Portal:Support

Welcome to the Support Portal edit

The openSUSE Support portal is the entry point for help and support. It offers links to openSUSE documentation, support database articles and interactive communication channels where thousands of helpful openSUSE users from all over the world can help you to solve difficulties, and much more!

Support options edit

We help any openSUSE user, it doesn't matter how you obtained your copy of openSUSE, but interactive help listed here is given by volunteers that don't have any obligation to help. They help just as friends would help when you ask them.

To request support included in a boxed version you have to contact the vendor.
To request support for one of the openSUSE services see Services help.

Non interactive

openSUSE documentation is a complete list of documentation for users and developers and first resource for people using openSUSE. It covers regular daily usage of openSUSE and many tips and tricks, hidden gems, that help to use it efficiently.

Support database is for people with some "do it yourself" attitude. The Support Database is offering solutions for many problems. You can search or browse for articles that experienced users and SUSE staff wrote as a solution for different problems. From installation and configuration issues, to workarounds for bugs until they are solved with regular updates.

Mailing list archives are another popular source of information for those that know what they are looking for, but it is not the best option for users that are completely new to Linux. The archive contains a lot of community knowledge for current and past releases.

Interactive

Communication channels lists support channels that we use in the case of problems that we can't solve on our own. It contains short introduction and links to interactive support, where you can communicate with other openSUSE users. Be aware that people there can be skilled professionals that can help a lot, but they use their own time to help.

Forums are this days very popular way to communicate on the web. This listing contains web forums operated by openSUSE, but also those run by third parties.
Mailing lists are a common way to communicate with other people that share the same interest. They are used by Linux and openSUSE enthusiasts, as well as professionals for a very long time to share ideas and solve problems.
IRC channels are a live help service of openSUSE powered by Freenode. It is based on the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol, ditto we often refer to it by abbreviation IRC. That is real time service where users can help each other without delay.

Bugzilla is probably the most popular software used to track software problems (bugs) from report to resolution. We use http://bugzilla.novell.com for openSUSE, which is one more way that Novell is supporting us. "We use" means that it is open and everyone can access it, all that you need is an openSUSE account. See Reporting software problems to learn how to use it.

In the news edit

12:29, 2 May 2010 (UTC) Support portal is near release version. Check TODO list for missing pieces. (I will not complain if you help -- Rajko m )

More news...

Things to do edit

Draft idea of web based support (help, "wizard") that will guide new user; wizard language must be plain - no technical lingo;
Expand support topics to include web services. Currently it is written with distribution in mind, and even that is coarse with the general links, like openSUSE:Communication channels, which is now link to all article about communication channels, from support to development and chat.
Solve red links - partially done.
Create some category organization for support topics.
Fix use of the categorytree. The prerequisite is to have some category organization to show.

Done !

~~SDB:HOWTOs looks obsolete, sdb articles can be browsed from the sdb portal~~
one little interactive support topic is forgotten - search
~~see why right column can't go to the top; clear:both just lowers left column leaving 2 lines space between title and first text.~~