Recommendation: Standardized posting machine description

From time to time,
There is confusion about what OS is being described in a Technical Help Forums post. As time goes on, it may also be unclear whether content is still relevant if no basic information is described in the thread.

My recommendation:
The following command should be executed on the machine and the results prepend the forum post, provides the following information:

• OS
• OS version
• Desktop
• Kernel

cat /etc/*release | grep PRETTY_NAME= && uname -a

In fact, I don’t know how capable this Forums software is, whether it’s possible to insert an additional field under the “Title” field where a button can execute this command on the local machine and insert the results into this field. Would be very cool if possible. The field should be manually editable so the User has a choice whether to click the button (if posting from the subject machine) or manually paste the results if posting from a machine that’s not the subject of the post.

If this can’t be built into the “Post New Thread” editor, I’d still like to see this recommended in a sticky and by frequent posters.

If more basic information should be declared, can be appended.
Open to suggestion and comment.

TSU

I’ve seen vBulletin systems with a little “Machine Specifications” button that pops up a list below their avatars.

Not sure how actively these forums are developed but it shouldn’t be a big thing to implement.

As you may guess, I would aplaude such a feature.
I would be satisfied with a sort of “fill in” field as a trigger. Automatics not realy needed. The more because the system that has the problem need not be the same as the one used for posting (some people, having severe problems, even reported they had to post from a non Unix/Linux system :().

On Sun, 27 Jul 2014 09:36:01 +0000, Miuku wrote:

> I’ve seen vBulletin systems with a little “Machine Specifications”
> button that pops up a list below their avatars.
>
> Not sure how actively these forums are developed but it shouldn’t be a
> big thing to implement.

It could be a useful feature - we do some active development, but we
don’t customize the system too much - customizations make getting
security patches implemented take longer because of increased testing
requirements. Because of that, we tend to not make a lot of
customizations.

But if it’s a standardized plugin, that might be something we could
consider.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

Yes, we’d have to be wary about that, but provision to add that information manually could be made available for those instances.

After putting a little more thought into this,

**A Short Term proposal **(something that can be implemented immediately):

Provide text instructions to the User, can be implemented 2 ways:

• If the Input Box of the “Post New Thread” editor supports default text which usually disappears or can be removed by the User, display the following text in the Input Box…

http://en.opensuse.org/images/f/f2/Mockup_Post_New_Thread.png

• If the Input Box doesn’t support default text in the box, then the above instructions can be placed immediately above the box.

http://en.opensuse.org/images/4/4a/Mockup_Post_New_Thread_external.png

The drawbacks of the above implementations:

• In my Original Post I proposed a separate field if possible preparing the forum data for what I believe is the inevitable implementation some time in the future for more advanced Search. One of the principles of better Search is to prepare data by either separating or tagging data so that particular data is easily identified, becomes easily indexed which lessens calculations.

• Requires networking and likely also a functional web browser in a working Desktop.
  Workarounds to these include

  • Manually copying, reading off the display
  • If the commands can be run and despite lacking the above has access to either removable or shared storage, the results can be piped to a file and then read from another machine.
  • If networking exists, then either SSH into the machine may be possible (may be beyond a newbie’s skillset) or the command can be run and the results sent to another machine (eg SMTP, SCP, FTP, HTTP, RCP, etc) If this is implemented, maybe a suitable place on the Internet can be used that accepts HTTP POST and stores the information no longer than maybe an hour (long enough to retrieve the information using another machine)

Sorry for the somewhat haphazard info, mainly jotting down thoughts…

Just a note on the

cat /etc/*release | grep PRETTY_NAME=

Is the same as

grep -hi pretty_name /etc/*release

Without the cat since the syntax for grep does not need cat.

but if you only want to see the version you can do

lsb-release -rs

or

awk -F\" '/VERSION_ID/ {print $2}' /etc/os-release

Combine them together to make sure that if the first command does not exist then fall back to the other.

if command -v lsb-release >/dev/null; then lsb-release -rs; else awk -F\" '/VERSION_ID/ {print $2}' /etc/os-release; fi

FWIW, the DE can be got from

echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP

but one has to be mindful that the OP could be posting from a different environment, including OS.

