People behind ubuntu quality: Jackson

This post is part of a series on the people behind the ubuntu quality team. Let me introduce you to Jackson, who loves modding his computer. He stumbled his way into ubuntu and hasn't looked back.

1) Could you provide a bit of background about yourself?

My name is Jackson Doak, i'm 14 and live in Australia. I use the nickname “Noskcaj” for everything online. I have been building PCs since i was 12, I've since attempted to make a volenti cooler, which is unfinished.

Check out that ubuntu orange!

2) How did you become invovled with the Ubuntu community?

I found Ubuntu after finishing my first PC and realizing I didn't have enough money to buy windows. I have since been using ubuntu on all my computers except my gaming PC. The ease of customization and security are to of the main reasons I still use Ubuntu.

3) What attracted you to the quality team?

I joined the QA team because I wanted to get involved with the community and it seemed the best option for me.

4) What would you say to folks new to ubuntu and/or testing?

To anyone new to the community/testing: Please try and help, any amount of time is useful, especially if you have a PowerPC computer or something that runs ubuntu touch. Even if you just tell your friends about ubuntu and get us more users, you are helping.

5) How would you describe the community and the experience of using ubuntu?

So far the community has been great, very helpful. Although there does seem to be a lack of cross group communication at times.

6) What would you like to see in the future for ubuntu?

I really do hope that canonical's vision of ubuntu on all 4 screens (PC, tablet, phone and TV) works, and UbuntuKylin's support helps a lot. I want xubuntu to be more well known and used, despite missing a real target audience at the moment.

7) Do you have a favorite experience to share from being a part of ubuntu?

I'm not sure i have a favourite experience.

8) What is your favorite activity or interest outside of computing (including ubuntu!)?

My favourite activity outside of computers would probably be playing soccer.

People behind ubuntu quality: Howard

This post is part of a series on the people behind the ubuntu quality team. Let me introduce you to Howard, an energetic and driven young man who has enjoyed being a part of the community. Howard exemplifies the ability to dive in and learn and continues to expand his horizons 

 and areas of contribution. 

1) Could you provide a bit of background about yourself?
Hello everyone, I'm Howard Chan (smartboyhw on World Wide Web), an energetic 14-year-old (K)ubuntu member from the busy harbour city of Hong Kong SAR, China. I like computers and science (especially Chemistry and Physics), and I like Ubuntu!

2) How did you become invovled with the Ubuntu community?
I was a Windows maniac before I used Ubuntu, and I liked running Beta software of things like Firefox Nightly, Microsoft Security Essentials Beta, Office Beta and such. I got fed up with Windows 8 Consumer Preview since I need to scroll the long start screen to access my applications, so I changed to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I liked Ubuntu, so I decided to start contributing. I joined the Ubuntu QA Team at first in June 2012, then I started to contribute to Ubuntu Studio as their tester for amd64 images. In January 2013 I started to do more development, helping out the Kubuntu Team to package KDE applications. I got my Ubuntu and Kubuntu membership respectively in February and March this year. I am now Ubuntu Studio's Release Manager, responsible for calling people to test, coordinating with the Ubuntu Release Team, marking images ready and such. I also go for some Testdrive hacking, and I am now working on different items in Ubuntu.

3) What attracted you to the quality team?
No need for programming skills. I only know beginner C, C++, Java (and more recently, Python). Except if you are writing automated testcases like Autopilot or autopkgtest, you don't need any programming skills to test applications and images for Ubuntu. You only need to like Ubuntu, that's all.

4) What would you say to folks new to ubuntu and/or testing?
Make sure you ask. If you are new in the community, try asking experienced people what to do and what NOT to do. Also, maintain a humble attitude. IRC etiquette is my biggest pain in the neck, and I don't want new contributors to make my mistakes. Never.

5) How would you describe the community and the experience of using ubuntu?
The community is awesome. Everywhere you go (for example Ubuntu Forums, the Ubuntu Studio IRC channels, Ask Ubuntu chatrooms, etc.) there is a lot of nice people willing to help you, no matter you are a novice user, or a starting contributor. Ubuntu itself is awesome too. We don't need to wait for extremely long release cycles like Debian. We have every desktop environment experiences to utilize. It's just great.

6) What would you like to see in the future for ubuntu?
A harmonized Ubuntu community. I have recently seen conflicts between many flavours, and many people (including me) disgruntling about Canonical moving to a new-styled community that doesn't seem to fit. Conflicts always happen between people, but I seriously hope that we can be more harmonized and create an awesome Linux distribution.

7) Do you have a favorite experience to share from being a part of ubuntu?
LOL that's difficult. A funny thing I've met is under-quorum. When I applied for Ubuntu membership, I almost can't get it since there was almost not enough quorum of Membership Board members until the last minute. That scared a lot of people coming to support me. When I applied for Kubuntu membership, I almost don't have enough votes for approving. That's two scary stories:)

8) What is your favorite activity or interest outside of computing (including ubuntu!)?
I love watching TV, Science and Fencing. I play fencing every Saturday. I am also a lover of teenage novels. Of course I like Ubuntu!

