Hello. I’m reading the HowTo Upgrade openSUSE 11.4 to Tumbleweed article from the sticky, and I’m still not sure what is meant by the step that says to “make all necessary software updates plus installations of Packman’s 11.4 RPMs before you do the upgrade”. This is also mentioned later: “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)”.
I’m upgrading to tumbleweed from a clean installation of 11.4. I have not previously enabled any packman repository, however I do plan on enabling the all-of-packman repository for tumbleweed. The way the guide is worded there seems to be some unnamed RPMs from the 11.4 version of packman that should be installed first, but I don’t understand which RPMs these are and why they are not named.
My guess is that the wording is off. Is the intention just to say to update all RPMs installed from packman 11.4 (just as we’re asked to update the base system as well), or are there indeed some specific RPMs in packman 11.4 that need to be installed first? Or does packman for tumbleweed not contain all of the packages in packman for 11.4, so that there are some packages that must be installed before the upgrade, and those packages will not be possible to install after the upgrade?
An explanation of these things would be greatly appreciated
Make sure you have installed all official updates for your 11.4 installed system, from the “Updates for openSUSE 11.4” repo, e.g. using YaST’s Online Update facility.
Install all the packman packages “you require”, from an 11.4 packman repo, e.g. all those needed for multimedia support. Make sure those are up to date before doing Tumbleweed.
Spend some time testing your 11.4 system and key applications, including multimedia apps. Identify any problems before doing Tumbleweed.
Then you should be good to go, providing you feel confident you can handle the frequent updates/upgrades and have adequate broadband bandwidth.
But why should I install the packman packages before going to tumbleweed? