately, only 3 bugs were platform specific and most of the additional reports were bugs that affected everyone.
- ot 3y ago
  The title is as factual as it can be. If you were expecting a different conclusion, it may have been due to prior biases. If the title said "Mac users" instead of "Linux community", would you have expected a different conclusion?
  - vikramkr 3y ago
    The pre-existing cultural context is that "everyone knows" this fact that Linux is "garbage" and has "way more bugs." This is a title that directly feeds into that. You can fuel misconceptions with pure facts - that's 50% of politics. If it had been amc sinstead the conclusion would have been "oh wow, Mac gaming really must not be ready yet" if seen int he context of a gaming forum or "oh wow, Mac must be worse than I thought" otherwise. The average common fool on the street and the average highly successful corporate executive both think bug reports are bad. The audience of people who will actually read the article isn't the majority of the audience that'll be influenced by it. Also the title might be factual but the actual article is about Linux users, not Linux, which is one way it's very easy to mislead with "facts"
  - vikramkr 3y ago
    Also yes, duh, my point is that the prior bias in question is the common one that's being reinforced by the title
flotwig 3y ago
I was bracing myself for another "don't support Linux because packaging is a mess" post, but was pleasantly surprised. Only 3 of the Linux reported bugs were Linux-specific - all the others were real cross-platform bugs affecting everyone. Free QA, indeed.
0x38B 3y ago
koderski on the details (1): > There are not so much low-level details, really. I got a bunch of reports ("game is crashing when I have geologists, here are logs/versions/cores"), I send out huge binaries with debug symbols with them, got a core back that pointed exactly to the problem. > Fixed that and added a debug log there to just make sure it worked well, and after reviewing unrelated reports from windows I found that it would hit these players too, they just didn't report that. What stood out to me is that the Windows players often encountered the same bugs, but didn't report them, or were vague to the point of uselessness (e.g. "Game crashes after a couple hours"), in contrast to players on Linux. 1: https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qeqn3b/despite_having_just_58_sales_over_38_of_bug/hhv4uec/ https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qeqn3b/despite_hav... --- Perhaps a more descriptive title would be that "Linux players are 6x more likely to report bugs than Windows players" or something of that nature.
- tester457 3y ago
  The author considers the bug reporting to be a benefit, it's a contrast from this post last month "One game, by one man, on six platforms: The good, the bad and the ugly" [0]. > The Ugly > Linux accounts for less than 1% of the total players, so from a business perspective, it is not worth it. And the platform has the highest percentage of players who run into platform-specific issues - the time used for customer support only makes the economy worse. Also, I don’t own a Steam Deck, so adding support is not always easy: Valve does not provide a SteamOS image to test. So Steam Deck-specific code (like controller support, starting the game in full-screen, making the UI bigger, etc) is not tested end-to-end. I’ve used HoloISO with limited success. > TL;DR: Even worse economy than Mac but less annoyance perhaps [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37862606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37862606
  - dangus 3y ago
    I believe Valve is working on a SteamOS 3 image for general purpose PCs and confirmed it publicly, but we don’t know the release date.
    - 3y ago
branon 3y ago
... because Linux users are better at filing bug reports! ;)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
CivBase 3y ago
I wonder if those metrics would be the same regardless of whether the game was officially supported on Linux or unofficially supported through Proton.
- nottorp 3y ago
  If it's emulated I'd assume it's unsupported and not report anything.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    This is what I do. Running under an emulator is a signal to me that I'm on my own. Now I'm rethinking that interpretation, though. Is this an incorrect stance?
    - nottorp 3y ago
      Well if there is an official Mac/Linux package with wine+the game from the developer, we could presume they want feedback. If it's just the Proton built into Steam, then I don't know. But then I haven't tried gaming on Linux, either desktop or a Steam Deck, lately so I don't know what the atmosphere is. Atm I only run a Mac Mini (I have Linux and Windows boxes but I only remote into them) and a PS5. On Mac OS you run games in spite of Apple, and on the PS5 games just work.
    - Adverblessly 3y ago
      Some developers explicitly indicate that Linux is officially supported via Proton, in which case I think it makes sense to report bugs, otherwise similarly I wouldn't bother.
- extraduder_ire 3y ago
  I would guess it's somewhere in the middle, but with most of the bug reports going to whoever's maintaining proton rather than the developer.
  - account42 3y ago
