SUSE Linux Enterprise 16: From Monolithic Manuals to Modular Docs

This article has been contributed by Tanja Roth, Team Lead at the SUSE Documentation Team. 

Great news! A year after modernizing our documentation portal at documentation.suse.com, we’re taking the next logical step: modernizing the content itself. Launching alongside SUSE Linux Enterprise 16—designed to meet modern IT demands—our product documentation follows suit, and for upcoming products, it’s getting a facelift of its own. These changes are guided by feedback from our regular documentation surveys and insights from how you use the docs. 

But what does this mean for you? For SUSE Linux Enterprise 16, we’re moving from large, monolithic manuals to modular, article-based documentation. Publishing the new content as focused sets of topic-centered articles streamlines creation and maintenance—and more importantly—makes the content easier to find and use.

What’s changing—and why it matters

Historically, our documentation often came as comprehensive, linear books—sometimes hundreds of pages long. You’ll still find this documentation style for already released versions—such as SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 and 12—and that won’t change. 

Findability inside the docs

While this approach provides a comprehensive overview, it can be cumbersome when you’re hunting for a specific piece of information—the details you need are often buried deep in a manual. The modular documentation for SUSE Linux Enterprise 16—and other Framework One products—fixes this by turning big manuals into small, focused articles. You can jump straight to the article that answers your question.

Findability on search engines

Another very important reason for the change is findability: about 85% of you reach our docs through Google, and many told us that answers felt “hidden” inside long manuals. That’s hard for search engines, too—monolithic guides aren’t easy to make SEO-friendly, so our pages have ranked lower than they should have. By splitting manuals into self-contained, SEO-optimized articles, each answer can stand on its own. The result: a dramatic lift in search rankings, so you land on the right page faster.

All-in-one articles

In our surveys, you told us that getting the full picture often meant bouncing between tabs, manuals and sections. With the SUSE Linux Enterprise 16 documentation, we now package each topic so all the context, prerequisites, step-by-step tasks, and references live in a single, self-contained article. For deeper subjects, we split them into a short series where each article fully covers a logical slice—from concept to implementation. The result: less link- and tab-hopping, fewer detours, and faster progress for you.

Examples and troubleshooting included

You also told us that complex topics were hard to follow without concrete examples or troubleshooting tips. With the new documentation approach, our articles are more hands-on: we’ve enriched them with clear examples, copy-ready commands, expected outcomes, and “what can go wrong” sections with common errors and fixes. The goal is simple—you understand the concept, follow the steps with confidence, and recover quickly if something doesn’t work the first time.

Built for rapid updates

Our new, article-based format makes each documentation piece smaller and thus better reviewable, so we can update the exact topic that needs work—without waiting on a full manual refresh. We’ve also tightened our feedback loops (internally and with you), making it simpler to flag issues and ship fixes quickly. Combined with topic-based authoring, this means more accurate, up-to-date guidance right when you need it.

How we build modular documentation

To create this kind of documentation for Code 16, we’ve switched to topic-based authoring. Think of it as building with modular building blocks. Instead of one long, linear manual, we create small, independent, reusable topics—each focused on a single concept, task, or reference. We then mix and match these blocks or “topics” to assemble the information you need for a specific context, platform, or scenario. And we publish a topic-based article. 

Let me emphasize again: For you, that means quicker answers, a clearer structure, better consistency, and updates that land sooner—without wading through a whole book.

A better documentation portal for discovery

And just as a reminder: the way we present our documentation on documentation.suse.com has also further evolved during the past year. Since the new portal launch in September 2024, we’ve significantly improved:

• User interface & navigation to quickly find what you are looking for
• Filtering options by product, version, task, and more
• Search capabilities for faster, more relevant results

All of these improvements are also designed to present you the new documentation articles in a user-friendly and meaningful way.

Information at your fingertips

Let me summarize the key benefits of the new documentation approach for you. You will get:

• Faster answers: Find the one article that solves your problem—no more hunting through entire manuals.
• Clearer structures: Each article focuses on a specific subject matter and stands for itself..
• Improved consistency: Topic-based authoring enables reuse across articles and product variants—without duplication. For you, that means more consistent wording and behavior throughout the docs.
• Quicker updates: Smaller units let us publish updates and improvements more frequently.
• Better search results: Find SUSE documentation easily via search engines.

So, whether you arrive at our documentation pages via a search engine or right start at documentation.suse.com: all these changes are designed to deliver a better user experience and help you find what you need faster! 

Your next steps

Curious now what the SUSE Linux Enterprise 16 documentation will look like? Take a sneak peek on the SUSE Documentation Draft Builds site. You’ll find the articles right below the “Release Notes” section.

But heads-up: it’s not the full experience yet—filters and search aren’t available there.

And don’t forget to (re)visit our official documentation portal when SUSE Linux Enterprise 16 officially launches!