With 11.2 looming on the horizon, I’ve started to think of the transition. My 11.1 is now pretty much rock solid. I backup the separate /home partition regularly so I’m not worried about my data or configuration settings. The main applications included in the distro should just be upgraded using the settings in /home.
But what about any third-party applications, and any settings that live outside /home (as is the case with MySQL)? Is there a way of keeping them installed? I know that a clean install of 11.2 will wipe any third-party applications, so should I upgrade instead? I’d prefer a clean install for several reasons.
Alternatively, can they be restored from a backup? Are there any other directories beyond /home that it would be a good idea to backup before migrating to 11.2?
As you note, your 3rd party applications will be wiped out on a clean install of 11.2. If you try an upgrade from 11.1 to 11.2 (without very careful repository selection), you will likely have a zillion dependency conflicts if you have many 3rd party applications, making such an update difficult.
I have noted some users who were able to successfully update from openSUSE-10.3 to 11.0 (and later from 11.0 to 11.1) by very careful and judicious change/selection of their software package manager repositories. This included first waiting until the 3rd party repositories had the needed applications ready for the new openSUSE version, and then changing those repositories to the new version.
But it was hit and miss, and sometimes did not work, after which one had spent some time trying.
I can’t be bothered with such an update (where the likelihood of a failure due to dependency hiccups in 3rd party apps is reasonably high) as I have other things I prefer to do with my time. A clean update of openSUSE is very fast. Hence I often wait for a few months after a new openSUSE release, before I update all the PCs in our apartment to the new openSUSE version, and typically I always do a clean install. I see such a clean install as a good opportunity to get rid of any applications that I installed, and did not use/forgot about.
In addition to /home, I recommend you backup /boot/grub/menu.lst, and backup the entire contents of /etc (although do NOT restore it, … simply have it available for access if need be).
what is to keep you from installing MySQL (and etc) on mount points on
partitions (or even other hard drives/machines) which are not
formatted during a clean install?
–
palladium
How many openSUSE machines are in your apartment? Any easy way to update several ~20 remotely? I have around 20 openSUSE 11.0 machines that I have been trying to figure out how to update to 11.1 remotely. The hardware is the same on all of them just don’t have an easy way to update them. My thoughts were to leave them at 11.0 but then what happens when openSUSE doesn’t provide update and security patches for these machines. I need to update but not sure how. Any suggestions?
Ahh, definitely NOT 20 
We have a total of 6 with openSUSE-11.1. And the hardware is ALL different. I have 3xPCs, my wife 1xPC, and we have 2 laptops. Plus we do not update them all at the same time. Rather I look at the functional requirements of each, and update the openSUSE version on each only after I am fully satisified that the applications needed by that PC are in place.
For example, one of the laptop’s is used by my wife at the office (an old Fujitsu-Siemens with Intel graphics/wireless, 1.5GHz Intel cpu, and 1GB RAM). The applications she uses on that laptop are very specific (good wireless, good audio, good internet, and good multimedia). Our other laptop is my business/our-vacation laptop (Dell Studio 1537, w/Intel Core2 duo P8400, w/ATI-Graphics, Intel wireless, 4GB RAM) , and it has the most demanding requirements of any of our PCs. Next is my main desktop PC (Intel Core i7 920 w/nVidia graphics & 6GB RAM), which has the same requirements as my business laptop, except no wireless. Finally I have two secondary PCs (my sandbox PC (32-bit athlon-1100 w/nvidia graphics and 1GB RAM) and my hot backup PC (32-bit athlon-2800 w/nivida grahics and 2GB RAM) - both of which are very old). And my wife has her PC (Sempron-2600 w/ATI-Graphics, w/1GB RAM), and since she rarely boots to Linux (and only boots there for the superior multimedia I have set up, compared to what she has setup under Windows). Hence updating many at the same time is not a requirement and the applications run on each tends to vary.
