Contents
Abstract
openSUSE® comes with various sources of information and documentation, many of which are already integrated in your installed system:
The help centers of both the KDE desktop (KDE help center) and the GNOME desktop (Help) provide central access to the most important documentation resources on your system, in searchable form. These resources include online help for installed applications, man pages, info pages, and the Novell/SUSE manuals delivered with your product. Learn more about your desktop's help center in Section 8.1, “Using the KDE Help Center” and Section 8.2, “Using GNOME Help”.
When installing new software with YaST, the software documentation is installed automatically in most cases, and usually appears in the help center of your desktop. However, some applications, such as GIMP, may have different online help packages that can be installed separately with YaST and do not integrate into the help centers.
/usr/share/doc
This traditional help directory holds various documentation files and the release notes for your system. Find more detailed information in Section “Documentation Directory” (Chapter 35, Help and Documentation, ↑Reference).
When working with the shell, you do not need to know the options of the commands by heart. Traditionally, the shell provides integrated help by means of man pages and info pages. Read more in Section “Man Pages” (Chapter 35, Help and Documentation, ↑Reference) and Section “Info Pages” (Chapter 35, Help and Documentation, ↑Reference).
From the KDE desktop, you can access the KDE help center in various ways: If you need information from within an application, simply click the application's F1 to open the application's documentation in the help center. If you start the help center from the main menu, or from the command line with khelpcenter, you are taken to the main window of the help center from which you can browse the help topics.
button or pressThe menu and the toolbar provide options for printing contents from the help center, searching the currently displayed page, and navigating and customizing the help center. The display field in the right part of the window always shows the currently selected contents, such as online manuals, search results, or Web pages.
The navigation area in the left part of the window contains several tabs:
Presents a tree view of all available information sources. The help center addresses various target groups, such as users, administrators, and developers. Click on an entry to open and browse the individual categories. The help center also provides access to some online databases that cover special hardware and software issues for your product. All these sources can be searched conveniently once a search index has been generated.
The contents of your help center depends on which software packages are currently installed and which languages are selected as your system languages.
Provides a quick reference where you can look up the definitions of words that might be unfamiliar to you.
Holds options for the full text search of the help center. You can combine several search criteria.
Procedure 8.1. Searching the Help Center
To use the full text search KDE help center offers, generate a search index and set the search parameters. If the search index has not yet been generated, the system automatically prompts you to do so when you click the
tab.To search for a term, click into the text field and enter the search string.
To combine your search strings with operands, click
and select the operand to use.Choose an option from
to limit the number of hits to display.To restrict your search to certain types of documentation, choose an option from
. With , a predefined selection of documents is searched. includes all types of documents in the search. lets you define which documents to include in your search. Just activate the documents you want in the list.When you have set the options according to your wishes, click
. The search results are then displayed as a list of links in the display field and can be navigated with mouse clicks.Procedure 8.2. Generating a New Search Index
To create a new search index, select
+ from the menu. A window opens, showing a list of the documentation currently available in the help center. In case no search index exists, you are automatically asked to build one, once you enter a search term into the search field.Select the documents to integrate in the search index and click
. After the index has been generated, you can use the full text search.On the GNOME desktop, to start Help directly from an application, either click the F1. Both options take you directly to the application's documentation in the help center. However, you can also start Help from the main menu, or from the command line with yelp and then browse through the main window of the help center.
button or pressThe menu and the toolbar provide options for navigating and customizing the help center, for searching and for printing contents from Help. To view a table of contents, click the home icon or press Alt+Home. The help topics are grouped into categories presented as links. Click one of the links to open a list of topics for that category. To search for an item, just enter the search string into the search field at the top of the window.
With the KDE or GNOME desktop, you can also access (or print) man pages and info pages:
In Dolphin or Konqueror, to view the man page for ls, type man:/ls in the location bar. If there are different categories for a command, Konqueror displays them as links. To display the info page for grep, for example, type info:/grep.
In the KDE help center, click
or in the table of contents to browse man pages and info pages. You may also use the search and limit the scope to .Run yelp man:ls or yelp info:ls to display the man or info page. Alternatively enter man:ls or info:ls in the search field of Yelp.
In addition to the online versions of the
openSUSE
manuals installed under /usr/share/doc
, you can also
access the product-specific manuals and documentation on the Web. For an
overview of all documentation available for openSUSE check out your
product-specific documentation Web page at
http://www.novell.com/documentation/.
If you are searching for additional product-related information, you can also refer to the following Web sites:
You might also want to try general-purpose search engines. For example,
you might try the search terms Linux CD-RW help
or
OpenOffice file conversion problem
if you were having
trouble with the CD burning or with OpenOffice.org file conversion.
