openSUSE Forums FAQ

Here you can find answers to questions about how the forums work. Use the search button above to find your way around.

What are the openSUSE Forums terms and conditions?

By having an SUSE Community Account (also known as a SUSE ID), you agree to the following Terms and Conditions:

  • The openSUSE Legal Documents, which outline the rules which govern the activities, content, and software available on all openSUSE web offerings, including these forums.

  • The SUSE Privacy Policy, which outlines SUSE’s obligations to your account information and its privacy.

  • The openSUSE Code of Conduct is a set of guidelines used to create a consistent environment across the project’s community spaces. It can be found at Code of Conduct - openSUSE Wiki

openSUSE Forums Terms

By using your SUSE Community Account (also known as a SUSE ID) to post on the openSUSE Forums, you agree to the documents above, but also to the following openSUSE Forums Terms and Conditions. These forum specific terms supersede any similar terms outlined in the openSUSE Legal Documents or SUSE Privacy Policy. Members may not create or use accounts for deceptive purposes including but not limited to: circumventing the T&C, rejoining the community after being banned or blocked, circumventing staff actions or directions, or posting as different persons

Privacy

Your e-mail address is kept private and is used to send you forum notifications and e-mails from openSUSE Forums staff.

Private member account information (your username, password, e-mail address, or otherwise) will not be disclosed by staff members on the forum or to any third party without your consent or due process of law. However, the openSUSE Forums staff cannot be held responsible for any unauthorized access to our server. Logging in or visting the forums while logged in to openSUSE or SUSE services automatically creates your account on our forum server. To request that your account information be removed from the openSUSE infrastructure, submit your request to SUSE via this form . When filling out this form, select “Other” for the “I am a (an)” field, and “Data Deletion” for the request type.

openSUSE Forums uses cookies to store information on your local computer. These cookies do not contain any tracking information or personal data, and only serve to enhance your use of the forums.

Content

Neither SUSE/openSUSE nor the staff of openSUSE Forums is responsible for any of the content posted within the openSUSE Forums. With the exception of Forum Announcements, all posts represent the views and opinions of the Member who posted it and are not the official views of the openSUSE Forums. Neither SUSE/openSUSE nor the openSUSE Forums staff vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness, legality, or usefulness of any post content and are not responsible for consequences resulting from use of the information in forum posts.

This Board is intended primarily as a technical support facility for openSUSE users. Global Moderators set policy on the appropriateness of posted material. Forum Staff advise Members of the appropriateness of posted material (including technical merit) here and Members are expected to abide by that guidance. In recognition of the diversity of backgrounds of the Members and in the interests of community harmony, religious or political comment is not allowed. Messages personally attacking, calling names, or otherwise harassing or being condescending (viz. anti-social behavior) to another forum Member or any ethnic or religious group will be deleted. Offensive and/or vulgar language is not appropriate for openSUSE sponsored forums. Violation of these terms may result in being suspended or banned from forum participation.

Any Member who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact the openSUSE Forums staff immediately by e-mail, private message, or by using the “Flag Post” button on every post. If staff determine that removal is appropriate, openSUSE Forums staff will make every effort to remove objectionable content within a reasonable time frame…

Thread/Post Ownership

All data stored in the forum databases (including all posts and polls) are the property of the openSUSE Forums. The administrators have the right to maintain, in their original form, all posts made in the forums as a historical record of forum activity. openSUSE Forums staff have the right to remove, edit, move, or close any topic at any time according to forum and staff policy.

If you wish to delete or edit a post, please use the “Flag Post” for Forum Staff to review.

Advertising/Spam

Members who wish to post advertisements for any kind of good or service (free, paid, digital, or otherwise) must contact the openSUSE Forums staff for approval. Posted advertisements that have not received staff approval, whether or not an approval request has been made, will be removed and the member may be banned.

New user registrations are checked against a database of known spammers, and those accounts are silenced pending staff review. If you feel your account has been erroneously flagged, contact the forum admins via DM, and we will investigate.

The staff of the openSUSE Forums reserve the right to determine what content is and is not acceptable under this policy. All staff decisions are final.

Cross-Posting

The openSUSE Forums staff do not allow “cross posting”, where a user posts the same or a similar thread in more than one forum. The thread that was posted in the least-relevant forum will be removed. The openSUSE staff may combine the threads if both threads have responses.

Contacting Staff

Staff may be contacted for any reason using the forums’ private messaging (PM). However, staff members will not provide private support; all help requests must be posted in the appropriate forum. For details on openSUSE Forums staff, please visit the About page.