Probably easier just to provide a message requesting the relevant system information, including hardware info for hardware posts etc

…or we could make use of existing tools like inxi. For example

inxi -S
System:    Host: linux-bbgi.site Kernel: 3.11.10-17-desktop x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: KDE 4.13.3 
           Distro: openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) 

inxi -G
Graphics:  Card: Intel Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (primary)
           Display Server: X.Org 1.14.3.901 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1680x1050@60.0hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 965GM GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 9.2.3

+1 for inxi, but only if it’s part of the default install(which it should be, IMHO).

O no. It’s already a infected issue about collect info on people in the net. Get the info and attacks can be narrowed/pinpointed to a target. Yes I can read and understand the top gurus in technical forums. I have read the first comments lately on posts and the irritation from moderators/admins. I can say that I agree but not from that a point in view of the users…

Another world isn’t it? :.

Regards

On Sun 03 Aug 2014 05:06:01 PM CDT, jonte1 wrote:

tsu2;2656031 Wrote:
> From time to time,
> There is confusion about what OS is being described in a Technical
> Help Forums post. As time goes on, it may also be unclear whether
> content is still relevant if no basic information is described in the
> thread.
>
> My recommendation:
> The following command should be executed on the machine and the
> results prepend the forum post, provides the following information:
> - OS
> - OS version
> - Desktop
> - Kernel
>
> >
Code:

> > cat /etc/*release | grep PRETTY_NAME= && uname -a

> >
>
> In fact, I don’t know how capable this Forums software is, whether
> it’s possible to insert an additional field under the “Title” field
> where a button can execute this command on the local machine and
> insert the results into this field. Would be very cool if possible.
> The field should be manually editable so the User has a choice whether
> to click the button (if posting from the subject machine) or manually
> paste the results if posting from a machine that’s not the subject of
> the post.
>
> If this can’t be built into the “Post New Thread” editor, I’d still
> like to see this recommended in a sticky and by frequent posters.
>
> If more basic information should be declared, can be appended.
> Open to suggestion and comment.
>
> TSU

O no. It’s already a infected issue about collect info on people in the
net. Get the info and attacks can be narrowed/pinpointed to a target.
Yes I can read and understand the top gurus in technical forums. I have
read the first comments lately on posts and the irritation from
moderators/admins. I can say that I agree but not from that a point in
view of the users…

Another world isn’t it? :.

Regards

Hi
It is rather hard to help a user with the lack of details, for example
the user with the touchpad issue, the only thing we know now is that
the user is on openSUSE 13.1, for all I know there could be no desktop
involved and the user is running gpm with just a console, very hard to
help, the user could have an elatech or an alps touchpad.

They could be running a non-standard kernel, maybe even spectrwm or
blackbox or one of a multitude of desktop environments. Some simple
details help a lot. For example I can really provide no help with KDE
as I only use GNOME, so pointless for me to tell the user what to do
for a GNOME environment if they are not running it…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.11.10-17-desktop
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

On Sun, 27 Jul 2014 07:56:01 +0000, tsu2 wrote:

> The following command should be executed on the machine and the results
> prepend the forum post, provides the following information:

I don’t know that anyone should feel comfortable with a forum site
executing arbitrary commands on the running system. It’s also possible
that the system the user is posting from isn’t the system they’re having
trouble with.

I’ve had in the works (for some time now, longer than intended) a
“welcome to the forums” message that includes tips on how to get the most
out of the forums and how to help the people who are helping. Including
information necessary to diagnose the problem is one of the tips I’ve
included.

I should really get that wrapped up - it’s been on my plate for longer
than I’d care to admit, just been so busy with the new job the last few
months.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

I certainly wouldn’t. This is realy notthe way to go.

Please, please. I am am realy hoping that it will help:

• we are your fellow openSUSE users;
• choose the correct forum (and do not double posts);
• choose a good title that has the keywords to attrackt the approriate gurus;
• explain what you use (versions, how installed when not from OSS and non-OSS);
• use CODE tags.

Such a welcome message would make me very happy.

I think that the idea of flash some question on every new tread would be a better way to go. Every thought of collection information (not given by the user)from the client pc asking for information is wrong. When the information is there for good purposes it will be misused. 2:law of Thermodynamics, its start good but the entropy and chaos is unvadibale.

Regards

Note: Associative array is a bash4 feature

declare -A Options=("Desktop"]="$XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP" "lsb-release"]=-d "uname"]=-a "inxi"]=-G)

for i in "${!Options@]}"; do if type -P "$i">/dev/null; then command -p "$i" "${Options$i]}"; else echo "${i}:" "${Options$i]}";fi; done

Just in case someone is interested, also feel free to add an additional entry in the array