Upgrading Suse

[toastrack]

I'd like to upgrade my Suse 10 to the latest Suse 11 package.

Is it possible to upgrade rather than totally replace, so I don't lose all the desktop and other stuff I already have? If so, how?

[srschifano]

When you say suse 10 to suse 11, do you mean upgrade SUSE 10 to openSUSE 11.1, or are you talking about Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 to 11?

[john_hudson]

Whatever system you are updating, the answer is partly - are just just talking about user preferences or are you talking about changes elsewhere, eg. to /etc?

If you are talking about user preferences these are all in /home and, as long as you have a separate /home partition or backup /home before installing the new version, you can generally take these from version to version.

The problem will be if you are a KDE user because any upgrade now will be to KDE4 and not all preferences will carry over/you will have to do some work transferring the hidden files from the older to the newer system.

So if you are using Gnome, you will find any upgrade much easier; however, to 'upgrade' you will have to install a new version of the system files because the upgrade option normally only operates between two adjacent versions.

[toastrack]

Thanks.

I'm talking of upgrading from Suse 10 to the latest stable Suse 11. I'm assuming that that will improve running overall as well as adding latest printer drivers and suchlike. Also, automatic updating for Suse 10 versions has ceased, as you will know.

At present I'm using KDE GIF etc. What kinds of preferences are you referring to?

[Knurpht]

He's referring to user preferences (in /home/YOURUSERNAME) and system preferences (in /etc). What exactly do you want to preserve, only the first part or everything?

Question remains: are you running SUSE or openSUSE? There is a difference (see elsewhere).

Upgrading (certainly after years of usage and upgrading individual packages) from any 10.x version to 11.1 wouldn't be my choice. Then again, if everything is mostly standard, it could work.

And: 10.3 is still supported and will be for a while.

About KDE4: see one of the latest announcements; Stephan Binner provided us with KDE4 4.3 live cd's that can be used to install. This would save the time installing 4.1.3 from the 11.1 CD/DVD and upgrading it afterwards. These Live-CD's contain all official updates since 11.1 release.

[goldie]

to me it sounds like you are using SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
(SLED) 10 and are asking questions about upgrading to SLED 11..

those are commercial products *sold* and *supported* by Novell through
their forums.novell.com

since _many_ here have never run either SLED or SLES (Server) and have
NOT upgraded from one to another, i expect you will get better answers
there..

openSUSE is the 'proving grounds' that eventually lead to the
commercial product--the two are similar but not the same..

--
goldie

[toastrack]

to me it sounds like you are using SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
(SLED) 10 and are asking questions about upgrading to SLED 11..

those are commercial products *sold* and *supported* by Novell through
their forums.novell.com

since _many_ here have never run either SLED or SLES (Server) and have
NOT upgraded from one to another, i expect you will get better answers
there..

openSUSE is the 'proving grounds' that eventually lead to the
commercial product--the two are similar but not the same..

--
goldie

My system details are:-

OS: Linux 2.6.18.8-0.13-default i686
Current user: howard@linux-0qmt
System: openSUSE 10.2 (i586)
KDE: 3.5.5 "release 45.10"

I'm beginning to get bewildered by all the options and questions now. Would I be perhaps better to install the downloaded OpenSuse 11 separately, and then transfer stuff as necessary ??

[markcynt]

The reason you were presented with so many options was because saying you use SUSE 10 is vague. If you said openSUSE 10.2 to start with, you would not be confused now.

[john_hudson]

Your best bet at the moment is to backup the contents of your /home folder and then install Carlos KDE3 version of openSUSE 11.1 available from openSUSE News � Unofficial KDE 3.5 Live CD for openSUSE 11.1

(If you have a separate /home partition, still back up for safety.)

This will mean you can simply transfer the relevant hidden (and visible) files from your backup to the new installation and you won't have the problem of migrating them to KDE4 for another eighteen months.

[goldie]

> I'm beginning to get bewildered by all the options and questions now.

in the future, you may avoid confusing questions by providing correct
and complete information in the first post (eg, "Suse 10" is NOT
openSUSE 10.2)

back to your initial post ("Is it possible to upgrade rather than
totally replace, so I don't lose all the desktop and other stuff I
already have? If so, how?") and NOW knowing you have openSUSE 10.2

my answer, see: http://en.opensuse.org/Upgrade

where you will find that upgrading is officially not supported, but if
it were, even then there is no how given for 10.2 to 11.x

so, follow advice already given by john_hudson

--
goldie
Note: Accuracy, completeness, legality, or usefulness of this posting
may be illusive.