The new 12.2 version of OpenSuse is about to be released and I’m still stuck with 11.4. Can I directly upgrade to 12.2 and skip 12.1? I only read that this isn’t recommended when upgrading using zypper, but otherwise? Most probably I’m going to use a DVD.
i also wanna know that. do i only add the zypper source and then zypper up, is that enough ? i use opensuse 12.1
On 08/16/2012 07:06 PM, andrew86576 wrote:
>
> i also wanna know that. do i only add the zypper source and then zypper
> up, is that enough ? i use opensuse 12.1
>
>
I wouldn’t jump over a version, like from 11.4 to 12.2, but I would be
happy to go from 12.1 to 12.2.
But that’s a personal view based on experience – there are plenty of
folk who would jump a version.
There’s an easy way to test jumping a version: if you have, say, 11.4
and want to go to 12.2, and you have separate home and root partitions,
you can carefully copy all of the 11.4 root partition to a backup
location, do the upgrade, and if it ends up being wonky, you can clean
off the wonky root partition and restore the backup, no harm done.
–
Regards
swerdna
On 08/16/2012 07:15 PM, swerdna wrote:
> On 08/16/2012 07:06 PM, andrew86576 wrote:
>>
>> i also wanna know that. do i only add the zypper source and then zypper
>> up, is that enough ? i use opensuse 12.1
>>
>>
> I wouldn’t jump over a version, like from 11.4 to 12.2, but I would be
> happy to go from 12.1 to 12.2.
>
> But that’s a personal view based on experience – there are plenty of
> folk who would jump a version.
>
> There’s an easy way to test jumping a version: if you have, say, 11.4
> and want to go to 12.2, and you have separate home and root partitions,
> you can carefully copy all of the 11.4 root partition to a backup
> location, do the upgrade, and if it ends up being wonky, you can clean
> off the wonky root partition and restore the backup, no harm done.
>
FWIW this is worth a read, somewhat similar to the issue in this thread:
http://tinyurl.com/66zly2r
–
Regards
swerdna
Based on experience? So your experience is that it will most likely go bad? Well I probably won’t risk it then and do the step in the middle.
Thanks for the tip, however my point was basically to spare some time and copying 20GB root partition could be quite time consuming. Imho it would be faster to really install the middle version 12.1. I can do the update at once right? Just install 12.1, restart, install 12.2 and done. My experience is that each upgrade breaks something (that’s why I skipped 12.1, I didn’t have time for it) however if I did this “double” upgrade, I would have to fix things only once instead of twice.
It depends a bit on what you mean with the generic term “upgrading”. People might argue that when they do an fresh install of 12.1 in a 11.3 root partition (or same sort of skipping) and leave /home intact, that that is an upgrade. Some will argue that it is only an upgrade when you use the Upgrade option on the install DVD and/or when you switch your repos and do a zypper dup. All three (and maybe more) could be called an “upgrade” when looking from a bit of a distance to he system.
But even when you do a fresh install over a new version, skipping one or two version, might go prefect for the system. But your end-users might get problems becaue of a possible big jump in their desktop (KDE, Gnome) version. E.g. going from KDE 3.5 to KDE 4.8 might bring you prbolems because the conversion of existing configuration files on first login might not be able to do correctly the work of all the intermediate steps.
On 08/16/2012 08:36 PM, tobice wrote:
>
> Based on experience? So your experience is that it will most likely go
> bad? Well I probably won’t risk it then and do the step in the middle.
>
Not “most likely”, just perhaps. Whatever, if u back up the root
partition using “cp -auv” before you upgrade, you can so easily and
quickly restore it if you get a crook result.
> Thanks for the tip, however my point was basically to spare some time
> and copying 20GB root partition could be quite time consuming.
Use Knoppix, mount two partitions, start the copy from one to the other
with “cp -auv” and take a time out (coffee?) for 10 minutes – too easy.
>…snip…Imho it
> would be faster to really install the middle version 12.1. I can do the
> update at once right? Just install 12.1, restart, install 12.2 and done.
> My experience is that each upgrade breaks something (that’s why I
> skipped 12.1, I didn’t have time for it) however if I did this “double”
> upgrade, I would have to fix things only once instead of twice.
>
>
Whatever you decide to do: you should defo make an image with “cp -auv”
first, so you can revert if it does not work well.