People behind ubuntu quality: Javier

This post is part of a series on the people behind the ubuntu quality team.  Let me introduce you to Javier who has had a hand in many different quality activities. He hails from Mexico and enjoys taking part in many different teams within ubuntu.

1) Could you provide a bit of background about yourself?

My name is Javier Lopez, I'm a random 2x years old guy living in Mexico city.

2) How did you become invovled with the Ubuntu community?

I become involved because I believe in the Ubuntu and open source philosophy.

3) What attracted you to the quality team?

Nicholas's blog, I used to be a Daniel Holbach super fan, but since I started reading Nicholas one, Daniel has fallen one spot, I like seeing all that energy spread over the community and its never ending enthusiasm. I'll hunt you and hug you both of you guys! ¬_¬

Contributing some iso testing results

4) What would you say to folks new to ubuntu and/or testing?

I'd encourage anyone to join any of the Ubuntu teams, you'll learn more about the system, will meet nice people and will help to build one of the most awesome and biggest projects around.

5) How would you describe the community and the experience of using ubuntu?

I'd say that the Ubuntu community is one of the most friendly communities I've ever meet, that feels great in addition to the nice system which comes with it.
As alpha tester, there are times where the ubuntu experience is not as great as an LTS ubuntu system, but I also enjoy seeing how the bugs reported get fixed and how the few patches I've sent get integrated.

6) What would you like to see in the future for ubuntu?

I'd like to see more loco teams awesomeness, people going crazy about it (something like a randall ross clone program), designers all over the place, companies funding more community programmers, more ubuntu woman members, an ubuntu skynet..

7) Do you have a favorite experience to share from being a part of ubuntu?

I like seeing people's face when they first meet an Ubuntu system, specially when they like it and they're not computer gangsters.

Javier enjoys playing the violin

8) What is your favorite activity or interest outside of computing (including ubuntu!)?

I like going out with my friends, and learning new things, I also like talking with other foreign people and traveling around my country, specially small towns. I'm trying to setup a couple of companies, so I'll be able to spend more time enjoying life en less working in an office.

People behind ubuntu quality: Sergio

This post is part of a series on the people behind the ubuntu quality team. Let me introduce you to Sergio who has been an amazing contributor to the ubuntu-manual-tests. He hails from South America and is empowered to help the Spanish speaking population of ubuntu participate by making technical help available in there native language.

1) Could you provide a bit of background about yourself?

Hi! My name is Sergio Andrés Meneses as you can figure it out by my nickname (SergioMeneses), I am 24 years old, I am from Cúcuta/Colombia and I belong to the LocoCouncil and the Ubuntu QA-team.

2) How did you become invovled with the Ubuntu community?

I began with Ubuntu 7.10 and my first contact was in my university, Francisco de Paula Santander University. And later I met Ubuntu-Colombian team (My LocoTeam), where I learned a lot and especialy about how to work in community.

3) What attracted you to the quality team?

I always liked to work on testing, I have been really interesting about the quality in free software or open source projects, so this was an amazing oportunity to learn and help to do Ubuntu better. But in the Raring-cycle (13.04), I was more involved with another things like: Bugs, Reports, Test-cases, Testing-applications and as always: Testing-isos. This was my first contact officially with the ubuntu QA-team.

Contributing to the manual tests project

4) What would you say to folks new to ubuntu and/or testing?

An interesting question, let me think!... If you like technology, If you like to learn a lot and you want to share with amazing people. You're place is in the Ubuntu-Community. and why do you have to be in the testing team?... because we are the best team! we are not only users or IT engineers, we are friends with jokes, having a good time and the most important thing: we work to do Ubuntu better!

5) How would you describe the community and the experience of using ubuntu?

About the community I have the right word: Friendship, wherever you see friendship is the bigger characteristic in all the teams and it makes that your contributions on ubuntu are a good run. About my experience of using ubuntu: it's the best, I use Ubuntu in computers, its performance is amazing, as programmer and sysadmin I dont have any issue with it... I always recommend it. :)

6) What would you like to see in the future for ubuntu?

There are interesting things in the future but I'm going to put emphasis on two things: the rolling release system and ubuntu-touch especially phones, and why this? - because we had a passionate discussion in several mailinglists, blogs, forums, IRC... everybody was crazy! literally. But I like to see in the future something less technical: "I would like to see more young people working in the community, especially people from LatinAmerica"

Sergio mapping out a testcase for the software center

7) Do you have a favorite experience to share from being a part of ubuntu?