CoastalCoder 3y ago
I'm curious if this has to do with people's day job. I'm guessing that software developers make a bigger fraction of Linux gamers than of Windows gamers.
- TheRoque 3y ago
  I think it has to do more about the fact that people using Linux are more educated about software, sharing knowledge, and working for fr... Sorry I meant, working for the community
  - oblio 3y ago
    > I think it has to do more about the fact that people using Linux are more educated about software, sharing knowledge. So you're saying they're software developers (and sysadmins)?
    - TheRoque 3y ago
      Usually, developers, or people aware that actual real humans are behind software, that it's not all magic.
    - bruce343434 3y ago
      So you're implying those are one and the same set?
- simion314 3y ago
  I think Linux users will try to help themselves, will check for the application output, find the logs, ask for help and help each other to troubleshoot. I made an app for Windows, and it was hard to explain the user how to find the log file in %appdata% , after a few support cases I just made a wizard for the users to use it and send the logs to us because it was to hard for them to find and submit a log file.
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    >after a few support cases I just made a wizard for the users to use it and send the logs to us because it was to hard for them to find and submit a log file. There must generic libraries for this? Whats the standard way to do it? Do they get sent as email? as Post request to a server? or does it create a ticket or github report?
lupusreal 3y ago
You're welcome. Of course if you don't want to know about bugs you can always ignore the reports, so I hope this isn't meant as a complaint.
jbverschoor 3y ago
Unfortunately, Apple doesn't value developer's feedback higher than normal-user feedback
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- byyll 3y ago
  Apple values feedback?
  - jbverschoor 3y ago
    touche
dangus 3y ago
The game in question is a great game, by the way.
brycewray 3y ago
(2021)
panzi 3y ago
As a Linux user I was trained to never report any bugs if you use the proprietary Nvidia drivers, because the report will just be dismissed (no matter if the stack trace indicates the crash being Nvidia's fault). Though I guess for a game this would finally be different! In fact I submitted a fix for a crash in a game (you can compile it yourself, but not open source license) that affected all OSes before.
- nijave 3y ago
  I've never tried it personally, but Nvidia has support forums for users experiencing bugs. They have a support script to collect additional information for reporting problems
  - panzi 3y ago
    The bugs I'm referring to never where Nvidia bugs. Bugs in some kind of GUI programs, but because I used Nvidia drivers they just dismissed the bug. It's a long time ago and I got that response from multiple projects, so I stopped reporting bugs of any GUI programs.
    - account42 3y ago
      Nvidia kind of expects everyone to adapt to them rather than play nice with the community so I won't blame anyone for not volunteering their free time to deal with them.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  I submitted a bug + instructions to fix for an Nivida project and it got fixed in the next release
  - panzi 3y ago
    They where never Nvidia bugs. Just that if you use Nvidia drivers many GUI projects will ignore your bug report. It was a long time ago so I don't remember the details. Happened with multiple projects (not the same bug, the same response by the devs when they found out I use Nvidia drivers).
danilocesar 3y ago
Windows players prefer to complain on twitter :)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ho_schi 3y ago
Bugreport for headline Linux users provide more and better bug reports. Which helps developers improving overall quality. I still wonder why Valve didn’t provided Counter-Strike 2 earlier for Linux. The average user of Windows doesn’t know where and who to reports bugs. System tooling for reporting bugs on Windows is also less advanced. Developers of closed-source applications historically avoided to provide open bug trackers. The literally trained their users not to report bugs. In best case there is a forum. Most of the time only an E-Mail address is available.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tux3 3y ago
  >System tooling for reporting bugs on Windows is also less advanced. Windows has plenty of solid diagnostic/post-mortem tools. They also have ETW (Event Tracing for Windows), and they're pioneers in vacuuming up crash reports at scale with invasive telemetry. If for instance someone tries to run an exploit against you and they cause any instability whatsoever in Windows, the stacktrace can end up on someone's desk at MS and vulnerabilities are regularly discovered and fixed that way. That doesn't replace a user giving good bug reports, but their tooling is not less advanced at all. As a salient point of comparison, the most advanced tooling for bug reporting that the Linux kernel has, is "printk a warning into the log and hope someone looks at it"
  - throw555chip 3y ago
    > the stacktrace can end up on someone's desk This is chillingly scary and one reason why I use Linux desktop.