–
Regards
swerdna
But your end-users might get problems becaue of a possible big jump in their desktop…
I’m aware of that and know that upgrading KDE can be painful and usually results in deleting old confings. However besides that I have plenty of other software installed and configured (Apache, other dev tools) and I guess it would all go away with fresh install. So I would rather perform a “classic” upgrade using DVD or zypper dup which would preserve my software.
What I’m afraid of is that the problem you’re describing for KDE, would affect OpenSUSE itself. I guess that the upgrade is more than just installing the latest versions of packages and some configuration work must be done… Apparently skipping a version isn’t what users do on a daily basis, at least that’s what I’ve understood from your comments, so I’d really rather go the “double upgrade” way.
Use Knoppix, mount two partitions, start the copy from one to the other with “cp -auv” and take a time out (coffee?) for 10 minutes – too easy.
Well I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t go that fast on my old laptop hard drive lol! However your arguments sound reasonable so I’ll do it anyway, I’ll backup my root
What I normaly do (but you have to have the space for it and wanting to spend it for this), is having two equaly sized partitions usable for / and the same for /home (and of course one for Swap). I then can install a newer version on the “other” / partitions, copy the /home and boot into it to test all and everything without ever touching my productions partitions. Also I can then easily copy sytem configuration files (like the Apache ones) from the “old” / partition.
In the end I will copy /home for the last time and go life (by changing the default boot entry). By leaving the “old” system on the partitions for some time, I have allways access to the old configuration files in e.g. /etc to check what it was.
This behaviour is not for everybody to copy it straight, but it could give some ideas on how to handle these things.
Well I do backup my stuff. I use rsync to regularly backup my /home and /etc to an external hard drive. So in case something really went bad, during upgrade or anytime else, I wouldn’t lose anything but time. And that’s the point of this thread: I want to perform an upgrade with least possible time and effort but I also want to keep the risk at a reasonable level. Naturally, if I formatted my disk and did the install and all the configuration from the scratch, it would be the safest way, but that’s what I’m trying to avoid.
As I said before, the incremental upgrade 11.4 -> 12.1 -> 12.2 at once seems to me to be the optimal way. If something breaks in 12.1, I won’t try to fix it, I’ll first upgrade to 12.2 and then I’ll see.
Am 16.08.2012 19:16, schrieb tobice:
> As I said before, the incremental upgrade 11.4 -> 12.1 -> 12.2 at
> once seems to me to be the optimal way. If something breaks in 12.1,
> I won’t try to fix it, I’ll first upgrade to 12.2 and then I’ll see.
>
That’s essentially the way I upgraded my previous Dell Laptop, I waited
till 11.3 went end of life, zypper dup to 11.4 and directly after that
zypper dup to 12.1.
There where some package inconsistencies with packman which I had to
resolve manually and some KDE settings got lost, but all in all it was
less than an hour manual work (and several hours work for the laptop).
Of course I made a full backup before (full harddisk image with dd).
–
PC: oS 12.2 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.8.4 | GeForce GT 420
ThinkPad E320: oS 12.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.8.5 | HD 3000
eCAFE 800: oS 12.1 i586 | AMD Geode LX 800@500MHz | 512MB | KDE 3.5.10
On 2012-08-16 10:16, tobice wrote:
>
> The new 12.2 version of OpenSuse is about to be released and I’m still
> stuck with 11.4. Can I directly upgrade to 12.2 and skip 12.1? I only
> read that this isn’t recommended when upgrading using zypper, but
> otherwise? Most probably I’m going to use a DVD.
A zypper dup jumping over a version is not supported.
A DVD upgrade jumping over a version is not known if it is supported or not, but I believe it is.
Have a look at the documentation:
Online upgrade method
Offline upgrade method
Me, I would do the jump, but I would also prepare a full backup that allows me a restore if it
fails. Nobody can guarantee success, not even if you don’t jump.
(I jumped my machine from 11.2 to 11.4 the other day, for example - long story)
(By backups I mean dd images, for fast recovery of partitions, in few minutes)
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:56:02 GMT, hcvv <hcvv@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org>
wrote:
>
>It depends a bit on what you mean with the generic term “upgrading”.
