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Bugzilla on Windows?
slipandfall asks: "I just started work at a 100% Windows shop (no chance of changing this) and would love to implement Bugzilla for issue tracking but statements like this - 'Making Bugzilla work on Windows is still a painful processes.' in the
OS-Specific installation notes don't make it seem reasonable. Since there is no chance of using Linux/UNIX here, can I get people's experiences using Bugzilla on Windows or experience with a tool (open source or not) on Windows with similar notification, discussion and issue tracking features?"
VMWar^WXen
I've used Mantis with great success for several years, both on Linux and Windows hosts. They also have limited support for SQL Server, which is somewhat unofficial with the current v0.19 release but official release will come with v1 next year. Enjoy!
Damien
Buy a copy of VMWare, install it on Windows, then run Bugzilla on *nix inside it?
RT is an enterprise-grade ticketing system which enables a group of people to intelligently and efficiently manage tasks, issues, and requests submitted by a community of users. It is used by Fortune 100 companies, government agencies, educational institutions, and development organizations worldwide.
I have created a Windows port of RT, and have been maintaining it for two years now, selling support contracts for a living, as well as developing RT-Foundry, a project similar to GForge/Trac, on top of RT.
The RT-Win32 installer comes with its own Apache2, MySQL4.1, Perl 5.8.6 and Fetchmail, so you'd not need any other existing SQL server to set it up. I'd be happy if you'd give it a try. :)
I am in a similar situation, mostly Windows with a couple of HP-UX machines that I don't have real access to. I ended up installing Mantis Bug Tracker, http://www.mantisbt.org/. It's written in PHP and install time and complexity is low.
To begin with Bugzilla is a very crude bugtracking system that is really only suited for open source projects. It reeks for more generalized issue tracking applications. If you set it up it isn't going to impress management on how cool OSS is. I would suggest looking online for other alternatives. I know that the guys at Tigris.org maintain a list of OSS alternatives, and have their own system wich I think is much nicer than Bugzilla.
We just went through this recently at my company.
Our first though was Bugzilla, of course. But after looking into actually deploying it we realized it wasn't going to be that easy. So before we buried ourselves, we looked around to make sure Bugzilla was actually the right choice for us.
Turns out it wasn't.
We found Atlassian's JIRA. Installs like a breeze, easy to manage, no headaches, even actively tied into Atlassian's JIRA bugtracking system for itself! (And it works, seen bugs that we have submitted fixed in short order!)
We're not a really big shop, so I can't speak too much from the large scale deployment end, but aside from that this was a fantastic choice for us and I highly recommend it. (I am in no way affiliated with Atlassian or JIRA)
No Comment.
Try using VMWare or Virtual PC to run Linux. It will work pretty well. Depending on the size of the user base, it might actually work really well. If they like it, they _might_ let you install Linux on a PC natively. Also, for a Windows solution, the new version of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) will have a fully-featured bug-tracking system. (No word to how stable it will be) If you are developing primarily in Visual Studio, you might like the bug-tracking integration that will be built in to the product.
Have you tried installing Cygwin to 'fool' Bugzilla into thinking it's running on Linux?
I'm not a hardcore Fogbugz user, but I've been involved with a few projects that had lightweight use of it, and I think it is quite nice. nice. It runs on Unix/Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.
It is not free as in beer. But it is quite reasonably priced imho. There's a free trial of course.
Check out their pages on How Fogbugz Works and Why Fogbugz Works
It's from Joel Splosky, writer of the JoelOnSoftware blog.
We have installed FogBugz a couple of month ago on a Win2K server, it took us the whole of an hour to set up and create the accounts for everyone. It's very simple to use (even more so that Bugzilla IMHO), and has really helped us streamline the QA process ...
Maybe you should look into it instead of Bugzilla. And although it isn't free, it's not exactly expensive either.
http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/index.html
I have a friend that uses Colinux to run Debian on his Windows machine (it's essentially a VirtualPC type thing). You could pop the server onto that and it should work fine.