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      Microsoft has good protocols around this to respect people's privacy and devs can only temporarily have access to them.
pierat 3y ago
And 95% of those reported software errors affect windows and Linux both. And fixes to those defects benefit both OS users.
arnaudsm 3y ago
Frequently when I encounter a bug in a consumer web app, I de-obfuscate the JS, find the bug, and contact the support team with the reproduction steps and a suggested patch. They fix it much faster this way.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  I usually give them a review that reflects the quality of their product. They can hire more qa people and developers or managers that prioritise bug fixing and thus customer satisfaction. I only send bug reports to open source products.
- swyx 3y ago
  what is your procedure for de obfuscating the js
fortran77 3y ago
Clearly these users aren't profitable. If people on the other platforms don't notice or care about these bugs, they're better customers.
- AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
  I would disagree. Windows users care about the bugs, but not about reporting them. How many times do I see reviews on steam like "great game but too many bug / game breaking bug X" so 2/10. Most users just experience the bugs, get mad about the game and move on. Being able to fix the bugs fast and early means less users will experience them in the long run, which in turns means a better gaming experience and very likely better player retention and higher review/player attraction
- wardedVibe 3y ago
  free QA seems pretty valuable
- miningape 3y ago
  > Clearly QA isn't profitable. If people using the software don't notice or care about these bugs, they're better customers. It's not that they don't care about the bug its that they don't care about you. Users will just use a competitor, spread bad word of mouth, and be hesitant to try again - all without telling you a thing about their decision.
- smokel 3y ago
  Perhaps you have not read the article? In your defense, the title is a bit misleading. The article states that the Linux users report more bugs, but these bugs affect other platforms as well. Hence, the Linux users are probably even more profitable, because they provide free QA.
- account42 3y ago
  And this attitude is why most software is mediocre and not fun to use.
- indymike 3y ago
  > If people on the other platforms don't notice or care about these bugs, they're better customers. Or they are experiencing the bug and are slowly but surely becoming ex-customers. > Clearly these users aren't profitable. This assumes facts not in evidence. Defect reporting can be ridiculously valuable, especially in situations where your product is delivered over the internet. For example, a user reports a "can't reset password" bug. It turns out to be a hack where the auth address is being redirected to a server that is collecting credentials.
incomingpain 3y ago
Imagine you manufacture 3 wheeled cars. 1 day you decide, alright we're going to add the 4th wheel. There might be some bugs to work out. All the users who get the optional 4th wheel though... boy they complain an awful lot about problems they experience.
- themoonisachees 3y ago
  Imagine you manufacture HN posts. 1 day you decides alright I'm going to post an article with a title that leads people in the opposite direction of the conclusion. All the users who only read the title though... They complain an awful lot about problems they have never experienced.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Are members of the Linux community more likely to file bug reports?
- db48x 3y ago
  Absolutely. In fact, I have started to encounter players that regard bug reports as something they would only do if they are being paid. Never mind that they paid for the game and deserve to have as bug–free an experience as possible, they just won't tell the developers about the bugs because it’s not their job. Most of them use Windows, but a few use OSX. This makes the ratio even more stark.
dspillett 3y ago
The headline could be read as stating this is a problem, but if you read further: > The report quality is stellar. … They are reporting getting many useful bug reports from Linux users, far more so than the rest of the population.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bigbacaloa 3y ago
[dead]
outside1234 3y ago
Are we really surprised? Linux users are just way more involved - this is the community that will spend 6 months getting a sound driver installed after all.
eurekin 3y ago
Wouldn't be surprised, if triple A studios jumped on linux for that sweet free QA
hprotagonist 3y ago
Do you know how many of these 400 bug reports were actually platform-specific? 3. Literally only 3 things were problems that came out just on Linux. The rest of them were affecting everyone - the thing is, the Linux community is exceptionally well trained in reporting bugs. A nice surprise! I was expecting the usual “distros are hard” screed, but instead it was the other reason.
godelski 3y ago