>People might argue that when they do an fresh install of 12.1 in a 11.3
>root partition (or same sort of skipping) and leave /home intact, that
>that is an upgrade. Some will argue that it is only an upgrade when you
>use the Upgrade option on the install DVD and/or when you switch your
>repos and do a zypper dup. All three (and maybe more) could be called an
>“upgrade” when looking from a bit of a distance to he system.
>
>But even when you do a fresh install over a new version, skipping one
>or two version, might go prefect for the system. But your end-users
>might get problems becaue of a possible big jump in their desktop (KDE,
>Gnome) version. E.g. going from KDE 3.5 to KDE 4.8 might bring you
>prbolems because the conversion of existing configuration files on first
>login might not be able to do correctly the work of all the intermediate
>steps.
Yep. This is why i am chewing my up through several editions of upgrades
on my main server. Upgrade a step, resolve the problems, age it a bit,
then do another step. In about 15 days i hit 11.4, 11.3 went badly, and
not unexpectedly. It is stabilized again but Amarok 2.x is fubar.
?-/
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:03 GMT, hcvv <hcvv@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org>
wrote:
>
>What I normaly do (but you have to have the space for it and wanting to
>spend it for this), is having two equaly sized partitions usable for /
>and the same for /home (and of course one for Swap). I then can install
>a newer version on the “other” / partitions, copy the /home and boot
>into it to test all and everything without ever touching my productions
>partitions. Also I can then easily copy sytem configuration files (like
>the Apache ones) from the “old” / partition.
>
>In the end I will copy /home for the last time and go life (by changing
>the default boot entry). By leaving the “old” system on the partitions
>for some time, I have allways access to the old configuration files in
>e.g. /etc to check what it was.
>
>This behaviour is not for everybody to copy it straight, but it could
>give some ideas on how to handle these things.
Indeed. For a long time my base practice was to copy my “/” and “/home”
partitions, get them running normally (mostly fixups to /etc/fstab and
grub) and then upgrade that copy.
It does eat disk space though. OTOH i can afford all the disk space i
want. I have about 12 TB spinning and another 3 TB in pluggable space. If
i coalesced everything it would take only about 1 to 2 TB.
?-)
I don’t think that you need that much space My / partition is about 14 GB filled, thus a / of about 20 -30 would be enough. For /home it depends of course on the number of users and what they store. But my idea wopuld be to limit that also. When a user (me for example) would like to store hunders of GBs or more of e.g. pictures, I would make a seperate partition for that. Pure data, no noeed to copy that in the upgrade plan as mentioned above. /home would contain all those desktop and application dependant files (this where the name start with a . (dot)). And of course /home must be big enough to contain all sorts of “daily” come and go files, etc. the whole must still be convenient to be used. THus /home is involved in the updatei (desktop and other applications0. The bulk data partition(s) would never be involved.
It is all how you manage things. There is allways a certain point in growth where you must think about organising things better.
Ok, I have successfully upgraded to 12.2… I’m going to share my experience, it may be useful to someone.
I backed up my root partition using dd and then I installed 12.1 and immediately after 12.2. Now I’m running fully functional 12.2. My conclusion is that this “double” update isn’t more dangerous than classic update. Basically, what went wrong, went wrong during the first step 11.4 -> 12.1 and the second update had no impact on that.
My biggest problem was with nVidia drivers which weren’t updated during the install process. This happened probably because I wasn’t connected to Internet (installer didn’t provide me a way to connect to my WPA wireless LAN). So when I booted to 12.1, it used a fallback graphics driver which wasn’t apparently supported by KDE and so KDE refused to start, even with clear config. So no drivers meant no KDE and no KDE meant no internet connection. NetworkManager is a nice tool but in these situations I wish we used something less dependent on GUI frontends. I decided to do nothing and run the 12.2 upgrade. It went smoothly however nothing changed, still no drivers, no KDE, no connection. I managed to manually connect to Internet using wpa_supplicant, however I don’t know why but the connection was really poor and kept disconnecting really often. Luckily I found an old ethernet cable and was able to use this old fashioned wired connection. Then I reinstalled nVidia drivers (it also took at least an hour, because there were some old packages left which had to be removed first and I didn’t know that) which made KDE work and finally I had a stable WiFi connection.
Besides this I had no major problems, KDE survived the upgrade (4.6 -> 4.8) well and I only had to fix few really small things. So as you can see I’d have had the same problems even if I hadn’t done this fast upgrade.