In the real world it does not work like that. You see what the person was too polite to say was, "Please do not flame me with the fsck wins, go linux anyways, messages".
Really, if the person says you can not go to linux at his shop, just take him for his word. If you have nothing useful to add at this point, please keep it to yourself.
Or go ahead and say it anyways and just get mod'd down.
Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Convention
Edd Dumbill has a list of (mostly) free issue tracking systems. It's a very good starting point.
One of the most interesting systems in that list is (IMHO) Eventum, by the company that produces the commercial version of MySQL. It only needs PHP and MySQL, and should therefore run well on Windows. Be advised that I haven't actually tried it though.
Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
So if your work machine has to run windows, set up something free (Linux, BSD, whatever) to run on VMware on top of Windows. It's a win-win!
;P
-Turkey
I've set up bugzilla on windows following this tutorial and it works quite well.
Is bugzilla the simplest solution? (And I'm talking about installing it on linux, not the problematic windows installation)
Is bugzilla the right solution?
Your post is heavily assuming that Bugzilla is the right choice, actually, it's inferring that Bugzilla is the _only_ reasonable choice and that anyone that doesn't agree is a bigot and ignorant. Harsh. Your suggested course of action wouldn't get many people very far in this world. Don't like my way? then f'u. How's that supposed to help?
Anyways, my point is it's not as cut and dry as that.
Aside from that, I've now used a few different bug tracking systems. IMHO, Bugzilla is not the best, though it may be right for certain jobs. For a lot of projects, it's just confusing and overkill. Regardless, and this is the key point, linux vs windows has NO place in this argument. We're discussing bug tracking software. Choose your software based on your needs, and then deploy as appropriate. If the best choice ends up being Bugzilla on linux, then so be it. Notice that the decision here would be not choosing linux, but rather choosing the appropriate software.
No Comment.
http://www.bugzilla.org/docs/win32install.html
Found using http://fuckinggoogleit.com/
I cant believe I'm going to say this, but why don't you run Linux *inside* Windows? Try coLinux:
coLinux.
On the other hand, I installed Bugzilla under Linux once, and it was overkill... I'm using Mantis for all my projects now.
Win2k, Apacehe, mySQL, PHP. Jobs a good'un
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
If the only issue were setting up the bug-tracking server, then great.
In practise having an established OS has *big* ramifications. Most companies have an IT department whose job is to keep an eye on all important upgrades needed. Reckon they'll support Linux just bcos your bug-tracking server needs it? No way. It needs some different skills, so chances are that the IT department will need to hire someone (maybe part-time) to do setup and administration for Linux. Also you're talking a different anti-virus setup. And a different user-rights system. For one machine.
It's not going to happen, is it?
Now if you could show that migrating to Linux AND doing all support to keep that machine up-to-date OS-wise, free of virii, etc is cheaper than just getting a Windows-native bug-tracking system, THEN maybe you have a point. I think the chances of you showing that though start at around "snowball in hell" and go down from there...
Grab.
Isn't there some user mode linux port that runs under windows? In those webbased interfaces kind of software this might be a solutions.
Anyone tried it? Or is user mode linix just a development toy?
The answer is, some people don't deserve good coffee. If you want a job making good coffee, go where people can tell the difference.
For bug tracking... let the bigots rent some $25,000 bugpile, and suffer with it. When some machine gets rotated out of service because it's not up to running bloatware, put a Linux or BSD on it, and set up a little bugzilla server, "just as an experiment". Tell a few people (ones who have problems with the bugpile) about it so they can use it for their own purposes, sans management, and let them spread the word. Gradually it will become impossible to shut it off, because too many people depend on it. Start adding other services to supplant official stuff that doesn't work. Eventually, you will be asked to move it to a beefier host, because so many people depend on it, and the official services will come to languish. .
Similar situation here. We (me and my co-conspirator) just set up a Linux server at home, ran Bugzilla on it, started using it from work. Got other people onboard. Started linking it into programs for bug reporting. It became indispensible.