This is an important lesson and a post I'm glad frequents the front page, because the lesson is far from learned. Here's another one. The customer is always right __in matters of taste__. Users will often try to be helpful and make suggestions about how problems may be solved. This suggestion will often be bad. But remember that the system is more opaque to them so they may not see all the complexity that exists. BUT this does not mean that their issue is bad. If the user has an issue, the user has an issue and someone reporting is not just one. They're just the one to report. You can throw away the bad suggested solution and still address the issue. Read the suggestion instead as additional context in to understand what the user really is looking for, i.e. taste. Never respond with "rtfm" and instead with "here's a link to the specific section in our documentation with an explanation." Far too many developers think that simply because documentation exists that it is clear and understandable. Far too many times have I made a report, referenced the documentation, and gotten back "well you just need to <do complicated task> just rtfm." Even in instances where I've demonstrated a solution but am reporting unexpected behavior. Too many times I've gotten "well that's actually x's problem, not ours" and the cycle. If users are using your software, it's your problem and you must communicate upstream, not the user. This is why I do not contribute as much anymore. It's just too exhausting and I'm not alone. And let's not rely on internal communities for reporting cough signal cough. I see these everywhere, places like Signal, Spotify, Microsoft, etc. If you got a github, leave it open and respond to it. I love Signal but the community forums are an absolute shithole of people who understand neither privacy or security. They are worse than the arch forums. Most internal communities, volunteer moderated, are destined for this unbearable quality. You're just creating a breeding ground for toxicity, not creating a centralized location for bug tracking and community engagement. You got to go wherever your customers are. If they keep trying to report on github you accept that that's where they come through, not send them down another channel where they must make another account. You're just hiding bugs that way and making your product worse.
anaisbetts 3y ago
My experience shipping the Slack Desktop app was similar - the Linux bug reports were always insanely specific, detailed, and sometimes literally had the fix to the bug in the report! A huge contrast to the macOS and Windows users (who naturally, were often not IT professionals and were instead good at Law, or Public Policy, or a hundred other things that aren't filing software bug reports)
- RGamma 3y ago
  Yeah, part of it might be because as Linux users we flagellate each other over not RTFMing or missing the obvious. And with everything always broken you get a lot of experience debugging. Certainly that has its upsides too.
  - BenjiWiebe 3y ago
    In Linux' defense - I switched to Linux in a large part because I was interested in the inner workings and wanted to tweak them, and Windows isn't nearly as friendly to that. So I do run into problems with Linux, but a very large percent of them are due to me doing really weird things with my computer.
    - anaisbetts 3y ago
      Windows has all the same facilities, it's just a different userbase (and I guess, less Win32 hackers than Linux hackers around).
- orwin 3y ago
  There is also a "launched in terminal" factor, at least to me, especially when talking about desktop app that do not launch via an app store. When i'm running FF, discord or when i used Slack, i launch the App in a terminal that i let in the background (because of habit: I only have to know one shortcut, ctr-Alt-T, type 2-3 letters, tab, and voila, the stuff is launched, its like macOs Spotlight). That mean that each time the app crash or have an issue, i have the basic log output under my eyes. I just have to copy paste the interesting stuff into the bug report window with basic context clues. And if the bug is persistant, 90% of the time i can find the complete logs easily (tbf it happened once, so i'm lying about the 90% :P). When i'm on Window playing Anno (or using discord), or on MacOs jamming, i don't think i ever submitted a real bug report, because i just don't have the logs easily accessible, and when the bug is persistant and prevent me from doing X, since i don't have a clue where i can find the /var/log equivalent, i just boot linux and do something else.
jw_cook 3y ago
For anyone curious about the game itself, I'd highly recommend it if you're into space sims. It's not exactly difficult, but it does get somewhat technical and gives you minimal handholding. It's fun and satisfying to figure out how the game mechanics work via experimentation, though, which I think is the kind of thing this crowd would find appealing.
PeterStuer 3y ago
My experiences decades ago in a different domain (compilers), but with a simmilar lesson learned, was that the number of serious bugs in the product was inversely correlated with the number of people using the product. Niche cross-compiler for experimental microcontrollers had many bugs even in core features, wildly popular compiler for pc platforms might not be perfect, but typically has almost 0 bugs in common cases.
Saint-Jean254 3y ago
[dead]
paulmd 3y ago
Despite making up just 5.8% of the population…

