Debian ISO Testing

Dear Debian team,

I'm very pleased to be involved in the Debian project. Thank you for 
having me. Let me introduce myself. I'm Martin, I am a developer based 
in Manchester in the UK and I've recently decided to dive head first 
into the wonderful world of FOSS. I have been in the Microsoft ecosystem 
for the best part of two decades and only ever dabbled in Linux and 
Debian a little bit during that time. I recently took part in the Debian 
12.1 ISO release event and I had fun, learned a lot of things and met 
some interesting people (including the former DPL Sledge). I had some 
suggestions based on my experience that I would like to share with you.

1) When I was conducting testing of Debian 12.1, I had an idea of 
writing a "Testing Wizard" Bash/Perl/Python script to help with the 
testing process. A simple shell script that will test the ISO against a 
predefined set of tests and gather pertinent information (such as 
hardware information for the team). The tester would run the script, all 
the automatic code would execute (such as gathering hardware 
information, ISO name, boot time, etc) then the wizard would guide the 
tester through a series of required tests and then possibly some random 
ones thrown in (in order to increase chances of catching bugs before 
publishing). I'd be interested to hear other people's opinions on it and 
possibly we could have a session to discuss it in a bit more detail if 
you're interested. If I'm overthinking it or over egging the pudding 
here, I am also interested to hear your feedback there too. :-)

2) Recognition of testers. Although the small group over on #debian-cd 
on OFTC were thankful for everyone's contributions including my own, it 
would be really great for new testers like myself to have some kind of 
formal project recognition. It may seem like a small thing but it makes 
a huge difference to me personally. There are several ways of 
recognising the testers...some easy some not so easy. Firstly, when 
publishing the release notes, naming the testers (by their chosen names) 
that helped test the images before publication would be a nice way to 
recognise us. Also, as cheesy as this may seem or sound, awarding a 
certificate to recognise that that person has participated in the Debian 
release testing process. Doesn't have to be printed of course, it could 
be designed in Gimp or whathaveyou. I have mocked a design which you can 
view here - > https://justpaste.it/de4hd (NB: this is a heads up. This 
link is SFW...if you happen to be in the office right now).

3) Overhaul of the wiki testing process. Rattus proposed some 
overhauling of the ISO testing situation with the wiki. I am happy to 
work on that with you Rattus if you get time and we have something where 
we don't need to wait for the wiki to be released from another user. 
Although, I'm also happy to keep it as is if that's what the community 
wants. If it's a nod to times of old, I'm all for that too. I found the 
process quaint and reminded me of the old days of locking Excel 
workbooks. :D

4) Automation. I read a thread on this mailing list recently talking 
about openQA and whilst I am not opposed to automatic testing by 
machines, I would insist that the manual testers are still retained as 
relying solely on machines for QA can be problematic (machines are not 
perfect just like humans). Not only that, the testers over on #debian-cd 
is a community and having full automation would mean that community no 
longer meets regularly to test stuff...and thus the community disperses 
and fades away over time. FOSS to me is all about community so I would 
hope that openQA works alongside the ISO testers rather than replace us. 
This is slightly off-topic but AI is doing a lot of damage to corporate 
tech and I hope that the FOSS projects don't fall victim to it too.

Thanks for reading this, if you want to chat, I'm in various channels on 
Libera and OFTC on IRC or you can respond to this mail. :)

Thanks and regards,
Martin McCarthy.
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Breathe, breathe in the air...don't be afraid to care.
Leave, but don't leave me...look around, choose your own ground.
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