Google™ also has a Linux-specific search engine at
http://www.google.com/linux that you might find
useful.
Apart from the product-specific help resources, there is a broad range of information available for Linux topics.
The openSUSE community are helpful people. If you have a specific question you can write to several mailing lists, communicate with Internet Relay Chat (IRC), or browse through Web Forums. Find more information at http://en.opensuse.org/Communicate.
The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) is run by a team of volunteers who write Linux-related documentation (see http://www.tldp.org). The set of documents contains tutorials for beginners, but is mainly focused on experienced users and professional system administrators. TLDP publishes HOWTOs, FAQs, and guides (handbooks) under a free license. Parts of the documentation from TLDP is also available on openSUSE
HOWTOs are usually a short, informal, step-by-step guides to
accomplishing specific tasks. HOWTOs can also be found in the package
howto
and are installed under
/usr/share/doc/howto
.
FAQs (frequently asked questions) are a series of questions and answers. They originate from Usenet newsgroups where the purpose was to reduce continuous reposting of the same basic questions.
Manuals and guides for various topics or programs can be found at http://www.tldp.org/guides.html. They range from Bash Guide for Beginners to Linux Filesystem Hierarchy to Linux Administrator's Security Guide . Generally, guides are more detailed and exhaustive than HOWTOs or FAQs. They are usually written by experts for experts.
Created in 1979 before the rise of the Internet, Usenet is one of the oldest computer networks and still in active use. The format and transmission of Usenet articles is very similar to e-mail, but is developed for a many-to-many communication.
Usenet is organized into seven topical categories:
comp.*
for computer-related
discussions, misc.*
for
miscellaneous topics, news.*
for newsgroup-related matters,
rec.*
for recreation and
entertainment, sci.*
for
science-related discussions,
soc.*
for social
discussions, and talk.*
for various controversial topics. The top levels are split in subgroups.
For instance,
comp.os.linux.hardware
is a
newsgroup for Linux-specific hardware issues.
Before you can post an article, have your client connect to a news server and subscribe to a specific newsgroup. News clients include Knode or Evolution. Each news server communicates to other news servers and exchanges articles with them. Not all newsgroups may be available on your news server.
Interesting newsgroups for Linux users are
comp.os.linux.apps
,
comp.os.linux.questions
, and
comp.os.linux.hardware
.
If you cannot find a specific newsgroup, go to
http://www.linux.org/docs/usenetlinux.html. Follow the
general Usenet rules available online at
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/posting-rules/part1/.
Wikipedia is “a multilingual encyclopedia designed to be read and edited by anyone” (see http://en.wikipedia.org). The content of Wikipedia is created by its users and is published under a dual free license (GFDL and CC-BY-SA). However, as Wikipedia can be edited by any visitor, it should be used only as a starting point or general guide. There is much incorrect or incomplete information in it.
There are various sources that provide information about standards or specifications.
The Linux Foundation is an independent nonprofit organization that promotes the distribution of free and open source software. The organization endeavors to achieve this by defining distribution-independent standards. The maintenance of several standards, such as the important LSB (Linux Standard Base), is supervised by this organization.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is one of the best-known standards organizations. It was founded in October 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee and concentrates on standardizing Web technologies. W3C promotes the dissemination of open, license-free, and manufacturer-independent specifications, such as HTML, XHTML, and XML. These Web standards are developed in a four-stage process in working groups and are presented to the public as W3C recommendations (REC).
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is an international consortium specializing in the development of standards for Web security, e-business, business transactions, logistics, and interoperability between various markets.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an internationally active cooperative of researchers, network designers, suppliers, and users. It concentrates on the development of Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet by means of protocols.
Every IETF standard is published as an RFC (Request for Comments) and is available free-of-charge. There are six types of RFC: proposed standards, draft standards, Internet standards, experimental protocols, information documents, and historic standards. Only the first three (proposed, draft, and full) are IETF standards in the narrower sense (see http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1796.txt).
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an organization that draws up standards in the areas of information technology, telecommunication, medicine and health care, transport, and others. IEEE standards are subject to a fee.
The ISO Committee (International Organization for Standards) is the world's largest developer of standards and maintains a network of national standardization institutes in over 140 countries. ISO standards are subject to a fee.
The Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) is a registered technical and scientific association. It was founded in 1917. According to DIN, the organization is “the institution responsible for standards in Germany and represents German interests in worldwide and European standards organizations.”
The association brings together manufacturers, consumers, trade professionals, service companies, scientists and others who have an interest in the establishment of standards. The standards are subject to a fee and can be ordered using the DIN home page.
Useful support information for openSUSE is available in a number of sources.