448 points by sohkamyung 3y ago

I tend to file bug reports all the time on the Linux systems I work with because that's the least I can do to assist the developers of the open source projects involved.

jjgreen 3y ago
I do the same for smaller projects, for larger ones that is not always appreciated https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37672074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37672074

vikramkr 3y ago

Honestly I think the whole "having a title that leads to the opposite conclusion as the details" move is a very bad idea. I think it likely most people will not read the article or the comments and the outcome of writing and sharing this article in that case will be increasing anti-linux sentiment, the exact opposite of what the author would have hoped for.

blahgeek 3y ago
Interesting. I didn’t misinterpret this title as you did. I assume if the content is really about what you think, the title should be something like “38% of bugs comes from…” or “38% of crashes comes from…” instead of this
- manicennui 3y ago
  I think the point is that ultimately, only 3 bugs were platform specific and most of the additional reports were bugs that affected everyone.
ot 3y ago
The title is as factual as it can be. If you were expecting a different conclusion, it may have been due to prior biases. If the title said "Mac users" instead of "Linux community", would you have expected a different conclusion?
- vikramkr 3y ago
  The pre-existing cultural context is that "everyone knows" this fact that Linux is "garbage" and has "way more bugs." This is a title that directly feeds into that. You can fuel misconceptions with pure facts - that's 50% of politics. If it had been amc sinstead the conclusion would have been "oh wow, Mac gaming really must not be ready yet" if seen int he context of a gaming forum or "oh wow, Mac must be worse than I thought" otherwise. The average common fool on the street and the average highly successful corporate executive both think bug reports are bad. The audience of people who will actually read the article isn't the majority of the audience that'll be influenced by it. Also the title might be factual but the actual article is about Linux users, not Linux, which is one way it's very easy to mislead with "facts"
- vikramkr 3y ago
  Also yes, duh, my point is that the prior bias in question is the common one that's being reinforced by the title

flotwig 3y ago

I was bracing myself for another "don't support Linux because packaging is a mess" post, but was pleasantly surprised. Only 3 of the Linux reported bugs were Linux-specific - all the others were real cross-platform bugs affecting everyone. Free QA, indeed.

0x38B 3y ago

koderski on the details (1): > There are not so much low-level details, really. I got a bunch of reports ("game is crashing when I have geologists, here are logs/versions/cores"), I send out huge binaries with debug symbols with them, got a core back that pointed exactly to the problem. > Fixed that and added a debug log there to just make sure it worked well, and after reviewing unrelated reports from windows I found that it would hit these players too, they just didn't report that. What stood out to me is that the Windows players often encountered the same bugs, but didn't report them, or were vague to the point of uselessness (e.g. "Game crashes after a couple hours"), in contrast to players on Linux. 1: https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qeqn3b/despite_having_just_58_sales_over_38_of_bug/hhv4uec/ https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qeqn3b/despite_hav... --- Perhaps a more descriptive title would be that "Linux players are 6x more likely to report bugs than Windows players" or something of that nature.

tester457 3y ago
The author considers the bug reporting to be a benefit, it's a contrast from this post last month "One game, by one man, on six platforms: The good, the bad and the ugly" [0]. > The Ugly > Linux accounts for less than 1% of the total players, so from a business perspective, it is not worth it. And the platform has the highest percentage of players who run into platform-specific issues - the time used for customer support only makes the economy worse. Also, I don’t own a Steam Deck, so adding support is not always easy: Valve does not provide a SteamOS image to test. So Steam Deck-specific code (like controller support, starting the game in full-screen, making the UI bigger, etc) is not tested end-to-end. I’ve used HoloISO with limited success. > TL;DR: Even worse economy than Mac but less annoyance perhaps [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37862606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37862606
- dangus 3y ago
  I believe Valve is working on a SteamOS 3 image for general purpose PCs and confirmed it publicly, but we don’t know the release date.
  - 3y ago

branon 3y ago

... because Linux users are better at filing bug reports! ;)

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

CivBase 3y ago

I wonder if those metrics would be the same regardless of whether the game was officially supported on Linux or unofficially supported through Proton.

nottorp 3y ago
If it's emulated I'd assume it's unsupported and not report anything.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  This is what I do. Running under an emulator is a signal to me that I'm on my own. Now I'm rethinking that interpretation, though. Is this an incorrect stance?
  - nottorp 3y ago
    Well if there is an official Mac/Linux package with wine+the game from the developer, we could presume they want feedback. If it's just the Proton built into Steam, then I don't know. But then I haven't tried gaming on Linux, either desktop or a Steam Deck, lately so I don't know what the atmosphere is. Atm I only run a Mac Mini (I have Linux and Windows boxes but I only remote into them) and a PS5. On Mac OS you run games in spite of Apple, and on the PS5 games just work.
  - Adverblessly 3y ago
    Some developers explicitly indicate that Linux is officially supported via Proton, in which case I think it makes sense to report bugs, otherwise similarly I wouldn't bother.
extraduder_ire 3y ago
I would guess it's somewhere in the middle, but with most of the bug reports going to whoever's maintaining proton rather than the developer.
- account42 3y ago

CoastalCoder 3y ago

I'm curious if this has to do with people's day job. I'm guessing that software developers make a bigger fraction of Linux gamers than of Windows gamers.

