Ubuntu is a huge project with millions of users. We have thousands of bugs that need processing, reproducing, sending upstream, etc. Triaging bugs is a great way to help Ubuntu.

Bug triage is an essential part of Ubuntu’s development.

Triaging bugs consists of several things:

• Responding to new bugs as they are filed.
• Ensuring that new bugs have all the necessary information.
• Assigning bugs to the proper package.
• Confirming bug reports by trying to reproduce them.
• Setting the priority of bugs reports.
• Searching for and marking duplicates in the bug tracking system.
• Sending bugs to their upstream authors, when applicable.
• Cross-referencing bugs from other distributions.
• Expiring old bugs.

However, you don’t need to do all of those things to help! Recreating a bug and setting the status to Confirmed is enough.

Bug triage is an excellent way to start helping out. You get to learn a lot about Ubuntu, its available packages, its infrastructure, and you get a feel for the development pulse.

You can learn how to triage bugs and chip in, just see the Bugs/HowToTriage page.

Joining the team

The people who work on triaging bugs in Ubuntu are called the Ubuntu BugSquad. Check out the BugSquad/GettingInvolved page to learn how to join.

You can almost always find members of the Bug Squad in #ubuntu-bugs on the freenode IRC server who will be happy to answer any questions you have.

Adopting a package

If you’ve got a keen interest in a particular source package, you can help out by adopting it. This means that you want to act as a liaison between Ubuntu and the people who wrote the package that we include in the distribution.

This involves developing a relationship with the people who work on this software: developers, users, and other members of the community. You can quickly become an expert by triaging bugs associated with this package and even fixing some of them.

You can learn more about doing this by consulting the BugSquad/AdoptPackage page.