Does Suse Do Rolling Updates?

It's been a long time since I installed opensuse last, and I was curious if software is updated as new versions are developed, or if updates are only released for security reasons. I'm tired of the debian/*buntu system of no updates other than security updates.

Thanks in advance.

I wish openSUSE did rolling updates, but it does not. At least most folks have good experiences doing upgrades from one version to the next, if they don't have a lot of manually installed rpms. Next version, I am going to try the upgrade path and see how it does.

Because developers hate being blamed for breaking things, they only want to be responsible for updates that must be applied, i.e. security and critical functionality. So other, non-critical updates must be obtained by you subscribing to a factory repository where the "fun" is all yours.

You can get this kind of update in Debian/Ubuntu also by subscribing to a testing or unstable version.

ArchLinux is one to try if you want a rolling release distro.
Updates are fully tested before being moved to the main repo's, so you end up with a system completely up-to-date with all the latest apps/versions but very stable at the same time.

Updates are fully tested before being moved to the main repo's...
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I would say "somewhat tested". A number of issues consistently develop up as noted in their forums.

Gentoo is another distro that does "rolling updates", but it's source based, and is quite time consuming to manage. I'd also recommend Arch as a binary distribution. Neither is for beginners. Unless one buys a "supported" commercial version of Linux like SLED or Red Hat Enterprise, let's be honest..."tested" means it runs fine on the developer's machine, and those few other environments he/they have direct access to.

Fedora might be what you're looking for too - they don't do a "Rolling Release" like arch, gentoo or foresight, but they do upgrade to newer versions of packages instead of just security releases.

For example, if you installed Fedora 9 when it's released, and kept it up to date, you wouldn't be far away from Fedora 10 when it's released, packages, kernel and all - HOWEVER, Fedora is known for not playing nice with upgrades from one release to another, but I hear they are working on that.

Another option, since you are thinking of trying openSUSE (which is the best choice imho ) is the openSUSE build service which will allow you to update specific packages in your system if you want, while maintaining a solid base OS.

For example, I'm running openSUSE 10.3, but I'm running KDE 4.0.2 from the build service as my sole Desktop Environment, as well as Firefox 3.0 Beta 4, and many other updated packages not available in the main OSS and NON-OSS repo's.

Another option, since you are thinking of trying openSUSE (which is the best choice imho ) is the openSUSE build service which will allow you to update specific packages in your system if you want, while maintaining a solid base OS.
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You took the wind out of my sails, because I was going to bring this up... I scrolled through the entire thread, no mention of OBS, and then your post comes along...

OBS is the most underrated yet strongest feature that openSUSE has. The ability to run cutting edge versions of packages without the risk of breaking your core system is a pretty cool thing, and given the ever increasing volume of packages in OBS, all of which are compiled against specific versions of openSUSE, I think it's a powerful alternative to the clicheed "but Ubuntu has 30,000 packages available!!!" argument. Debian has an incredibly powerful package management workforce, but it ultimately can't compete with an automated system that keeps packages in synch. Both Red Hat and Ubuntu are moving in this direction, but OBS is already there. Even more remarkably, OBS will manage package builds for alternate distributions, including RH and Ubuntu. Even still more remarkably, OBS is fully GPL and looking to build community support, but the other distros are doing an NIH and going their own route, even a closed and proprietary one as I understand Ubunutu's launchpad thingy to be. Sad, because this is the kind of thing I think all distros could benefit from with some co-opetive contribution.

And to the original post, technically openSUSE does have rolling updates, but it is highly un-recommended to rely upon. Factory contains regularly updated builds of whatever the current development version of openSUSE is, but it's not designed for daily use. If you have particular packages or components you'd prefer to stay cutting edge on, then OBS is probably the way to go...

Just my 2c...

Cheers,
KV

This may be a slightly different issue, but concerning updates I used to get quite frequent notifications (at least a couple a week, sometimes more) from the auto-updater in the panel that new patches or upgraded versions etc were available to install. However it has been now probably close to two months (?) that it has gone without updating a single thing.

Is this normal? I haven't changed anything in the update settings as far as I can tell. If its just that there are no updates then thats fine, but I'm wondering if somethings broken and I'm missing updates for some reason?

No, that is way too long. Open YaST and review the Community Repos module to make sure you at least have the officially supported repos enabled. Or you can do it by command line:

$ su
# zypper sa http://download.opensuse.org/update/10.3/ updates
# zypper sa http://download.opensuse.org/distrib...10.3/repo/oss/ oss
# zypper sa http://download.opensuse.org/distrib.../repo/non-oss/ non-oss
# zypper update