New User Guide

The following link is to the Discourse Community created guide for using a Discourse Forum on Discourse Meta.

Please note this is a topic posted on their discussion board, but is a completely different forum and only for reference to using this instance of the openSUSE Forum software.

Discourse New User Guide

Why don’t you implement my great suggestion?

First, let’s be clear that your suggestions are VERY welcome and often suggestions help us improve the forums. There are a lot of very good suggestions that don’t get implemented however, and this is an attempt at an explanation as to why.

We’ve chosen to implement Discourse software for these forums. The servers hosting it reside in the SUSE Nuremberg data center which has many benefits such as fail over, disaster recovery, monitoring etc. but it severely limits who has access to test and implement changes.

Discourse issues software updates regularly, once every one or two months. Human resource to do these updates is very limited so we want to have as little customization as we can get away with. Human resource to build and implement additional functionality into the system is almost non-existent and would cause even more work come update time.

The bottom line is if we get suggestions that are easy to implement with little to no customization we’re more likely to do them than suggestions that require some development and/or require additional modifications, even if they are really, really, really, really good suggestions. Don’t take it personally if we don’t implement your suggestion.

In regards to our authentication system, session timeouts, etc., we use what is standard for the openSUSE Project. The system is the same one used on the wiki and other login areas. It makes for a unified authentication experience across the sites.

One last thing. We seem to always get requests for us to enable a thread to be marked SOLVED like some other distribution and support forums do. Everyone here is a volunteer and we don’t have the staff to spend the time it takes determining if every thread is solved and solved correctly. One of the problems here is that things evolve so what was solved a year ago may be a totally different issue/resolution now. We like to leave all our threads open so people can add content or question the resolution at any time. Also, “Solved/Unsolved” is something that is misleading and causes users to think “Hey, this problem is kinda like mine, so the solution must apply”. More seasoned users know that every problem is likely to have its own nuances and differences, and a solution for one user isn’t likely to be a solution for another.

Anyway, there you have it. I hope it doesn’t discourage you from making those good suggestions because sometimes we can find a good hack addition to Discourse that we can install or otherwise find some way to do it without headaches.

How do I request language specific forums?

The creation and/or fostering of non-English openSUSE discussion forums will generally further the concept and objectives of the openSUSE project. These guidelines will help guide the processes associated with this and will help streamline the process. If you are considering proposing a language specific forum, please read and become familiar with these requirements:

Unless otherwise agreed to by the majority of forum staff, each of the following steps must be complete before non-English forums and/or forum links are created on https://forums.opensuse.org:

  1. THE REQUEST/PROPOSAL
    • The proposal for a new forum or a link to an existing forum should be submitted to one of the Forums administrators
    • Any initial request received from an outside party by any member of the staff will be posted, in it’s entirety if written, or summarized as thoroughly as possible, if verbal, to the rest of the Forums staff.
    • Incoming proposals will be reviewed by the staff and needs to have approval of the majority of the staff that wish to express an opinion on the proposal before any action is taken. The period for comment shall be 7 days.
    • With the request, the requester shall provide an overview as to their related technical background so as to provide confidence that this is a genuine effort to establish a foreign language forum, and that reasonable qualifications are in place for them to initiate/manage the new foreign language forum during its initial start up days
  2. NEW, MERGE, or PARTNER DECISIONS
    • All requests for new language forums will be considered first as creating new sub-forums at https://forums.opensuse.org
    • In all cases where the non-English forum already exists, the first effort will be to merge the existing forum user base into the openSUSE Forums by creating new forum here. If that is not possible or if deemed beneficial to the openSUSE Project, we will discuss a possible partnership arrangement.
    • In all cases, new, merge, or partner, all parties involved must agree to the following terms:
      1. For new, merged, or partner forums, at least one English speaking person will be identified as a contact and liaison for the indicated language forum. If the forums are hosted at openSUSE Forums, this person will become a member of our staff in an appropriate role. The person identified for each language facet of the openSUSE Forums is responsible to provide the the openSUSE Forums staff, in English, every January, a short status report of their perception of the health of their non-English forum(s) in order to determine the ongoing health and viability of said forums and ensure. English is selected as a common communication language, and the report requirement is for all openSUSE Forums language groups. The report is intended to facilitate the maintenance of a regular coordination between the diverse openSUSE Forums support language groups, providing an annual mutual checkpoint and a venue where non-urgent areas of discussion and commonality can be raised and progress tracked.
      2. Each openSUSE Forums language forum will have at least two moderators (this may include the same or different from the above contact) who will be official openSUSE Forums moderator and actively moderate the indicated forums. The moderators and the assigned contact must agree to support and enforce the openSUSE terms and conditions in the indicated forums
      3. All language forum links, whether new, merged, or partner will be created under our “Language Specific Forums” header, with priority given to forums hosted on our servers. All “partner” forums will be indicated by the tag “External Link”
      4. If a merge is agreed to, the staff roles of pre-existing communities will keep their role in the new language specific sub forums as they line up with openSUSE Forums roles, except as otherwise provided on an individual basis.
      5. If a partnership is agreed to by all parties, we’ll point members with the corresponding native language to the pre-existing community as our official partner by creating a link to the pre-existing community and vice versa (link at the pre-existing community to the openSUSE Forums). If all requirements are agreed to during the negotiations with pre-existing communities, we’ll announce the pre-existing community as our official partner.
      6. If the behavior of staff or partner is found not to be compatible with the Guiding Principles of the openSUSE community and/or our terms and conditions in the long term, the OS Forum staff will decide on a course of action.
      7. The final decision on forum specific language support will be made by the current openSUSE Forums staff.
      8. If the above conditions are met, the forum technical administrator will work with the necessary people and implement.

