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Overview
Jelmer Vernooij works on a number of projects in Launchpad.
If we visit his bugs overview page, we can see that he's involved with hundreds of bugs tracked in Launchpad.
Using the Actions menu, you can refine the list to see which bugs Jelmer has reported, which he's working on, which he's commented on and so on.
If you've only recently joined Launchpad, your own bugs overview page may not have as much content but, once you start reporting and working on bugs, it'll give you a useful picture of the bugs you're involved with.
Reporting bugs
Reporting a bug using Launchpad is straightforward. However, there are one or two things to look out for:
Bug notifications: you'll receive email updates about any bug you report, comment on or are otherwise involved with.
Package or project: Launchpad tracks bugs both for upstream projects and distribution packages of those projects.
Bug notifications are a useful way to keep up to date with bugs and we'll look at them later in this guide.
Package or project
Let's say you're reporting a bug in Inkscape. The Inkscape project uses Launchpad as its bug tracker. Ubuntu also uses Launchpad to track bugs and has an Inkscape package.
This may sound confusing but Launchpad gives us some big clues as to whether we're looking at the Inkscape project or a distribution package of Inkscape, such as Ubuntu's.
Where you report the bug depends on where you found it. If you find a bug while using a distribution that tracks its bugs in Launchpad - such as Ubuntu - you should report the bug against the distribution. However, if you find it elsewhere, you should report it directly against the project itself.
Next steps
Launchpad helps you stay informed of a bug's progress both by email and Atom feed. Let's look at how you can subscribe to bug notifications.