Then someone asked IT why it was so slow to load pages. We explained the situation to them, and it was decided we'd have to move it in-house. After several failed attempts to get it running on Windows... well, suffice it to say we now have a friendly little Linux box sitting on the network.
Random and weird software I've written.
Just went over and looked at bugzilla.org. On the download page it says.
Windows users: It is now possible to install Bugzilla on Windows with very little if any modification to Bugzilla itself. See Byron Jones' Bugzilla Installation Guide for Windows for instructions.
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
If you install Linux in a virtual machine such as the free qemu then Linux becomes a Windows application. :)
"there is no chance of using Linux/UNIX here"
I'll say that again...
"there is no chance of using Linux/UNIX here"
Once for more the real idiots out there...
"there is no chance of using Linux/UNIX here"
And once more, just for you, norwoodites...
"there is no chance of using Linux/UNIX here"
In the real world it does work like that.
You get a PII with 128 megs of ram that won't take XP or Win2kpro well, ask your boss to let you run some test or something, install linux, and presto, it works.
Then, when the company looks at the cost of keeping the PII as-is versus migrting to windows, they'll keep the PII.
Repeat.
I've done this. I'm on the third box.
Fortune 500.
"Piter, too, is dead."
I politely disagree.
All issues of whether bugzilla is really the right choice or not aside, this is precisely how Linux started making inroads in other corporations. Some tech guy needed a quick and easy way to do some sort of server where that server was way more trivial to implement on Linux than on Windows. So they quietly put Linux on that box, set up the server, and said to everyone, "Point your Internet Explorer to...", and was hailed a hero. Rare would be the person who would even think that the server wasn't Windows, or that would even care, as long as the solution worked.
Thus, I'd recommend that, in the future, when your manager says, "Solve this problem," and solving that problem is easier on Linux than on Windows, just do what your manager asks: solve the problem. Once it has been working for a few months, and you have a few Linux solutions, you can let them know how you solved their problem, and they may want to take a closer look. Or maybe not.
My company has used Scarab for over two years now and it's worked great. We use it for bug tracking and for our help desk. It runs just fine for us under Windows. It's given OSS a good name at my company, and since then we've started using more and more OS tools.
Why don't you TRY to install and run it on a Windows box, and IF it doesn't work, get back to us. I read yesterday that there are THOUSENDS of people that have been abducted by aliens. Doesn't make it so.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Install coLinux (http://www.colinux.org/) on Windows (use the latest development snapshot) with a Debian image for example, configure network and you'll have a true linux box with his own IP address running under Windows !
Well... Just watch yourself while doing this, I have seen more than one person fired over doing this, if it is truly a steadfast 100% windows shop and is a large corporation or goverment location it can easily get you canned. Just CYA.
They just took the 'Making $SOFTWARE work on Windows is still a painful process' line from the Installation Notes Template in their preferred word processor, and put in the Bugzilla name and their own personalized spelling errors.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I develop on Windows boxes, but I use Cygwin to give me access to all of the Linux libraries and tools to which I've grown accustomed.
Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
excellent product that i highly recommend. source is clean and installtion is easy. cost money but it relatively inexpensive, espicially if you work for a large company like me. customer listing is impressive (not that this means a great deal but certainly only helps): http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/customers.j sp
standard $1200
profession $2400
enterprise $4800
(you get the source for each edition and support for a year and i think upgrades for year)
for the war/webapp you need java, an application server (tomcat, jboss, ) and a relational database (postgres, mysql, ). or use there prepackaged/standalone version containing an application server (i think tomcat) and relational datbaase (i think hypersonic).
took me 15 minutes to setup the standalone version and about an hour to setup the webapp version. i write java webapps for a living, but if youve setup bugzilla before there documentation should be good enough for non java developers.
there is a 30 day trial, just download and install. no gimmicks.
i belive the current or next version implements a workflow engine (i think osworkflow) if you need it.
note that i am in no way affiliated with Atlassian and my remarks are based solely on memory so things could have changed.
