I’ve been running OpenSuSE 11.2 for some time now; my system is a Dell 64-bit with an ATI 46xx graphics card, and I’ve used the proprietary ATI driver without difficulty, as the driver provided with OpenSuSE was pretty much unusable.
I’m considering upgrading to v11.3, but there seem to be scattered horror stories involving ATI cards, particularly when it comes to ATI’s proprietary driver.
What sort of Hell would I be descending into? I really don’t have the time or patience to spend hours or days trying to get simple things like graphics and sound to work. If there’s a clear, straightforward procedure for dealing with known issues, I have no problem using it if pointed to it in advance.
I do not know what you use your system for. I am allways satisfied with a running stable system. I will never go for a new level just for the sake of going for a new level. But I know there are people who have their system for the joy of trying all sorts of software. You must decide what sort of person you are. And when you decide you like both, then take a second system. One for serious work (like banking, mailing and all the things one needs nowadyas for daily life) and one for the Linux hobby (with VM you may be able to combine this on one hardware box).
There seem to be a rather large pile of ATI problems, along with graphics problems in general swirling around this release. And not much in the way of solutions, here or elsewhere.
May be I do less boring things in the rest of my life. Computers is just a tiny little bit of it. Just a tool that has to function.
And to the OP, take care, in my boring existence I could from one day to the other not work with a functioning Kaddressbook (which is a major part of the whole Kontact suite, including Kmail) when I switched by accident to KDE 4.4.4. Be aware that this KDE is part of openSUSE 11.3. It is often not the opnSUSE level that plays havoc with your day to day wotrk, but the things that go with it.
I’m rather like Henk, in that I err on the side of caution where my main box is concerned. Before I updated to 11.3 I made sure I had a fall back in place on a separate partition (I have that luxury) with all my data in place there and on a backup device.
It’s common sense
If I screwed up (unlikely but) my wife would freak out without all her stuff in place.
While I have 11.3 on 4 PCs (and running reasonably well I might add), I am still running 11.2 on my main PC (a Core i7 920 with nVidia GTX 260 graphics). Why not move that PC to 11.2 ? Because (1) its my primary PC, and (2) some of the applications I use on 11.2 are still not packaged for 11.3.
I usually prefer to wait a couple of months AFTER a new release BEFORE I install a new openSUSE release on my main PC. This is ESPECIALLY true if openSUSE is already running well on my main PC and I do not have any pressing reason to update. I figure conservatism goes a long ways. No need to get caught up in the hype of a new release. And besides, in my case I have other PCs that I can use for playing with the new OpenSUSE release.
If it were me, and only one PC, I would wait 2 to 3 months after ANY distro release before updating to the new distro version.
>
> I do not know what you use your system for. I am allways satisfied with
> a running stable system. I will never go for a new level just for the
> sake of going for a new level. But I know there are people who have
> their system for the joy of trying all sorts of software. You must
> decide what sort of person you are. And when you decide you like both,
> then take a second system. One for serious work (like banking, mailing
> and all the things one needs nowadyas for daily life) and one for the
> Linux hobby (with VM you may be able to combine this on one hardware
> box).
>
>
I can agree with every single here. I have still OS 11.2 on my PC where I
run a variety of self compiled software and it is also my main concern to
have a stable system which simply works.
I had to convince myself to update my notebook to 11.3 (it was because “the
temptation will eat away at your soul”) though I would never had done it if
where were the smallest doubt that some of the essential hardware like
graphics card or wireless will not work (I use this notebook for my work).
So I waited with that until the first experiences where available on the
forums about the nvidia drivers in my case to estimate if it is worth it (it
is a machine I cannot use as playground) and prepared myself to completely
switch back to the original state with 11.2 if anything goes wrong (full
system backup! not only the home data).
So it is a wise decision if the OP has any doubts to waits a little bit
until enough information is available not to break the system.
hcvv, dont take the boring comment too seriously. You not see the smiley face? Are you not over the world cup yet
My experience with OpenSUSE over the years has been rather well. I haven’t had any major issues just after release. In fact I have found every release to be better than the previous.
