Contributing
Info
This is the contribute section for the Rocky Linux project, and covers more project-focused information than the documents in the Guides section, which deals with Documentation team contribution.
Thank you for your interest in contributing to the project. There are many ways you can contribute to Rocky Linux, such as helping users on forums, Mattermost, or IRC, to debugging packages, hunting bugs, and finding fixes. Other ways to contribute might be joining a Special Interest Group (SIG).
Helping other users¶
As with most online or open source communities, getting started begins at the "joining" phase, and just participating in topics that interest you. Here are some things to get you going:
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Join our Mattermost and search for channels that interest you.
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Join our Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels. A bridge exists between the IRC channels and Mattermost.
Helping with bug hunting & finding fixes¶
There are occasions that Rocky Linux users might find problems. These might or might not be reproducible on our upstream distributions RHEL and CentOS Stream. You should use our bug tracker to file bugs.
Warning
The bug tracker is not a support system. Use the forums, Mattermost or IRC, to ask support questions.
Helping with general testing¶
In the same vein as bug hunting, the Testing team is one of the most active groups in the project, with all communication in Mattermost. They work together on testing various aspects of Rocky Linux. This includes refining their openQA system, the various methods of testing to find bugs, and test functionality. They are always open to more users that can help them with these efforts.
Help with or join the EPEL effort¶
EPEL (or Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) is a SIG within the Fedora Project that maintains and manages a set of additional packages for Enterprise Linux such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Rocky Linux, and many others. It is a very common repository that many users enable and start using right away for access to quality packages that are not found in the base distribution.
Getting involved with EPEL is a great way to make Rocky Linux (and other Enterprise Linux distributions) more useful. Check out their help guide for more information. You can also participate in their Matrix channels.
Join a SIG¶
Joining a SIG can help augment Rocky Linux in many ways, such as additional packages, certain hardware or architecture support (such as SBC hardware), and more. Joining a SIG can be rewarding and is beneficial to the Enterprise Linux ecosystem.
You can join a SIG in Rocky Linux, CentOS, or the Fedora Project (such as the aforementioned EPEL SIG).
If you want to join a Rocky Linux SIG, read the getting started guide, and review the Special Interest Group section. Note, this is currently under extensive revision.
If you want to join a CentOS SIG, check out their SIG page for general and participation information. Participating in a CentOS SIG helps all Enterprise Linux distributions, not just CentOS Stream. Most SIG packages in CentOS will work and be applicable to Rocky Linux and other Enterprise Linux distributions.
Other participation and contribution information¶
For more information about general contribution, see our getting started guide.
Contributors: Steven Spencer