Upgrade SUSE Linux 9.2 to OpenSUSE 11.4?

[suhrrog]

Hello,
I have a system with SUSE Linux 9.2 Professional installed (Base install - no patches). How can I upgrade this to OpenSUSE 11.4 withiut loosing installed software.

Thank you

Roger

[oldcpu]

Hello,
I have a system with SUSE Linux 9.2 Professional installed (Base install - no patches). How can I upgrade this to OpenSUSE 11.4 withiut loosing installed software.

Thank you

Roger

You can't (IMHO).

You likely need to backup all your 'data' and all of your 'configuration files' [typically inside /etc] and your /home and then do a fresh install and re-install EVERY THING. The information in the /etc files can be especially useful if you run into difficulty configuration some applications. There may also be 'configuration' information in /home/yourusername/. hidden files.

If it were me, I would create a separate partition for openSUSE-11.4 (including separate / and /home partitions) and dual boot between SuSE-9.2 Pro and openSUSE-11.4 and gradually migrate over from 9.2 to 11.4.

[DenverD]

On 04/26/2011 10:36 AM, suhrrog wrote:
>
> I have a system with SUSE Linux 9.2 Professional installed (Base
> install - no patches).

hi Roger, welcome...happy to hear you got such long service out of 9.2
(i really loved that and 9.3)..


> How can I upgrade this to OpenSUSE 11.4 withiut loosing installed software.

well, i'm sorry to say that there is no _supported_ upgrade path unless
it would be to step from 9.2 to 9.3 to 10.0 to 10.1 etc etc etc.. cites:
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:System_upgrade and
http://doc.opensuse.org/products/ope...ha.update.html

when you say you want to save your installed software, what do you
mean...like you wanna save your old Apache or pine and use with a new
11.4 base system? are we talking a desktop system on a laptop or an
enterprise server in a rack...

the easiest way to get a stable openSUSE system would be to save your
data to an off machine location and do a format install of
11.4--careful, if yours is a desktop-less, or headless server you are
gonna be (probably) disapointed to learn that openSUSE 11.4 is *not*
your daddy's SuSE 9.2


the default install of 11.4 with will be a full-up desktop machine with
either KDE, Gnome, LXDE or other GUI....a server install is possible, of
course, but you have select that during install...see:
http://doc.opensuse.org/products/ope...tallquick.html
step 5, to have a full up server you must select "Other" and then . . .
hmmmmm, there is (somewhere) the way to do it, but i can't find it now...

and, you might note that the service life of openSUSE is far shorter
(see: http://en.opensuse.org/Lifetime) than that of the enterprise
version SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (see:
http://support.novell.com/lifecycle/)..

come to think of it, there _may_ be a smooth easy upgrade path from SUSE
Linux 9.2 Professional to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server version 11, check
it out at novell.com/linux and in their fora at forums.novell.com

let us know what your needs are if you intend to use openSUSE..

--
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[openSUSE 11.3 + KDE4.5.5 + Thunderbird3.1.8 via NNTP]
Q: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern
by its diameter?
A: Pumpkin Pi!

[stamostolias]

Hello I have SUSE SLED 11 SP1. You can not upgrade from SUSE to openSUSE. The only you can is to save your files as oldcpu said.

[robin_listas]

On 2011-04-26 13:06, stamostolias wrote:
>
> Hello I have SUSE SLED 11 SP1. You can not upgrade from SUSE to
> openSUSE. The only you can is to save your files as oldcpu said.

SuSE Linux Professional is what later became openSUSE. It is the same
distro. It is not SLES.

If I remember correctly, the term "professional" meant the paid DVD vs the
downloaded install.

--
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar)

[robin_listas]

On 2011-04-26 10:36, suhrrog wrote:
>
> Hello,
> I have a system with SUSE Linux 9.2 Professional installed (Base
> install - no patches). How can I upgrade this to OpenSUSE 11.4 withiut
> loosing installed software.

It is doable and it is supported - contrary to what others have said >:-P

But it has to be explained, there are limitations:

- It can not be done in one big step.
- It can not be done "live": that is certainly not supported.
Forget zypper dup.
- The support is "past tense" for some of the steps.
- It is a lot of work: you have to do now what you did not do in years.
- I mean DVD boot and upgrade.

You can upgrade to a version 10.x something, by first grabbing the DVD from
somewhere. Perhaps 10.0 or 10.1. On another step go to 10.3 or 11.1. Then
to 11.3.

Now, any of the steps can fail. So you need to make a full backup (image?)
of your current install, sufficiently to restore the system at any point.

It would also be wise to test all of the intermediate steps as fresh
installs on a spare partition (or disk!). For example:

- Install 10.1 on another partition. Find the documentation (pdf
book). Find the upgrade notes.
- Test it.
- Backup the main install.
- upgrade the main install.
- clean and debug. Run al the security updates (find links
to unmaintained repos). Check all your software.

Repeat for all steps.

If one step fails, find out why, restore the backup of the previous step,
and repeat the upgrade attempt.

Plus, you can ask problems :-)

Good luck!

--
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar)

[stamostolias]

On 2011-04-26 13:06, stamostolias wrote:
>
> Hello I have SUSE SLED 11 SP1. You can not upgrade from SUSE to
> openSUSE. The only you can is to save your files as oldcpu said.

SuSE Linux Professional is what later became openSUSE. It is the same
distro. It is not SLES.

If I remember correctly, the term "professional" meant the paid DVD vs the
downloaded install.

--
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar)

You remember correctly about that. But I must find how to upgrade in SUSE, so make sure it is not different process than openSUSE( I mean upgrade process).

[robin_listas]

On 2011-04-26 15:36, stamostolias wrote:

> You remember correctly about that. But I must find how to upgrade in
> SUSE, so make sure it is not different process than openSUSE( I mean
> upgrade process).

I have done many upgrades with that openSUSE professional. It was the
traditional, DVD boot and upgrade method, that is also available now in
openSUSE. The name changed, but it is the same distro.

The problem for him will be to obtain a 10.x DVD, because they were not
freely available. I mean, not downloadable.

--
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar)

[martin_helm]

Carlos E. R. wrote:

> The problem for him will be to obtain a 10.x DVD, because they were not
> freely available. I mean, not downloadable.
>
I looked that up for another user in the forum, it seems one can still
download the iso's from here.
http://ftp.hosteurope.de/mirror/ftp..../discontinued/
at least 10.2 has still the iso files if that helps.

--
PC: oS 11.3 64 bit | Intel Core2 Quad Q8300@2.50GHz | KDE 4.6.2 | GeForce
9600 GT | 4GB Ram
Eee PC 1201n: oS 11.4 64 bit | Intel Atom 330@1.60GHz | KDE 4.6.0 | nVidia
ION | 3GB Ram

[martin_helm]

martin_helm wrote:
> http://ftp.hosteurope.de/mirror/ftp..../discontinued/
> at least 10.2 has still the iso files if that helps.
>
Here are 10.0 iso's (the folder name is misleading there are also 64bit
versions)
ftp://ftp.hosteurope.de/mirror/ftp.s...i386/10.0/iso/

--
PC: oS 11.3 64 bit | Intel Core2 Quad Q8300@2.50GHz | KDE 4.6.2 | GeForce
9600 GT | 4GB Ram
Eee PC 1201n: oS 11.4 64 bit | Intel Atom 330@1.60GHz | KDE 4.6.0 | nVidia
ION | 3GB Ram