Free installation support for retail box customer
Free community support http://en.opensuse.org/Communicate
If you encounter problems with the installation or use of openSUSE that you are unable to solve, our experienced support staff can offer practical assistance with the free installation support for registered releases. Nearly all common customer problems can be eliminated quickly and competently. You can use the extensive support offered through the community, as well.
Our free installation support is provided for a period of 90 days following the activation of your registration code http://www.open-slx.com/register or following the release of the next version. If you cannot find an answer to your question in any of the available information sources, we will gladly provide assistance for the following issues:
Installation on a typical home user system or laptop equipped with a single processor, at least 512 MB RAM, and 3 GB of free hard disk space.
Resizing of one Windows partition that occupies the entire hard disk.
Dual-boot installation with Windows, limited to Linux Support.
Installation of a local ATAPI CD or DVD drive.
Installation from a remote CD/DVD drive
Installation on the first or second hard disk in an IDE-only system
(/dev/sda
or /dev/sdb
) or
supported S-ATA system, excluding RAID.
Integration of a standard keyboard and standard mouse.
Configuration of the graphical user interface (without the hardware acceleration feature of the graphics card).
Installation of the boot manager in the MBR of the first hard disk without modifying the BIOS mapping.
Setup of Internet access with a supported PCI ISDN card or external serial modem (not USB). Conversely, setup of DSL based on PPPoE with a supported NIC.
Basic configuration of a supported WLAN adapter.
Basic configuration of an ALSA-supported PCI sound card.
Basic configuration of a locally-attached compatible printer with YaST.
Basic configuration of an IDE CD writer for use with k3b (CD burning application) without changing the jumper setting.
Configuration of a supported PCI ethernet card for LAN access with either DHCP (client) or static IP. This does not include the configuration of the LAN or any other computers or network components. It also does not cover the configuration of the computer as a router. Fault analysis is limited to checking for proper loading of the kernel module and the correct local network settings.
Configuration of an e-mail client (Evolution and KMail) for collecting mail from a POP3 account. Fault analysis is limited to checking for proper settings in the e-mail client.
Support for the package selection KDE Desktop or GNOME Desktop.
Upgrade from the previous version of the product.
Kernel updates (only official Novell update RPMs).
Installation of bug fixes and security updates from the official update server using online update or the manual method.
For a detailed listing of the subjects covered by the free installation support, check http://support.open-slx.com/products/suselinux/support_overview.html.
In case you are not sure if your support is covered, please do not hesitate to give us a call. We are happy to assist.
Reach our support staff under the following links and phone numbers. Our installation support is offered through call back. After your problem description our staff either tries to call you back in the next 2 hours or arrange a time for a call back. Please register your product at http://www.open-slx.com/register prior to your support request.
United States and Canada: +1-404-5854-269
Germany, Austria, Switzerland: Phone: +49 (0)911-8946-0303
UK: +44-2030-025-943
All other countries (English only): please see http://support.open-slx.com/products/opensuse/contact.html
For the most recent contact information, refer to http://support.open-slx.com/products/opensuse/contact.html.
Free installation support is offered to customers with a valid and activated registration code. You can activate your registration code at http://www.open-slx.com/register.
The registration code is not transferable to another person.
The free support covers the initial installation on one computer. Refer to our Web site for further information http://support.open-slx.com/products/suselinux/support_overview.html.
We recommend using http://support.open-slx.com/eService to open a service request and to provide us with the relevant information like problem description and log files. It helps us to avoid misspelled commands, links, or directory names, which often cause frustrating problems and are particularly common during phone conversations. You will receive a reply soon, providing a practical solution.
We endeavor to help you as quickly and precisely as possible. The effort and time needed is considerably reduced if the question is formulated clearly. Please have answers to the following questions ready before contacting us:
Which program and version are you using? During which process does the problem occur?
What exactly is the problem? Try to describe the error as precisely as possible, using phrases with words such as when (for example, “When X is pressed, this error appears”).
What hardware do you use (graphics card, monitor, printer, ISDN card, etc.)? You can get this information from the YaST Hardware Information module.
Detailed documentation can be found in manuals, online help, and the Support Database. This comprehensive documentation of openSUSE gives guidance to solve a variety of problems. The SUSE Help Center on your desktop provides additional information about installed packages, the vital HOWTOs, and info pages.
You can access the latest Support Database articles online at http://www.open-slx.com/usersupport or access the community Support Database at http://en.open-slx.org/SDB. The Support Database, one of the most frequently used databases in the Linux world, offers our customers a wealth of analysis and solution approaches. You can retrieve tested solutions using the keyword search, history function, or version-dependent search.