Yes, this sounds like a bunch of stuffed shirt corporate mambo-jumbo we need to do our due diligence ensure the ongoing viability of any forum we add here.

How do I set my default language?

Because various forum languages are encoded differently, you may want to set your default language to something other than English which is the overall forum default. To do this, go to the header and click on:

  • Your avatar in the upper right corner
    • User Preferences icon
      • Preferences
        • Interface
          • Interface Language

How do I secure my personal information?

Before posting, think about what you are posting and who will be reading it. Do you really want your complete configuration listed? How about your email or postal address?

Though we don’t consider it a security risk, you should be aware that by using our forums, you are allowing your IP address to be known to forum staff and other forum users.

[How do I change my password?

To change your forums password, go to the SUSE Community Accounts self-service page

  • From the list at the top, select whether you want to change your password or reset it in case you forgot it
  • Follow the steps presented to you by the system

Can I change my user ID or email address?

The openSUSE Forums don’t use Discourse’s built in authentication mechanism, but use SUSE Community Accounts. For security reasons SUSE Community Accounts don’t pass user’s password to Discourse. It does pass username which is used to verify your identity when you login to the forums, as well as name and email which are stored in your Discourse profile. This is updated every time you log into Discourse account. If, for some reason, you want to change your name or email address, visit SUSE Community Accounts self-service page, log out and back in to Discourse.

Changing your forum ID

If you find yourself with an ID that you don’t want, the easiest thing for you to do is to create a new profile and login under that new ID. If you would like, you can let us know what the new ID is, and we can either merge the two IDs OR change the ID on the old account if you haven’t logged in with the new account yet.

Can I access the forums via a mobile device?

Discourse has a mobile style that is automatically selected at lower resolutions.

Why can’t I edit my message?

Once you submit your post in these forums, you have 10 minutes to edit it. After 10 minutes, if you need to, you should post a reply with any corrective information.

Why?

Editing a post after it has replies could invalidate those replies because the original information changed. Posting a follow up reply with additional/changed information allows any previous reply to stay in context.

Why do I get an error when clicking a forum link from a browser or email?

Security in your online forum experience is our goal. We use a much more robust login system than the default the forum software provides. Often, when you get a link to our forums outside our environment, you’ll get an error when you click on it. You should login to the forums first (now you’re secure) and then click on the link which should now take you to where you want to go.

Images and attachments

The best way to use images and attachments in your post is to use an external hosting site and point to your content via URL in your post. A good option is to use https://susepaste.org

This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules. They are guidelines to aid the human judgment of our community and keep this a kind, friendly place for civilized public discourse.

Improve the Discussion

Help us make this a great place for discussion by always adding something positive to the discussion, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Spend time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond by disagreeing. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

  • Name-calling
  • Ad hominem attacks
  • Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
  • Knee-jerk contradiction

Instead, provide thoughtful insights that improve the conversation.

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

Discourse provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, watching, muting and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

Let’s leave our community better than we found it.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. Replying encourages bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:

  • Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
  • Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
  • Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
  • Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of a major news site.

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

  • Don’t start a topic in the wrong category; please read the category definitions.
  • Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
  • Don’t post no-content replies.
  • Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
  • Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Post Only Your Own Stuff

You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.

Powered by You

This site is operated by your friendly local staff and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the site feedback category and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.

Terms of Service

Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our Terms of Service.