I also maintain my mother’s PC (a 7th PC with openSUSE-11.1) remotely, but given she is a continent away, and if it breaks there is no one to help her, I would not dream of updating from one openSUSE version to another without me being in front of the PC. Hence I update my mother’s PC sparingly (my next update is planned for Jan-2011).
I definitely have no easy way to update several ~20 remotely , … nor would I even consider a remote update, unless the possibility to physically touch the PC within an hour or so is possible. Too many things could go wrong.
Sounds to me like you should consider an enterprise product SLED?
Though upgrading is a feature being worked on intensely:
see this also: openSUSE 11.2 will support live updates - openSUSE Forums
I just update a Virtual Machine of Ubuntu and I have to say it was dreamy smooth. 9.04 - 9.10 All that was does is; *press Alt+F2 and type in “update-manager -d” (without the quotes) into the command box. I don’t use Ub just run experimental sessions for testing purposes only.
Truth be told I am running SLES on all ~20 machines but for the most part are longer than an hour away. I am using them for basic web browsing machines with squid to perform basic caching. I am trying to remove the price tag I have with these machines thus looking at openSUSE. I am currently using ZenWorks Linux Management to administer them but was thinking about patch2mail to be notified of new security patches.
In short I am basically looking at trying to remove the cash flow to Novell while still maintaining a strong Linux box. I was looking at Ubuntu cause the updates are really easy and can be performed remotely. I plan to look closely at the link caf4926 has provided to see what the live updates with 11.2 will look like. Figure it would be easier to stay on somewhat of the same platform, SLES to openSUSE versus SLES to Ubuntu. My biggest concern is end of life for the versions. I had a couple Kiosk PCs running 10.3 and luckily those are on-site so I can perform an upgrade quite easily. If not, I don’t know what I would have done. Sent out a DVD that launched clonezilla to reimage.
On 10/12/2009 04:16 PM, D8TA wrote:
>
> oldcpu;2049738 Wrote:
> <snip>
> Any easy way to
> update several ~20 remotely? I have around 20 openSUSE 11.0 machines
> that I have been trying to figure out how to update to 11.1 remotely.
> The hardware is the same on all of them just don’t have an easy way to
> update them. My thoughts were to leave them at 11.0 but then what
> happens when openSUSE doesn’t provide update and security patches for
> these machines. I need to update but not sure how. Any suggestions?
>
>
In theory it should work like this, but I guess there are still plenty
of things which can go wrong. I haven’t tried that procedure yet, but
once 11.2 will be out, I’ll give it a try.
Code:
change repo source to new version (11.1 -> 11.2) using Yast or Zypper
zypper ref
zypper in zypper libzypp
zypper dup
Maybe anyone else did try that before with a 11.2 Milestone release?
–
Christian
As you note, your 3rd party applications will be wiped out on a clean install of 11.2. If you try an upgrade from 11.1 to 11.2 (without very careful repository selection), you will likely have a zillion dependency conflicts if you have many 3rd party applications, making such an update difficult.
I only have a few so the repository selection would not be too difficult, but I think I’ll go for a clean install simply because there’s so much Gnome and XFCE crud still hanging around in my current installation. It works fine but I’d like to get rid of it.
Hence I often wait for a few months after a new openSUSE release, before I update all the PCs in our apartment to the new openSUSE version, and typically I always do a clean install.
Would be nice to have that patience…
In addition to /home, I recommend you backup /boot/grub/menu.lst, and backup the entire contents of /etc (although do NOT restore it, … simply have it available for access if need be).
Probably won’t need to backup grub because I’m well experienced in setting up dual boots and don’t think I’ll have a problem on that front. Backing up /etc “just in case” is good advice though, thanks.
Nothing. I assume the logic of what you’re saying is “Just move everything you want to keep to another partition”?
Thanks everyone. One more question: is it possible to restore apps installed in directories such as /opt or /var (MySQL) by backing them up and restoring the backup in a newly installed 11.2? I’m obviously not talking about a blanket restore of /opt and /var but a selective one…