VirtualPC, Linux, and lots of memory

There seems to be a problem with VirtualPC, Linux and memory over 624MB. See my thread here. We are going to get a copy of Virtual Server to see if that works better.

Life and Times of Linux on VirtualPC

A few weeks ago, my manager asks me, “Have you done anything with Oracle 10g?”

Me: “Um, no. It just came out.”

Manager: “Well, can you get a copy of the installation stuff? We may be needing it soon.”

Time passes. My manager asks me to give a project plan of getting disk images of different operating systems with different databases/applications servers. These will run in VirtualPC. So I draw up my project plan and give it to him. The next day he asks me, “Remember that Oracle 10g installation stuff I asked you about? Where are we with that?”

Me: “I downloaded the Linux version.”

Manager: “Ah, can we test with it?”

So, now my VirtualPC project has started!

I already had a disk image with Ubuntu on it, so I tried installing Oracle on that. Despite finding a good page on how to do it, Oracle wouldn’t start up — some libraries wouldn’t install, and others where simply empty files.

Fortunately, we had some Fedora 3 images. I installed Fedora on a new image and, on the first reboot, I god “ID ’1′ respawning too fast” and the bootup never completed. I thought it was because I didn’t install X-Windows, so I did a reinstall, including X-Windows this time but I got the same thing. I finally googled and found this useful page on this wonderful site. Following those directions seem to work.

Now I’m in the midsts of updates. It seems to be stuck figuring out the update dependencies. Ugh — a waste of a day.

After I get this figured out, I still have to install Oracle 10g. The madness never ends.

Those who fail to plan . . .

Yes, I said that would blog more about testing and, finally, I’m getting to it. This is about an important step in the testing process but it is by no means anyone’s favorite — it’s about planning.

The first phase in test planning is to make your wish list — what things need to be improved? What things do you current tests currently miss? Feel free to dream — the skies the limit on this one. My list is quite long. And, of course, your manager may have a list for you as well.

The second phase in test planning is prioritization. This phase is difficult because it means that you have figure out what you are going to spend your immediate energy on — and they may be things you don’t feel are that important but others may think so. Huh? Why? Because you also have to consider what’s important from your manager’s point of view, the developers, and, probably most importantly, to your customer’s. And then you have to factor in your staff (in my case, a staff of one — me). You might have to let something important off the list simply because you can’t have your staff spend all their energies on them — you need something implemented quickly.

Now that you have your priorities, take the top few and make tasks for each. And, if they are big tasks, break them down even further by making subtasks. In other words, instead of saying, “make virtual machines for different operating systems,” list each operating system you need, and as a subtask, add each component or application you will install on each.

Here is the part everyone dreads — for each task you created you need to create a timeline that fits into the time you have available and your release schedule. Not only do you need to estimate how long this will take, but set dates when you will start each task and subtask. Be realistic and don’t stretch it out too long. You need it to be able to use this, right?

When you have things broken into task and have dates set, you need to gather requirements. Do you need more hardware? More software? More people? Now is the time to say to your manager and/or IT staff, Now is the time to contact your manger and/or your IT staff and say, “I need |item| by |date| because I need to have this completed by |due date|”. Tell your provider the date you need it and they have a goal to shoot for as well. Too many of my projects have halted because I didn’t give my manager or the IT department dates when I needed something from them.

Of course, the requirements may not be physical ones. Need to learn more about Junit? Need to brush up on .Net? These may also be requirements for you project — don’t forget to make time to bone up on new skills before diving into your project! Your deadline will come before you know it.

Then, finally, you are done planning. You get to do it. Since you broke your project into tasks and subtasks, it’s easy to see what you need to do and what you need to do next. As you complete each task, check it off.

If you are reading the above, you are thinking, “I need to write my list out.” Yes you do. A spreadsheet or another type document could work, but they aren’t fluid enough for the inevitable changes that will occur. A Wiki page isn’t a bad idea. Something like a project tracking tool would work better. I’m currently using dotproject for tracking all this now. It’s web-based, so I can’t lose the document, but it also has my tasks and what I should currently be working on now. MS Project would probably work too, if you have it.

Note the new category

My manager said that, since my title is “QA Engineer” I need to do more with automated testing now that we have someone trained up to do the bulk of the customer support. Hence the new category called “testing”. Expect more here in the near future (like today, or tomorrow.