How to Participate

From openSUSE

Whether you're an experienced Linux developer or an end user just getting started with Linux, there are many ways for you to participate in the openSUSE project. Join a forum to get help or help others with openSUSE, find and report bugs, review the documentation, send your wish list for new packages and features, create and submit patches, or find other creative ways to contribute. Whatever you do, take a few minutes to discuss openSUSE with other users and become an active member of the openSUSE communities.


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Join openSUSE


What skills are necessary?

Any skill is useful for the openSUSE project!
If you are a developer of any kind, we will find something for you to do. But even if you think that you have no Linux skills you can still help. You can tell us if and how you understand the wiki pages, or more precisely, we would like to know what pages you don't understand. Thanks to the insights of new users we can continuously enhance readability of the wiki.

If on top of that, if you can write, you are invaluable. We need a lot of articles. There are thousands of Linux programs around, and more are released every day. In addition, new versions of existing applications are released. There is a need for a lot of hands to write about them and to keep reviews current.


Participate in it

Participate

The following tasks can be done even by beginners :)

Be part of the openSUSE Community

See where other openSUSE community members are located world-wide, get to know some People of openSUSE, find local openSUSE user groups, celebrate releases, learn about the governance structure and more.

Help others openSUSE users

There are several active communities that help all levels of openSUSE users. You can help beginners on different media, including Mailing List, IRC and Forums. Please have a look at Communicate for an overview.

Suggest New Features or Software

Visit the Wishlists page and pick a category where you can add your suggestion. You can suggest a new application in a special Package Wishlist. Please edit the table there and add your wishes. Only software with an OSI-compliant open-source license will be added to the openSUSE project.

Related links: CommunityCommunicateWishlistsTasksTeams


Document it

Document

Write how-to, documentation, and much more!

Be part of the Wiki Team

This page is built with MediaWiki. The concept of a Wiki is that anybody may add and modify content. As long as you edit anything on the wiki you are de facto member of the Wiki Team. Please see the Wiki Team page if you want to contribute to the Wiki. On wiki help, find a quick tutorial if you're unfamiliar with Wikis. Please make sure that you follow the style guide. For more information about translation and localization please look at the translation guide-how to localize a wiki.

Review or Write Documentation, Manuals, and Articles

Visit the Documentation page to contribute or read articles and manuals. If you've got instructions, solutions to common problems, neat tips and tricks, or just a good way to explain something, we'd love to hear from you.

Improve Hardware Compatibility List

Hardware support provides challenges to any distribution of Linux. The Harware Compatibility List pages are used by the openSUSE community to record the compatibility of various hardware and full systems with openSUSE. Share your experience by adding your hardware, especially if you had some issue that you overcame.

Related links: Wiki TeamTranslation TeamDocumentation TeamHardware


Develop it

Develop

Develop the distribution.

Design openSUSE artwork

Interested in contributing to the look and feel of openSUSE? Visit the artwork Pixel Pool to show off your designs and help influence the next version of openSUSE's artwork.

Localize openSUSE specific applications

Translations of YaST2 and other applications specific to openSUSE.
For KDE, GNOME and different applications that don't belong to either of two, it is possible to find contributors in other Linux communities, but YaST and Co are our responsibility. Read more about it http://i18n.opensuse.org.

Test openSUSE and Report Bugs

You can help improve openSUSE by finding and reporting bugs. Our bug tracking system, Bugzilla, is used for all openSUSE/SUSE Linux products. If you have never written a bug report, please refer to Bug Reporting FAQ to learn what kinds of information make the report most useful.

Develop Packages and Patches

The most obvious way, for programmers, to participate in the development of openSUSE is to post a patch as a suggested solution to an existing bug in Bugzilla. Each package has a maintainer, who will contact you to discuss your proposed solution. You may want to join one of our development mailing lists before you start coding in order to discuss your plans and coordinate with other developers.

"Factory" is the name of our regularly updated Development Version which will result in the next openSUSE version. For more information about getting source code and building your own packages, read the openSUSE Build Tutorial.

Related links: Artwork Pixel PoolLocalization TeamProofreading TeamTesting Team


Spread it

Spread

Be the voice of the openSUSE community!

Be part of the Marketing team

Publicize community events and meetings to maximize turnout and participation, create artwork, banners and other material that can be reused for openSUSE, help organize launch parties or local events, and much more. In other words : be part of the Marketing Team and promote openSUSE all around you!

Write the Newsletters

Become an editor of the weekly openSUSE newsletter, or translate it into your own language and share the last information about openSUSE !

Discover openSUSE people

Vote whom do you want to see interviewed soon for the People of openSUSE series.

Related links: Marketing TeamWeekly News TeamPeople of openSUSE


Lead it

Lead

Actively influence the distribution.

Take part at openSUSE project meetings

The openSUSE community meets bi-weekly in IRC to discuss the project, its parts, status of ongoing tasks, its development direction the wiki etc. Please have a look at the meeting schedule for dates of upcoming meetings.

Explore Career Opportunities

Novell has several open positions for qualified personnel who want to join the openSUSE team. Have a look at our career pages (Germany, Czech Republic, International) for more information.

Related links: Meetings