Testing Team

The testing team allows community members to directly get involved in the testing process. When there is a shiny new thing to test, users in the table below will get a notification (usually via mention in pmaports). They can install the change and report back whether everything worked as expected, or whether there is a regression.

FAQ

Can I join the testing team?

Thank you for considering! Yes, as long as you ...

... have familiarized yourself enough with pmOS that you feel comfortable testing changes
... make sure you don't lose important data (make backups as needed!)

Benefits:

You can dramatically help improving the quality of postmarketOS for the device you are using.
You hold the cool new changes in your hands before everyone else!

To join the testing team, add yourself to the table of members at the bottom of this wiki page.

Consider joining the release-party channel, where testing of releases and bigger changes gets coordinated.

Do I need to have stable or edge installed for testing?

The easiest is to just go with what you already have installed. But if you are considering a new installation just for testing, choose depending on what you want to test:

Merge requests: having edge installed is best, because almost all merge requests are for edge. (See the branch that a merge request is made against, if it is master, then it is for pmOS edge, otherwise the branch name is the name of the release, e.g. v23.06.)

Releases: doing a new installation with the upcoming stable release would be best (so we can see if there are any problems with completely fresh installations). But you can also upgrade or downgrade from the previous release / from edge.

Service packs: to test a service pack, you need to be on the current stable release.

Note that you do not need to be constantly swapping between releases when you are in the testing team. Change the release and help out with testing as often as you feel comfortable, you can also only test new releases ahead of time, or only test some of the edge MRs you are interested in etc.

How to test changes?

Merge requests

Install binary packages from merge request pipelines on your device with mrtest.

Make sure to run mrtest zap and apk upgrade -a when done with testing to remove the merge request packages again. Keeping them may cause problems in the future (e.g. conflicts when trying to test another merge request).

Releases

New installation
- Either download an image for your device. Make sure to upgrade all packages before doing any tests.
- Or build your own image with pmbootstrap. Make sure to select the new release in pmbootstrap init.
Upgrade or downgrade from the previous release / from edge.

Doing a new installation may show different problems (e.g. automatic resize of the filesystem not working) than upgrading or downgrading from another release. Make sure to mention which method you used, and consider using one that wasn't tested yet.

Service packs

Service packs can be tested via a staging repository before they get released. Wait for the announcement of the staging repository, then follow these steps.

Note that v23.06 and sp1 are examples, adjust them for the service pack you are testing.

Make sure you are on the stable release (v23.06)
Edit your /etc/apk/repositories:
- replace http://mirror.postmarketos.org/postmarketos/v23.06
- with http://mirror.postmarketos.org/postmarketos/staging/sp1/v23.06
Run apk upgrade -a
Reboot
Verify everything is still working as expected
Report back in the service pack issue
Revert the change to /etc/apk/repositories and run apk upgrade -a again when done

The staging branch and repository will be deleted after the service pack is merged, so apk will complain about a non-existing repository if you didn't revert the changes in the end.

Useful tools

Accelerometer, light sensor, proximity sensor can be tested with monitor-sensor

Magnetometer can be tested by running: sudo su -s /bin/sh geoclue -c "sh -c 'monitor-sensor --compass'"

Suspend can be forced by calling "sudo loginctl suspend". Check dmesg to verify that the system entered and exited suspend correctly.

Camera can be tested using the "qcam" and "cam" utilities (from libcamera-utils and qcam packages).

HW video decoding can be tested with mpv (mpv --hwdec=auto). mpv will report if it is using a HW decoding API (like VAAPI).

What about device maintainers?

Typically device maintainers are not part of the testing team. Device maintainers already test on their devices as good as they can, the point of the testing team is to scale testing across many people, so development can be done both faster and with less regressions.

Best practices for editing the table?

Keep the entries consistent, so they can be easily searched (same spelling for UI names etc).
What to put in "Notes":
- Revision of your device, if there are multiple ones (e.g. PinePhone revisions)
- The panel of the device if there are multiple ones
- Add-ons you would like to test, such as the PinePhone hardware keyboard

