This article is obsolete. It will only work from now until the date when openSUSE 12.1 is released. The new article, which works from now (9 Novenber 2011) onwards is located here: HowTo Upgrade openSUSE 12.x to Tumbleweed. Despite the title, it works for 11.4 just fine.
If you have a working version of Tumbleweed based on openSUSE 11.4, this article might interest you: HowTo Prepare 11.4-based Tumbleweed for openSUSE 12.1
Warning: Tumbleweed can be a challenge for new users: The system is gradually and perpetually upgraded with new RPMs appearing almost daily in the Tumbleweed repositories. Zypper is the recommended tool for keeping your Tumbleweed distro up to date. You will receive messages from zypper regarding dependencies where you will make choices. If that could make you stressed, don’t install Tumbleweed.
First, have a look at the Tumbleweed Portal at openSUSE.org. Next join the mailing list mentioned there.
Be aware that your distro will no longer be openSUSE 11.4 after the upgrade, it will be openSUSE Tumbleweed (based on openSUSE 11.4)
There are three principle steps:
- make all necessary software updates plus installations of Packman’s 11.4 RPMs before you do the upgrade
- add the Tumbleweed Repository and change the Packman repository to Packman-all_of_Tumbleweed
- use zypper to upgrade your distro from openSUSE 11.4 to openSUSE Tumbleweed
Repositories:
OpenSUSE 11.4 users should already have these four key repositories installed/activated as a matter of course:
- openSUSE 11.4 oss
- openSUSE 11.4 non-oss
- Updates for openSUSE 11.4
- Packman for openSUSE 11.4
You might also have one or more of these Community repositories activated:
- Main Repository Contrib
- NVIDIA or ATI Repository
- other specialist repos like Google Earth etc
You shouldn’t have any factory repos activated unless you really know what you’re doing.
Now, before anything else, do step 1 above (make all necessary software updates plus installations of Packman’s 11.4 RPMs before you start the Tumbleweed-upgrade process).
Next you rearrange your repos quite simply:
- disable/remove any 11.4 Packman repositories
- disable/remove NVIDIA or ATI repos (you have to install drivers for these “the hard way” after each kernel update).
- add “openSUSE Tumbleweed” from here:
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Tumbleweed/standard/
- add “Tumbleweed all of Packman” from here:
http://packman.inode.at/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed
You can use zypper to do that or go to Yast → Software → Software Repositories.
When you finish you should have repos as listed by “zypper ls” somewhat like this:
john@tumbleweed114:~> zypper ls
# | Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | Type
---+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------
1 | Tumbleweed | Tumbleweed | Yes | Yes | rpm-md
2 | Updates-for-openSUSE-11.4 | Updates for openSUSE 11.4 | Yes | Yes | rpm-md
3 | openSUSE_Tumbleweed | Tumbleweed_AllOfPackman | Yes | Yes | rpm-md
4 | repo-non-oss 11.4 | openSUSE-11.4-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | yast2
5 | repo-oss 11.4 | openSUSE-11.4-Oss | Yes | Yes | yast2
Finally, run the upgrade. Become root in a console window and run this command
zypper dup
PS if you prefer to do a dummy run, then run this version first, using the dummy-run switch -D, like so: zypper dup -D
Updating your RPMs from this point forwards: Tumleweed is a distro with dynamic software. The RPMs are constantly evolving. Here is a strategy for upgrading your RPMs to keep abreast of the developing Tumbleweed distro. It’s not the only strategy. Feel free to use some other strategy.
Tumbleweed is being maintained by Greg K-H (see openSUSE Factory) who maintains the packages in the repos. He advocates having the following repos attached and enabled for going forward with the new distro (Tumbleweed): openSUSE Update repo, openSUSE-oss repo, openSUSE-non-oss repo and Tumbleweed repo/s. (reference: Gmane Loom)
This translates as follows:
Mandatory Repos:
Tumbleweed → http: //download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Tumbleweed/standard/
opensuse-oss → http: //download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/
opensuse-non-oss → http: //download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/non-oss/
opensuse-updates → http: //download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/
Also Recommended:
Tumbleweed All of Packman → http: //packman.inode.at/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed
Additional Options. If you use special packages, you can/should enable the special repos, for example:
opensuse-contrib → http: //download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/11.4:/Contrib/standard/
Tumbleweed VirtualBox → http: //download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/opensuse/11.4/
Others as required…
Command for regular updates: zypper dup
Continue to use a simple dup with the command:
zypper dup
I recommend this approach because it’s the method used and recommended by the developer (Greg K-H, maintainer of the Tumbleweed repos).
lol!