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In its upcoming version 11.1, the openSUSE Linux distro will be integrating the Smolt program, which collects hardware profiles in a central database from end users on a volunteer basis.
According to the Fedora community that started the Smolt project, openSUSE is the second Linux distro that has integrated the hardware profiler. The Novell-sponsored openSUSE project hopes through its participatory effort to gain a larger presence in the database. Its users, therefore, are encouraged to activate Smolt during openSUSE installation.
Participation is purely voluntary, as emphasized by both the Smolt project and openSUSE. In its privacy policy statement, the Smolt project clarifies that the assembled data can't be traced back to an individual computer; the unique ID stored is known only to the user. Even so, the project recommends using SELinux to secure the UUID file on the local system.
The Smolt home page shows statistics for registered devices and other configuration data. The project is also looking for volunteers to package and test the Smolt client on other Linux distros.
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