Hi,
why don't you just install a chap ($20) old PC with Linux and run bugzilla on it?
Maybe he could try NetBSD on a dreamcast, hidden in a supply closet?
Seriously, he should just try Linux/UNIX and get it over with.
Take a look at Fog Creek Software's FogBugz. Its usage paradigm is a little different than bugzilla, but a lot of people swear by it. It's well supported and designed to work on Windows, so it shouldn't be too much of a headache to get running.
Of course, one could argue that there have ever been a handful of viruses for Linux and that a Linux box can be configured to automatically upgrade itself - or easily upgraded manually.
But you're right that Windows shops don't want to have to employee a Linux administrator because of one application.
I've seen companies with Windows workstations and servers get roped into being a VAR for a Linux app and from that experience setup an internal Linux server. The number of Linux-based solutions increased since my hire, but it was always an issue of who else could support it if I wasn't there (sick, dead, quit, etc). Meanwhile, there are some people who you will find are viciously pro-Windows with a higher rank.. some people don't care what something does, how much it saves, but care that it isn't from someone that they trust.
Luckily, many killer business apps are now coming from IBM, Novell, and Sun.. and they're working on Linux. Considering Exchange? Consider GroupWise. Considering Microsoft Office? Consider OpenOffice.
I find that it is a lot easier to push Linux and Linux based solutions to management if it isn't from "Linus Torvalds", "ESR", or "RMS" (etc).. but from trusted sources like Novell.
I've convinced users to move from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice on the premise that they aren't using "freeware", they're using software from Sun Microsystems.
The idea used to be that to get users onto Linux there would need to be a killer app only for Linux. However, to convert users you don't want to give them a reason to leave Windows, you want to give them no reason to keep paying more money to run the same software.
We need applications to run on Windows AND Linux from brands (Windows) users already trust. I've found that users don't want a new word processor AND a new instant messanger AND a new web browser, etc. Firefox, OpenOffice, and other applications are making themselves available under Windows and will give users fewer reasons to stay with Windows.
Question: How can I do FOO on Windows?
Slashdotter: Use Linux and ditch Windows!
Way to just ignore the parameters of the question. When asked "what's 4/3?" in school did you just change the question to "4/2" to make it easier an expect it to be correct?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
I read yesterday that there are THOUSENDS of people that have been abducted by aliens. Doesn't make it so.
If a strange Mexican man offers your child some candy, and your child steps into his car, that's considered an alien abduction unless you live in Mexico.
I've done this. I'm on the third box.
And I'll bet that you are the guy maintaining these boxes. I managed to convert three PII systems in my lab to FreeBSD. I wrote up an installation guide to do it. I trained someone how to do it. There have been exactly zero complaints on these machines.
But I'm not the guy maintaining these machines. I only did it as a proof of principle. To the guy in charge of the lab, a brand spanking new Dell/Windows system with flat panel monitor, is what's easiest. Besides the $1500 in cost, these systems also lack the lab's traditional suite of Unix tools and customized environment.
While those FreeBSD systems are still there, all new systems are Dell/Windows, and the scrap room is filling up with old PII and PIII Microns and 15" Trinitron CRTs.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Really? Testing possible solutions to IT problems is what most IT departments do! Besides, it should not take more than a few hours at most to test the idea.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Compared to the Linux version, the Windows version comes with pre summited bugs like:
"You have installed Windows." (WONTFIX)
or
"My computer crashes all the time." (NOTABUG, BUTMANYBUGS)
Enjoy! =)
Cygwin is the answer. The rest of this discussion is unnecessary.
I stand corrected.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I've done exactly this... I have Mantis, dotProject, SugarCRM, and a few other things running internally that no one even wonders where they are.
And all the while, they're running on a little box under my desk.
And Mantis will run on an IIS box once you put php on it and have a mysql database somewhere.
Slap a XP-teletubby look on some desktop environment, and presto.
