How to improve the openSUSE Support Database Wiki

English Open Chat
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Dear all,

I’m a new openSUSE user, but an experienced Linux user. I started around 2007 using Slackware installed by my father. I passed through (mainly) Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Manjaro, Arch, and Fedora. Among these, the distribution that I used and loved the most was Manjaro.

Recently, I found that most of the software I was used to installing AUR is installable easily via Flatpak, snap, or language-specific repositories (e.g. pip, npm, cargo, go). Having tried Fedora, I didn’t feel well with certain design choices (e.g. Gnome as the only officially supported DE, no hibernation by default, no BTRFS snapshots). Still, I wanted something more stable than Manjaro and without the hassles of installing Arch or updating Ubuntu/Debian.

I tried openSUSE and I’m falling in love with it :heart:

Considering the above aspects, openSUSE provides large repositories via flatpak + zypper + opi. In my case, my needs were covered better by openSUSE+opi than Fedora+copr (only two software weren’t covered, tldr and rbw, which are installable via cargo and pipx, though). With openSUSE as with Manjaro/Arch I have no software in my desired list that is not installable. The software versions are updated yet stable thanks to the openQA. Even if something goes wrong during an update, BTRFS snapshots are on by default, so no issue with that! Not least, I’m finding a nice community that, for instance, doesn’t beat you because you’re doing things your way and as the “bible” Arch says.

The only reason which is keeping me from stating it will be my future distro for the next 10 years 100% sure is the documentation. Even here, I think it is better than Fedora Wiki, that is mostly outdated, but it is far (far) from the Arch wiki. Ok, Arch Wiki is a unicum and we can’t think of reproducing it from scratch. But I think that there are some things that could be improved by us (the community). For instance, during this little journey in a particular installation into an existing BTRFS partition, I had to do with:

  1. the NVidia page is old (I updated it today but I’m not sure if I did it correctly)
  2. the page about full-root encryption was not clear about LUKS2 (I updated it today)

So, I’m opening this thread as a new user to give a somehow external perspective, but as an experienced user to start contributing to openSUSE.

Some ideas to improve the Support Database:

  1. Mark posts that are solved in the forum and manually link them to the respective pages in the wiki (at least the most common)
  2. Use the solved forum posts to check if the wiki contains possibly useful information to solve the issue
  3. Set up some simple test scripts for the most important pages (e.g. nvidia) that can be use to check if the information are still correct
  4. …
    …

What do you think about this? :grinning:

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Oh, I forgot to put a ? at the end of the title :slight_smile:

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openSUSE doesn’t have a dedicated team of paid folks that write documentation. If you want to see better documentation, well, it’s on you, as a user that sees a deficiency to make it happen, or to gather support to make the changes you feel like should happen.

We’re a community distribution, and those that “do” are the folks that steer the project.

This isn’t meant to be harsh, or to crap on your ideas, just meant to explain how things work.

Right now, assuming you’ve setup an openSUSE username, you’re more than welcome to edit the wiki however you wish. If there are systems you would like to see put in place, to assure the accuracy of the information, well, that’s probably something you need to discuss with the right folks. I’m not actually really certain where you would do that, perhaps the -project mailing list, or the -project discussion channels on Matrix or IRC.

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See the FAQ for the forums - we talk about why we haven’t done this.

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I understand and somehow agree with the reasons about marking posts as solved. Maybe, what we should reason about is more attention to the wiki. Maybe we can talk about not strict protocols but about mind set and ideal protocol (what we aim to achieve, even if we at the end don’t do it).

I feel like the wiki of openSUSE, like all the distro out there except the Arch wiki, is misleading and almost dangerous because it’s not updated regularly by the community.

Think about it: does Arch use paid people that keep the Wiki consistent with the updates it has? I don’t think so (correct me if I’m wrong). I think the difference is mainly in the mindset of the community…

Anyway, one practical thing that could help is an easier interface for editing, for instance using markdown. Also some gamification could help to make the community more prone to edit it.

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The FAQ shifts the meaning of “solved”. In this context “solved” means nothing more and nothing less as “this post answered my question”. It is often near to impossible to find such post in a discussion several (dozens) pages long that continues on and on long after the original question has already been answered.

If you do not like “solved” call it “the answer”, so anyone stumbling over this topic could immediately jump to it without need to spend hours sifting through all irrelevant submissions.

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I agree with you, it would definitely be useful.

Another useful addition would be categories parallel with the wiki, so we could then build automated links from/to wiki pages.

I’m also seeing that we lack a wiki Specia Page listing pages by the last update. That would be useful too.

In general, it’s hard for me to understand if there is a group controlling the wiki or not. I’m wondering if the community still has some volounteer “responsible” for it or not.

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All wikis that use mediawiki have it available:
https://en.opensuse.org/Special:SpecialPages
https://en.opensuse.org/index.php?title=Special:AncientPages&limit=500&offset=0

This is available from the top of all wiki pages…

As already pointed out, the wik is created and maintained by normal users. The only control is done by aware users which report and revert vandalizing and report of this users…

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There is a group of folks that are responsible for the wiki, in the sense that they keep the server running, and the wiki software updated. They’re not “responsible” for the content of the wiki. That is all done on a volunteer basis.

I haven’t a clue how the archwiki is “moderated” or whether it is or not.

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Thanks for that feedback; I think we had considered how it would be used by answer seekers, not by answer providers. We’ll look at consideration for that again - I’ll raise it with the staff again.

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Thank you all for your replies. I’ll try to do something with the wiki, the forum, and the reddit (using the latter for updating the former).

Yesterday I had a weird idea: would it make sense to compile a detailed list of differences between openSUSE and Arch Linux? That way, we could link the well-crafted Arch wiki from the openSUSE wiki while also adding some remarks that highlight the differences between the two systems.

Another idea on the same path could be to create a browser extension for annotating the Arch Wiki with openSUSE -specific information. The user visiting the Arch wiki with the extension enabled will see different things, alerts, highlights, links to forum and to the official documentation.

I know using the Arch wiki for openSUSE is questionable, but I think it’s the best we can get with little work…

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openSUSE wiki can be frustrating. Always try out SUSE product documentation and openSUSE Documentation. ArchWIKI is another great resource.

Using openSUSE since 1995 was never a smooth experience. However since they are revising their maintenance and development based on systemd I am convinced openSUSE Tumbleweed is the best distribution currently available. Their processes are coherent and continually improve. KISS (Keep It Super Simple) works best with openSUSE.

In the last decade I started converting everything to openSUSE. Maintaining the computers of other users is now easy and requires very few resources.

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/

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“How to improve the openSUSE Support Database Wiki?”
“Don’t use it”

Not the answer I was looking for.
:laughing:

But I have this temptation to say that it would be better to close it as it is now, because it’s too often misleading…

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You are exaggerating. Be cautious. To my experience you can waste a lot of time relying on it. Always search for a generic solution first.

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