Do I have too much faith in OpenSUSE?
In any event it should be common practice to have a backup procedure in place should things go wrong. That should go without saying.
And if you are completely constraint for time or your system is extremely vital for your daily needs / business, common sense = leave it alone.
On a completely separate note, I am grateful not everyone (many with a single system) has the same ‘wait for a few months’ attitude otherwise less bug reports would be filed and it would overall take longer to discover further bugs.
IMHO the better way is to have one or more test systems. Typically a very old PC. Or a separate partition.
One does not need to replace their prime system to test. I tested every openSUSE-11.x from early in the development process on different PCs, and NOT ONCE did I replace my prime system within a month of the new release. Typically it was anywhere from 1 month (at the earliest) to some times skipping a release on my prime system. And I think I have done as much, if not more testing than many users. …
Saying it differently, I hope users do NOT install 11.3 (nor any other openSUSE) without testing first, and I am grateful that many users DO wait a few months if they can not test first (via liveCD or test partition). I dread the complaints we would get if there were not some prudence in this.
On 2010-08-08 22:59, DenverD wrote:
> SixDegrees wrote:
>
> rule one: if it works, don’t fix it…
> in your case ‘it’ is 11.2…
>
> other folks say: if it works, fix it until it doesn’t!
>
> if you just can’t leave it alone:
>
> 1. do a complete system backup to an off machine location…
> 2. test that you can do a complete restore to current condition…
> 3. try installing 11.3, if it goes smooth: great!
Or try upgrading
> 4. if it is not smooth: restore your working 11.2
>
> time to do 1 through 4: two hours to two weeks (depending on how much
> you already know about how to make a backup/test it, etc)…
>
> by the way, items 1 though 3 are the ONLY safe and sane way to do any
> upgrade (of Linux, Windows, Mac, etc etc etc etc)…
True.
One more thing: reserve a small partition (10 GiB is a bit too much) for a test system. You can
install factory, up to the release, and if it works fine and you like it, then do the main
partition. No? Then skip it. And report the problems in bugzilla.
This is true even if you have several machines. It is possible that a version works fine in one
machine, you install another, and it is a total failure.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))
I test all my hardware with liveCDs during the openSUSE milestone process (previous during the alpha/beta release cycle).
This is easier (to use liveCD) today than it was only a few years back, as SuSE-GmbH are much better now at providing liveCDs of new releases than what they were in the past.
I think a 10GB or so test partition is a good idea, but its also not without risk. The risk of using a separate partition is the installer from the test install could mess up grub. Which could mean one can not access their primary partition, possibly impacting one’s nominal work.
In fact with the move coming soon to the newer version of grub, I would tend to be a bit conservative here … which in itself is a quandry (for users like me), as how does one test the new grub on different hardware, if one does not actually install it, and hence does not actually take some risk ?
What I have done for couple of years (maybe longer):
My basic system layout:
/boot
/root1
/root2
/root3
/home
The oses on the 3 roots rotate, usually along the lines of newest suse, suse soon to retire, whatever cool thing I’m playing with (FC13 currently :))
Before re-creating one or the roots … I make complete backups of my boot, stable root, and home
On install, I create a new temporary user id to live in home and use softlinks to things like $MYREALHOME/Documents
I use the bootloader of the newest install, but have the option of rolling back should that prove necessary
The way it works out … going from W.X to Y.Z is not a discreet event … I just roll forward … W.X gets used less and less until I realize I’m not using it anymore … sometimes it’s a few days … sometimes longer … then onto the next “whatever I’m playing with” … I experiment with copying things like .config/<package>, .gnome2, etc. … so I don’t have to fight with obtuse gnome changes … and overtime $HOME becomes $MYREALHOME
And did I mention softlinks … I am surprized by the number of small but difficult to diagnose ui problems I read about in these forums … little problems that often arise from expecting /home/$ME to serve multiple oses magically, as if there aren’t ever any application version specific little devils hidding in there …
By the way … I do the same on my laptop … recently replaced by tiny netbook … but only 2 roots … and mini-sized at that