The newsgroup over at news.mozilla.org (netscape.public.mozilla.webtools) has lots of postings about Bugzilla under Windoze - check it out and pour through the old posts. If you've got a problem, it's prolly already been asnwered. If you don't see it, go ahead and ask - ppl there are fairly nice.
--LWM
I have worked with all significant Issue and defect tracking solutions and I can say without hesitation, that it is not worth your time to setup, configure and maintain Bugzilla in a windows environment, In fact I would not use it in any corporate setting.
I recommend TeamTrack by Serena software. Even though the licensing comes at a steep price, it's much simpler to configure, and far more robust in features. Plus they offer licensing that scales to any sized company.
Oh, you are so right.
But maintaining those boxes is still easier than winworld.
Also. I have told mgmt that if they want backup, they need to move thr projects to production. They know.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Really? Which routers or switches run on Windows?
But seriously, If they have any network to speak of, then they already have plenty of network devices that do not run MS-Windows as the O.S. What difference is one more?
Lots of posters, above and below, are explaining better alternatives. Among them are explanations why an application other that Bugzilla would be preferable.
Read some of the discussion before you label it "unnecessary"
use Mantis instead of bugzilla
it will run on Windows too
http://mantisbt.org/
---- Put Sig here:
install it on your Linux Server at home and access it from the job. Easy enough.
At my last project I proposed SCARAB (http://www.tigris.org). At first it was a bit clumpsy to configure but finally it worled well (meanwhile a better, newer version is availbale).
At my company I installed JIRA (http://www.atlassian.com), partly it has far less options (except for the enterprise version) but out of the box it does 95% of what I want to do (which is more than SCARAB does out of the box). Also it is much nicer to navigate than SCARAB, IMHO.
If you count the hours spend installing the $1200 you pay for JIRA are worth it. If you don't mind fiddeling a day or two, or if you want a freely configurable "ticket process" SCARAB is your choice.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I've set up Bugzilla on my computer at work to demo it to management so the install can be done. It is not that easy because you need to follow directions carefully and install all the pieces required: MySQL, Apache, Pearl and additional modules, also editing several config files. The registry edit required was one minor error I made. It works as designed after you get it all installed and configured - but really, you must ask yourself if it meats your requirements. My management's impression was that the bug entry screen needs to be much simpler for our slower end users to actually use but it was fine for our IT support staff. Some specific shortcomings - I've not gotten the 'submit bugs via e-mail' portion functional yet. The use of the term 'bugs' seems to upset some of the people.
zenray
Even for windows a clean msi install package of plone is availiable....o neCollectorNG-1.2.6.tar.gz?download). The issue collector (download it at: can be downloaded and installed in a very simple way (just unpack the zip in the products dir). It is not as perfect as bugzilla but the guys use issue collector for the development of plone and it is stable and rocks. Check it out on http://plone.org/collector/
No need to install apache, perl, mysql. Just donwlowad and run it (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/collective/Pl
Your sig should have a warning or something.. someone could get killed.
This is not a turnip.
If you looking for something more then just bugzilla replacement - try TrackStudio http://www.trackstudio.com/. Java-based, both Windows/Linux are supported.
Cost some money ($1000 or so), but really differs from others (bugzilla, scarab, mantis, jira, testtrack) - very scalable and flexible tool.
Just recently where I work we had a contest.
A friend and I both had to setup Bugzilla he on a W2K machine and I on a Fedora (FC1) machine. It took him all of half-an-hour and I still didn't have mine running. ( Cue the `what are you doing on slashdot' jokes).
Really it is easier to set it up on windows!
God made the natural numbers; all else is the work of man - Kronecker
This is exactly right. Have you read the 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding?
One of the rules is about mindshare.
Want to type a document? Use Word.
Thats generally how people work. Very clever marketing. It used to be Ami Pro or Works or whatever. Internet Explorer. clever name. My mum could guess what it does, Firefox... nope she's gonna get confused. Thunderbird? who the hell thinks these names up? Geeks, not marketing departments. I love Linux and I run Gentoo on all my computers, but Microsoft proves how useful a marketing department is.