Members

Wiki username	GitLab username	Matrix username	Device codenames	UIs (or any)	Notes
Anjanmomi	anjandev	@anjan:postmarketos.org	xiaomi-beryllium	postmarketos-ui-sxmo-de-sway	Tianma Panel
Weissnix4711	Weissnix4711	@weissnix4711:matrix.org	pine64-pinephonepro	postmarketos-ui-gnome-mobile	No accessories
EnderNightLord	CarbonatedCaffeine	@carbonatedcaffeine:matrix.org	pine64-pinephone oneplus-enchilada samsung-m0	postmarketos-ui-phosh postmarketos-ui-plasma-mobile	N/A
QC8086	QC8086	@qc8086:matrix.org	pine64-pinebookpro	postmarketos-ui-sway (pbp)	N/A
PanzerSajt	panzersajt	@panzersajt3:matrix.org	purism-librem5 pine64-pinephone pine64-pinephonepro oneplus-enchilada xiaomi-beryllium bq-paella nokia-n900	postmarketos-ui-phosh postmarketos-ui-gnome-mobile	L5 Evergreen PP v1.2b PinePhone hardware keyboard Poco F1 EBBG
jrfern	jrfern	@jrfern:matrix.org	fairphone-fp2	postmarketos-ui-phosh	otm1902b panel
Crowdtier	crowdtier	@crowdtier:matrix.org	oneplus-enchilada pine64-pinephone fairphone-fp4	postmarketos-ui-gnome-mobile postmarketos-ui-phosh maemo leste postmarketos-ui-plasma-mobile	Pinephone v1.2b Pinephone Keyboard
TheSame	DvaMishkiLapa	@thesame.personal:matrix.org	google-krane	postmarketos-ui-gnome	N/A
peerke	Peerke	@64knl:matrix.org	fairphone-fp4	postmarketos-ui-gnome-mobile	N/A
Breakfastisready	Breakfastisready	@breakfastisready:matrix.org	pine64-pinephonepro oneplus-enchilada samsung-gt58	postmarketos-ui-sxmo-de-sway postmarketos-ui-phosh	Pinephone Keyboard
Fdelamotte	fdlamotte	@fdelamotte:matrix.org	oneplus-enchilada	postmarketos-ui-sxmo-de-sway	N/A
Magdesign	magdesign	@magdesign:tchncs.de	currently no working device	postmarketos-ui-sxmo-de-sway	Multicountry testing...
Antonok	antonok	@antonok:antonok.com	oneplus-enchilada purism-librem5	postmarketos-ui-phosh	N/A
Fancsali	fancsali	@fancsali:matrix.org	google-veyron-minnie	postmarketos-ui-xfce postmarketos-ui-phosh	N/A
pcercuei	pcercuei	pcercuei (IRC)	samsung-i9100	postmarketos-ui-phosh	N/A
Nau5ea	nau5ea	@ensignmorituri:postmarketos.org	google-krane	postmarketos-ui-phosh	N/A
Serg12344	Serg12344	@serg12344:matrix.org	xiaomi-mido	postmarketos-ui-plasma-mobile	N/A
retourmy	retourmy	@regis:g5.ns0.it	pine64-pinephone pine64-pinebookpro	postmarketos-ui-phosh	Pinephone v1.2b L5 evergreen
LongnoseRob	longnoserob	@longnoserob:matrix.org	asus-tf101 asus-tf201 asus-grouper xiaomi-beryllium	postmarketos-ui-mate postmarketos-ui-phosh	other UI might also be possible
Apollo3zehn	Apollo3zehn	@apollo3zehn:matrix.org	fairphone-fp4	postmarketos-ui-plasma-mobile	N/A
Tommi	xplosionmind	@tommi:fsfe.org	fairphone-fp5	postmarketos-ui-gnome-mobile	N/A
Owen	TheOwenSZ	@owen:fyralabs.com	google-hayato	postmarketos-ui-gnome	N/A
Catto24	catto24	@catto24:matrix.org	google-corsola	any	N/A
Mtek89	mtekman	@mtekman:matrix.org	alcatel-idol347	any	N/A
fossdd	fossdd	@fossdd:matrix.org	pine64-pinephonepro	any	N/A
Pseudomind		@mleimon:matrix.org	fairphone-fp4	postmarketos-ui-phosh	N/A
Ell2e / @ell1e	ell1e	@el:matrix.org	valve-jupiter (for testing)	postmarketos-ui-plasma-desktop	N/A
Alkaline System		@alkaline:nova.astraltech.org	pine64-pinephonepro	postmarketos-ui-phosh postmarketos-ui-gnome-mobile	posted market
Dan	dan	@dan:digitalprivacy.diy	oneplus-enchilada pine64-pinephonepro	postmarketos-ui-plasma-mobile	N/A
Xonya	zonia3000	@xonya:matrix.org	pine64-pinephone	postmarketos-ui-phosh	PinePhone v1.2b
Mariob	mariob	@marioob:matrix.org	fairphone-fp5	postmarketos-ui-gnome-mobile	Desktop mode testing via HDMI (not DP-Alt).
LogicalErzor	LogicalErzor	@logicalerzor1:matrix.org	samsung-expressatt pine64-pinephonepro microsoft-surface-rt	any	Best way to contact me is via https://fosstodon.org/@Logical_Error
ethical_haquer	ethical_haquer	TODO	pine64-pinephonepro	postmarketos-ui-phosh	TODO
cosmo	cosmo	@cosmo:envs.net	fairphone-fp5	postmarketos-ui-plasma-mobile	N/A

FAQ