TheRoque 3y ago
I think it has to do more about the fact that people using Linux are more educated about software, sharing knowledge, and working for fr... Sorry I meant, working for the community
- oblio 3y ago
  > I think it has to do more about the fact that people using Linux are more educated about software, sharing knowledge. So you're saying they're software developers (and sysadmins)?
  - TheRoque 3y ago
    Usually, developers, or people aware that actual real humans are behind software, that it's not all magic.
  - bruce343434 3y ago
    So you're implying those are one and the same set?
simion314 3y ago
I think Linux users will try to help themselves, will check for the application output, find the logs, ask for help and help each other to troubleshoot. I made an app for Windows, and it was hard to explain the user how to find the log file in %appdata% , after a few support cases I just made a wizard for the users to use it and send the logs to us because it was to hard for them to find and submit a log file.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  >after a few support cases I just made a wizard for the users to use it and send the logs to us because it was to hard for them to find and submit a log file. There must generic libraries for this? Whats the standard way to do it? Do they get sent as email? as Post request to a server? or does it create a ticket or github report?

lupusreal 3y ago

You're welcome. Of course if you don't want to know about bugs you can always ignore the reports, so I hope this isn't meant as a complaint.

jbverschoor 3y ago

Unfortunately, Apple doesn't value developer's feedback higher than normal-user feedback

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
byyll 3y ago
Apple values feedback?
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  touche

dangus 3y ago

The game in question is a great game, by the way.

brycewray 3y ago

(2021)

panzi 3y ago

As a Linux user I was trained to never report any bugs if you use the proprietary Nvidia drivers, because the report will just be dismissed (no matter if the stack trace indicates the crash being Nvidia's fault). Though I guess for a game this would finally be different! In fact I submitted a fix for a crash in a game (you can compile it yourself, but not open source license) that affected all OSes before.

nijave 3y ago
I've never tried it personally, but Nvidia has support forums for users experiencing bugs. They have a support script to collect additional information for reporting problems
- panzi 3y ago
  The bugs I'm referring to never where Nvidia bugs. Bugs in some kind of GUI programs, but because I used Nvidia drivers they just dismissed the bug. It's a long time ago and I got that response from multiple projects, so I stopped reporting bugs of any GUI programs.
  - account42 3y ago
    Nvidia kind of expects everyone to adapt to them rather than play nice with the community so I won't blame anyone for not volunteering their free time to deal with them.
charcircuit 3y ago
I submitted a bug + instructions to fix for an Nivida project and it got fixed in the next release
- panzi 3y ago
  They where never Nvidia bugs. Just that if you use Nvidia drivers many GUI projects will ignore your bug report. It was a long time ago so I don't remember the details. Happened with multiple projects (not the same bug, the same response by the devs when they found out I use Nvidia drivers).

danilocesar 3y ago

Windows players prefer to complain on twitter :)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ho_schi 3y ago

Bugreport for headline Linux users provide more and better bug reports. Which helps developers improving overall quality. I still wonder why Valve didn’t provided Counter-Strike 2 earlier for Linux. The average user of Windows doesn’t know where and who to reports bugs. System tooling for reporting bugs on Windows is also less advanced. Developers of closed-source applications historically avoided to provide open bug trackers. The literally trained their users not to report bugs. In best case there is a forum. Most of the time only an E-Mail address is available.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tux3 3y ago
>System tooling for reporting bugs on Windows is also less advanced. Windows has plenty of solid diagnostic/post-mortem tools. They also have ETW (Event Tracing for Windows), and they're pioneers in vacuuming up crash reports at scale with invasive telemetry. If for instance someone tries to run an exploit against you and they cause any instability whatsoever in Windows, the stacktrace can end up on someone's desk at MS and vulnerabilities are regularly discovered and fixed that way. That doesn't replace a user giving good bug reports, but their tooling is not less advanced at all. As a salient point of comparison, the most advanced tooling for bug reporting that the Linux kernel has, is "printk a warning into the log and hope someone looks at it"
- throw555chip 3y ago
  > the stacktrace can end up on someone's desk This is chillingly scary and one reason why I use Linux desktop.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    Microsoft has good protocols around this to respect people's privacy and devs can only temporarily have access to them.