About a billion dollars useful.
there are just a few lines of code to change for bz to run on win2k, etc.
./checksetup.pl several times
grab mysql latest production installer win32
(install source)
http://cygwin.com/setup.exe
install perl, gcc, cvs
remake mysql perl stuff (have my notes at the office)
fiddle with iis to execute perl for bz dir
modify the #! lines in perl files which are barking.
done.
I can walk you through it in my spare time or if in a hurry, you can get a support contract from my office http://pdinc.us/
That never ceases to amaze me. I've been an admin and have had to work around the constraints of a windows only shop (when a lot of network tools on *nix that aren't on windows would have helped), but I had to abide by the "windows only" standard.
Now, as a dev, I routinely have to listen to customers and write up requirements from what they say they need, their environment, etc.
If I pulled the "I don't care what you want, I'm doing X" routine, nobody would ever hire me again.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Ask Slashdot needs more answers like this.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
The solution to your problem is to place a computer over there with Linux on it, and run BugZilla and all the required support software on that box. Then, put that one window manager that makes things look like Windows XP, and put a window in the middle of the screen labeled "BugZilla Server for Windows XP" with fake but real looking flashy statistics in that window. Nobody will ever know, because people who use Windows and have never been exposed to anything else are too stupid to figure out something like that.
I installed Bugzilla on windows for a project at NATO in the netherlands. It's running very well ( more than a year now) and was not so hard to set up. Just try it. I remember that i did had to modify some source code, so a bit of perl might come in handy.
You could always use lotus notes (http://www-306.ibm.com/software/lotus/) work order tracking extension. Although the program has become a behemoth of lag in its current incarnation its actually quite effective at keeping track of whats going with who. Although I don't think its the free open source software solution you are looking for. The desktop I use at work is a 500mhz p3 with 128mb of ram running windows XP, Lotus notes runs like a dead turtle on it. Although on the 2ghz p4-m with 2gb of ram laptop (which I use most of the time anyway) it runs fine. Lotus notes use to be such a nice and well optimized dos program.....
How about this: If a strange Canadian man offers your child some candy, and your child steps into his car, that's considered an alien abduction unless you live in Canada.
I'd assume that a lot more Slashdot readers live in Canada than in Mexico, so what you said would just result in someone else trolling for a (Score:+5, Funny+Insightful) with "But I live in Canada, you insensitive clod!"
and would love to implement Bugzilla for issue tracking but statements like this - 'Making Bugzilla work on Windows is still a painful processes.' in the OS-Specific installation notes don't make it seem reasonable.
A better set of instructions to use:
http://www.bugzilla.org/docs/win32install.html
It's really as simple as following the instructions to get it up and running with the standard configuration. I setup Bugzilla for our project team under Windows and it was a relative snap, much easier than I expected.
Of course, then came the requests to modify Bugzilla to change states and various things...
Bugzilla isnt really designed for windows for a host of reasons covered in the documentation and mentioned here by other posters.
Although, it is probably the best bug tracking system available in terms of functionality, there are plenty of other non-free bugtrackers available for windows.
So the choice really comes down to- BUY a lesser known bug tracker for windows, or use Bugzilla on Linux.
We've got 2.18rc3 running on Windows 2000 and it works great. The biggest problems I've had are with Active Directory integration for the passwords (still doesn't work).
That said, Linux is still a vastly superior OS for Bugzilla.
Apache2 on Windows doesn't have full support for mod_perl yet, so you lose some perfomance by going the cgi route, and because mod_perl doesn't work you can't use perl for password protection in httpd.conf.
Also, mod_auth_mysql doesn't work on Windows (yes there are binaries available, no they do not work; Apache on Windows creates its password hashes differently than on Linux, but mysql creates the hashes just like linux does so they don't match and won't authenticate).
All in all, I like Bugzilla, but it's a serious serious pain in the ass to integrate bugzilla user accounts with other parts of your site in a Windows only environment (Though I'm sure we probably just don't know enough about Active Directory).