11.10 Certification Testing

Continuing with the weekly build testing will naturally transition from 11.04 to 11.10. This will have to take into account the systems that have been added since 11.04, removal of outdated systems, and the continual improvement of the entire test suite. The main goal going forward will be identifying bugs as early as possible, and comprehensive testing to ensure the final image of 11.10 will meet the high standards of our users.

This process should help eliminate most if not all of the false positive tests we have seen in the past, the reducing the total time of a certification cycle, and SOP guidelines for each step of a cycle. In addition, the passover from enablement to certification will have to be smoothed and SOP agreed upon with both parties. Different components (GPU/WIFI/etc) inside of the same model hardware will have to be addressed and resolved to remove customer confusion over certified systems. Developer access to certification centers to resolve certification failures also needs to be established.

Another major component of certification is pre-testing with the Alpha, Beta and RC images. In order to make sure the final release candidate passes on the most machines, this testing will have to be co-ordinated and rigid timelines enforced. Once the gold candidate image has been selected, each week the daily build will be tested, along with SRUs, to make sure regressions are not introduced into any certified system. The selection of systems will have to be managed, as well as a subset when full system testing is not practicable.