pierat 3y ago

And 95% of those reported software errors affect windows and Linux both. And fixes to those defects benefit both OS users.

arnaudsm 3y ago

Frequently when I encounter a bug in a consumer web app, I de-obfuscate the JS, find the bug, and contact the support team with the reproduction steps and a suggested patch. They fix it much faster this way.

gumballindie 3y ago
I usually give them a review that reflects the quality of their product. They can hire more qa people and developers or managers that prioritise bug fixing and thus customer satisfaction. I only send bug reports to open source products.
swyx 3y ago
what is your procedure for de obfuscating the js

fortran77 3y ago

Clearly these users aren't profitable. If people on the other platforms don't notice or care about these bugs, they're better customers.

AStrangeMorrow 3y ago
I would disagree. Windows users care about the bugs, but not about reporting them. How many times do I see reviews on steam like "great game but too many bug / game breaking bug X" so 2/10. Most users just experience the bugs, get mad about the game and move on. Being able to fix the bugs fast and early means less users will experience them in the long run, which in turns means a better gaming experience and very likely better player retention and higher review/player attraction
wardedVibe 3y ago
free QA seems pretty valuable
miningape 3y ago
> Clearly QA isn't profitable. If people using the software don't notice or care about these bugs, they're better customers. It's not that they don't care about the bug its that they don't care about you. Users will just use a competitor, spread bad word of mouth, and be hesitant to try again - all without telling you a thing about their decision.
smokel 3y ago
Perhaps you have not read the article? In your defense, the title is a bit misleading. The article states that the Linux users report more bugs, but these bugs affect other platforms as well. Hence, the Linux users are probably even more profitable, because they provide free QA.
account42 3y ago
And this attitude is why most software is mediocre and not fun to use.
indymike 3y ago
> If people on the other platforms don't notice or care about these bugs, they're better customers. Or they are experiencing the bug and are slowly but surely becoming ex-customers. > Clearly these users aren't profitable. This assumes facts not in evidence. Defect reporting can be ridiculously valuable, especially in situations where your product is delivered over the internet. For example, a user reports a "can't reset password" bug. It turns out to be a hack where the auth address is being redirected to a server that is collecting credentials.

incomingpain 3y ago

Imagine you manufacture 3 wheeled cars. 1 day you decide, alright we're going to add the 4th wheel. There might be some bugs to work out. All the users who get the optional 4th wheel though... boy they complain an awful lot about problems they experience.

themoonisachees 3y ago
Imagine you manufacture HN posts. 1 day you decides alright I'm going to post an article with a title that leads people in the opposite direction of the conclusion. All the users who only read the title though... They complain an awful lot about problems they have never experienced.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

Are members of the Linux community more likely to file bug reports?

db48x 3y ago
Absolutely. In fact, I have started to encounter players that regard bug reports as something they would only do if they are being paid. Never mind that they paid for the game and deserve to have as bug–free an experience as possible, they just won't tell the developers about the bugs because it’s not their job. Most of them use Windows, but a few use OSX. This makes the ratio even more stark.

dspillett 3y ago

The headline could be read as stating this is a problem, but if you read further: > The report quality is stellar. … They are reporting getting many useful bug reports from Linux users, far more so than the rest of the population.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bigbacaloa 3y ago

[dead]

outside1234 3y ago

Are we really surprised? Linux users are just way more involved - this is the community that will spend 6 months getting a sound driver installed after all.

eurekin 3y ago

Wouldn't be surprised, if triple A studios jumped on linux for that sweet free QA

hprotagonist 3y ago

Do you know how many of these 400 bug reports were actually platform-specific? 3. Literally only 3 things were problems that came out just on Linux. The rest of them were affecting everyone - the thing is, the Linux community is exceptionally well trained in reporting bugs. A nice surprise! I was expecting the usual “distros are hard” screed, but instead it was the other reason.

