SuSE GmbH

SuSE Support Database

Title: SuSE Support-Database HowTo

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Mainpage o Searchform o History o Versions o Categories o Contents
Deutsch

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SuSE Support-Database HowTo

Applies to

SuSE Linux: Versions since 4.4

Efficiently using SDB

All articles and items in SDB have a common, specific layout. Throughout the support articles there are navigation bars above and below the texts providing an easy means of seraching and finding desired pages. A brief description of these options is given on the main SuSE Support Database page. Following is a more complete explanation of the menu items:

Main page

The Main page link accesses the the entry page to the SDB. Here you might find interesting news and a list of the available mirrors.

Keyword search

The easiest way of locating information is to click on Searchform, where you can enter a keyword. Every item in SDB is provided with several keywords which are described below.

Keywords are all in uppercase, but searches are not case-sensitive. In addition to simple words, you may search for any regular expression.

Full-text search is not available.

History

This is helpful for people who look up things more often. Under History you can see what items have recently been added to the SDB.

The articles are listed with their creation dates and times in reverse-chronilogical order (the newest at the top).

Version-specific problems

Here you may search for database articles relevant to specific software versions. Clicking on Versions will present you with a list of SuSE releases and XFree86 releases. Selecting any of these will present a list of all relevant support articles.

Categories

The articles in our Support database are also classified in a hierarchical manner. The Categories link will bring up the top level of support categories. Under each support category you can find support articles as well as sub-categories.

Contents

Under Contents you find an alphabetical list of all SDB entries by title.

German and other languages

Currently, most SuSE SDB articles are originally created in German and then translated to English as well as other languages. You may use the links labelled Deutsch to access the original German.

Links to Français and Español -- and perhaps others in the future -- may also exist if the article has also been translated to this language. Currently, languages besides German and English are not as well represented.

It is SuSE's goal to keep the various language versions of the SDB synchronized in regards to content. However, there will always be a slight delay between article creation and translation.

Installing the SDB locally

In addition to being viewed online at the URL http://www.suse.de/Support/sdb, the SuSE Support Database can be installed locally by downloading the current version as a package.

Starting with SuSE Linux 6.1, the SDB consists of 6 packages:

All users will need the package sdb.rpm in addition to at least one of the language packages.

These packages can be found on our ftp server at the following location:

    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/noarch/sdb/

We also make daily updates available. These are packaged as "diffs" from the start of each month. They are located here:

    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/noarch/sdb/diffs/
HTML files are installed locally under /usr/doc/sdb and can be viewed with any web browser.

In order to use the search function, you must have a web server installed and running on your computer. Beginning with SuSE 4.4, you can install the package apache and edit the file /etc/rc.config. Set the following variable like so:

START_HTTPD=yes
This will start apache at system boot. To activate it on an already booted system, enter the command
/sbin/init.d/apache start
In addition, you must install the package sdb_cgi, which is located in series 'd', or Documentation.

To access the search facility, point your web browser at the following URL http://localhost/support-db/sdb.

Starting with SuSE Linux 6.1, this path has changed to http://localhost/sdb/de/html. This change applies to URLs below as well.

Hint: if you have configured your machine or web browser to use a proxy server, the hostname localhost will be resolved by the proxy server!

Either disable the proxy server in your browser configuration, or use the URL http://MYHOST/support-db/sdb where MYHOST is your machine's hostname.

Better still, you could configure your browser to resolve requests from localhost locally, rather than via the Proxy. (see lynx_proxy.html for lynx; Netscape can be configured under Edit -> Prefernces).

Copyright

This work is copyrighted by SuSE GmbH and is placed under conditions of the GNU General Public License.

It may be copied as whole or in part as long as this copyright notice is left intact and delivered with each copy.

According to paragraphs 11 and 12 of the GNU General Public License, SuSE GmbH cannot be held responsible for the correctness of the articles contained herein.

If you want to make the Support DataBase publically available please contact Martin Scherbaum (maddin@suse.de). Please note that this address is not for support requests.

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See also:

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Keywords: SDB, HOWTO, HILFE

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Feedback welcome: Send Mail to kfr@suse.de (Please give the following subject: SDB-sdb)

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Mainpage o Searchform o History o Versions o Categories o Contents
Deutsch

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SDB-sdb, Copyright SuSE GmbH, Nuremberg, Germany - Version: 11. Nov 1996
SuSE GmbH - Last generated: 12. Nov 1999 23:22:51 by sdaniel with sdb_gen 1.00.0