Re: Automated help, other ideas

[Lenz Grimmer <grimmer@suse.de>]

Hi,

On Fri, 30 Oct 1998, Aaron D. Turner wrote:

> At best we could check syntax for things like /etc/hosts or /etc/fstab,
> but I think time-wise we're better off writing entries to cover this than
> trying to develop some AI engine to read the file, find the problems,
> and report back to the user in "newbie-speak".

Are we really going to offer some kind of "manual" newbie support?

IMHO it is almost impossible, to create an automated support system. I
have been doing basic installation support here at SuSE for the last 6
Months. There simply is no way to solve people's problems with some kind
of AI...

Here's what we do: we've built up a collection of questions and answers,
called our "support database". Basically, it's just a collection of perl
scripts which generate static HTML pages. Here we note down all the
favourite support questions and an answer or hints. In most of the cases,
we can just answer support requests by doing a cut & paste including a
minimal "framework" of handwritten answers. In addition to that, SuSE
maintains a database of supported (and unsupported) hardware for Linux,
called the "Component Database" (CDB). For example, I maintain the graphic
card section of this collection. Maybe we could also link to these
sources? Most info in here is not SuSE-specific.

Bye,
	LenZ

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 Lenz Grimmer                                           SuSE GmbH
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