13.2 RC1 -> Final

I’m running 13.2 RC 1 on a machine. When the final release is made, will I be able to just use yast to update the packages, or would I have to do an upgrade install? How does that work?

You should already have the 13.2 repos in your repo list.

When 13.2 final is released, the packages in the repos get updated one last time.
You can then update to final either with your desktop’s update applet (this should show you those updates automatically), YaST (View->Repositories, “All in this list”->“Update if newer version is available”) or zypper (“up” or “dup”).

Agree, however, if you have additional repos enabled, for example::

 zypper lr
#  | Alias                                     | Name                                      | Enabled | Refresh
---+-------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+---------+--------
 1 | KDE:/Extra/openSUSE_Factory/              | KDE:/Extra/openSUSE_Factory/              | Yes     | Yes    
 2 | openSUSE-13.2-0                           | openSUSE-13.2-0                           | No      | No     
 3 | packman.inode.at/suse/Factory/Essentials/ | packman.inode.at/suse/Factory/Essentials/ | Yes     | Yes    
 4 | packman.inode.at/suse/Factory/Extra/      | packman.inode.at/suse/Factory/Extra/      | Yes     | Yes    
 5 | packman.inode.at/suse/Factory/Games/      | packman.inode.at/suse/Factory/Games/      | Yes     | Yes    
 6 | packman.inode.at/suse/Factory/Multimedia/ | packman.inode.at/suse/Factory/Multimedia/ | Yes     | Yes    
 7 | repo-debug                                | openSUSE-13.2-Debug                       | No      | Yes    
 8 | repo-debug-update                         | openSUSE-13.2-Update-Debug                | No      | Yes    
 9 | repo-debug-update-non-oss                 | openSUSE-13.2-Update-Debug-Non-Oss        | No      | Yes    
10 | repo-non-oss                              | openSUSE-13.2-Non-Oss                     | Yes     | Yes    
11 | repo-oss                                  | openSUSE-13.2-Oss                         | Yes     | Yes    
12 | repo-source                               | openSUSE-13.2-Source                      | No      | Yes    
13 | repo-update                               | openSUSE-13.2-Update                      | Yes     | Yes    
14 | repo-update-non-oss                       | openSUSE-13.2-Update-Non-Oss              | Yes     | Yes    
15 | videolan.org/pub/vlc/SuSE/Factory/        | videolan.org/pub/vlc/SuSE/Factory/        | No      | No     
 

Then the vlc, Packman & KDE/extra from Factory repos need to be changed to the new 13.2 repo sites

FWIW, I always do a fresh install with the GM release as I have updated from Factory continually & did lots of playing around thus many config’s floating around Just look at the hidden files in /home. I always backup my needed data to a usb HDD, install GM to re-formatted partitions & then copy my data back.