godelski 3y ago

This is an important lesson and a post I'm glad frequents the front page, because the lesson is far from learned. Here's another one. The customer is always right __in matters of taste__. Users will often try to be helpful and make suggestions about how problems may be solved. This suggestion will often be bad. But remember that the system is more opaque to them so they may not see all the complexity that exists. BUT this does not mean that their issue is bad. If the user has an issue, the user has an issue and someone reporting is not just one. They're just the one to report. You can throw away the bad suggested solution and still address the issue. Read the suggestion instead as additional context in to understand what the user really is looking for, i.e. taste. Never respond with "rtfm" and instead with "here's a link to the specific section in our documentation with an explanation." Far too many developers think that simply because documentation exists that it is clear and understandable. Far too many times have I made a report, referenced the documentation, and gotten back "well you just need to <do complicated task> just rtfm." Even in instances where I've demonstrated a solution but am reporting unexpected behavior. Too many times I've gotten "well that's actually x's problem, not ours" and the cycle. If users are using your software, it's your problem and you must communicate upstream, not the user. This is why I do not contribute as much anymore. It's just too exhausting and I'm not alone. And let's not rely on internal communities for reporting cough signal cough. I see these everywhere, places like Signal, Spotify, Microsoft, etc. If you got a github, leave it open and respond to it. I love Signal but the community forums are an absolute shithole of people who understand neither privacy or security. They are worse than the arch forums. Most internal communities, volunteer moderated, are destined for this unbearable quality. You're just creating a breeding ground for toxicity, not creating a centralized location for bug tracking and community engagement. You got to go wherever your customers are. If they keep trying to report on github you accept that that's where they come through, not send them down another channel where they must make another account. You're just hiding bugs that way and making your product worse.

anaisbetts 3y ago

My experience shipping the Slack Desktop app was similar - the Linux bug reports were always insanely specific, detailed, and sometimes literally had the fix to the bug in the report! A huge contrast to the macOS and Windows users (who naturally, were often not IT professionals and were instead good at Law, or Public Policy, or a hundred other things that aren't filing software bug reports)

RGamma 3y ago
Yeah, part of it might be because as Linux users we flagellate each other over not RTFMing or missing the obvious. And with everything always broken you get a lot of experience debugging. Certainly that has its upsides too.
- BenjiWiebe 3y ago
  In Linux' defense - I switched to Linux in a large part because I was interested in the inner workings and wanted to tweak them, and Windows isn't nearly as friendly to that. So I do run into problems with Linux, but a very large percent of them are due to me doing really weird things with my computer.
  - anaisbetts 3y ago
    Windows has all the same facilities, it's just a different userbase (and I guess, less Win32 hackers than Linux hackers around).
orwin 3y ago
There is also a "launched in terminal" factor, at least to me, especially when talking about desktop app that do not launch via an app store. When i'm running FF, discord or when i used Slack, i launch the App in a terminal that i let in the background (because of habit: I only have to know one shortcut, ctr-Alt-T, type 2-3 letters, tab, and voila, the stuff is launched, its like macOs Spotlight). That mean that each time the app crash or have an issue, i have the basic log output under my eyes. I just have to copy paste the interesting stuff into the bug report window with basic context clues. And if the bug is persistant, 90% of the time i can find the complete logs easily (tbf it happened once, so i'm lying about the 90% :P). When i'm on Window playing Anno (or using discord), or on MacOs jamming, i don't think i ever submitted a real bug report, because i just don't have the logs easily accessible, and when the bug is persistant and prevent me from doing X, since i don't have a clue where i can find the /var/log equivalent, i just boot linux and do something else.

jw_cook 3y ago

For anyone curious about the game itself, I'd highly recommend it if you're into space sims. It's not exactly difficult, but it does get somewhat technical and gives you minimal handholding. It's fun and satisfying to figure out how the game mechanics work via experimentation, though, which I think is the kind of thing this crowd would find appealing.

PeterStuer 3y ago

My experiences decades ago in a different domain (compilers), but with a simmilar lesson learned, was that the number of serious bugs in the product was inversely correlated with the number of people using the product. Niche cross-compiler for experimental microcontrollers had many bugs even in core features, wildly popular compiler for pc platforms might not be perfect, but typically has almost 0 bugs in common cases.

Saint-Jean254 3y ago

[dead]

paulmd 3y ago

Despite making up just 5.8% of the population…