While I was doing my first merged, I didn't upload my code into my personal branch but I uploaded into +junk and I didn't what was wrong. Editors Note: uploading the branch to +junk means Sergio wouldn't be able to submit it in a merge request to the project he was contributing to. In other words, he made a contribution, but got lost trying to contribute it :-)

8) What is your favorite activity or interest outside of computing (including ubuntu!)?

I really like soccer! My favorite team is Manchester United (UK), I see many soccer games on tv and sometimes I play, when I have time enough.

People behind ubuntu quality: Carla

This post is part of a series on the people behind the ubuntu quality team. Below you'll hear from Carla Sella, who has been a wonderful spirit of can-do attitude on the team. Carla hails from Italy and enjoys being the guinea pig for new ideas and kickstarting new projects and efforts on the team. She's been a wonderful contributor to our ubuntu autopilot tests project, happily helping lead the charge towards automating our favorite desktop applications.

1) Could you provide a bit of background about yourself?

My name is Carla Sella (Letozaf_), I am Italian and I was born in South Africa. I work as a System Administrator in an Italian firm. I always loved having Linux installed on my PC's as I believe that "the only limiting factor of the Linux operating system is it's user". The thing I like most about Linux is the chance to hack and learn things.
I have tried various Linux distributions in the past, both at work and at home (maybe even Ubuntu), but it was only when a friend of mine told me about Ubuntu and the Ubuntu Community that I decided to give Ubuntu a better try and installed it on my PC, and now it's on my notebook, my husbands PC, my son's notebook and as soon as I will be able to, it will be installed on my Asus Eee Pad and my phone :D.
What I like about Ubuntu is the way Canonical and the Community are trying to make Ubuntu  an operating system for everyone, easy to use and not only for a restricted number of geeks. I think this is the best way to fix bug #1. Even if Ubuntu is "easy" to use this doesn't mean you cannot open a terminal and do some hacking too. With Ubuntu you can be a "normal user" or a hacker :).

2) How did you become invovled with the Ubuntu community?

I got involved in Ubuntu when a friend of mine, that is in the Italian Ubuntu Community, told me about the Ubuntu Community and how to contribute to Ubuntu.

3) What attracted you to the quality team?

The fact that I love Linux as you can learn a lot using it, joining the quality team is really cool and gives you the chance not only to learn a lot about Ubuntu and Linux, but also to try all the new features and "play" with them helping test Ubuntu before it's released.
You can do a lot of things from writing test cases to automatic testing, you just have to choose what you prefer doing best. Helping developers fix bugs you find is really cool as it makes you feel part of the Ubuntu world. And best of all you get to know a lot of interesting people from all over the world and you can exchange knowledge and improve your skills while helping test the latest Ubuntu release.

4) What would you say to folks new to ubuntu and/or testing?

Come and join the fun!
If you are a sort of a hacker and like to play around with Linux, you are in the right place. You can learn a lot and help Ubuntu while having fun.If you are not a hacker but a "normal" user, come an join too, you can also help by carrying out the easiest tests. There is place for everyone wanting to help Ubuntu work better and have less bugs. So stop complaining about the bugs and start helping to fix them :p.

Testing ubuntu on ARM with a pandaboard

5) How would you describe the community and the experience of using ubuntu?

The community is friendly, collaborating, fun, looking forward to the future and gives you the chance to improve yourself.
When I went to UDS-R back in October/November 2012 I got to know a lot of fantastic persons I had just known on IRC or by mail, they were all very kind and couldn't believe the warm welcome I received from everyone. Using Ubuntu is both user-friendly and hacky. I have been using Ubuntu for quite a long time now and  the improvements that have been made since then are incredible. It has changed a lot and is, to my opinion, the easiest and the most user-friendly  Linux distribution around.

6) What would you like to see in the future for ubuntu?

I wish Ubuntu will have the majority market share :p.

7) Do you have a favorite experience to share from being a part of ubuntu?

I have a lot of nice experiences, but maybe the favorite ones are testing Ubuntu 12.10 kernel on 12.04 userspace, hacking Autopilot with Nicholas, and trying out Umockdev with my camera on Shotwell with Martin.

8) What is your favorite activity or interest outside of computing (including ubuntu!)?

I love traveling, I like visiting places and seeing different cultures, how they live and how the places look like.
Most of all I like staying with my 7 year Son.

Meet the Ubuntu Quality Community!

I'm happy to announce a little blog mini-series, conspicuously entitled "People behind Ubuntu Quality". The next several posts will bring to you a set of interviews conducted with some ubuntu quality members. The interviews show the diversity in our team and work, along with the shared passion and interest we have.

Over the next several posts, you'll get a chance to virtually "meet" a few of the team members and witness the passion and diversity the team offers. Remember, we want you too! If you are curious to share in the excitement, have a passion to learn something, or have knowledge or skills that could help, please consider joining us. Now is an excellent time to learn the ropes, engage yourself and help ensure quality in the next Ubuntu release, Saucy Salamander!