"Following on from my recommendation for apt-buglist--where you can see the reported bugs on a package before installing it--I thought it might be useful to look at the other side of the coin, reporting bugs in Debian. The best way to do this is with the dedicated tool: reportbug.
"Bugs are a fact of software life. Even the most established and mature project will inevitably have bugs--what distinguishes good software management is also how bugs are reported and handled. Debian has a long history of trying to do things 'right' (although granted that is a very subjective term) and in 'reportbug' I think it has a very simple and effective way of--er--reporting bugs..."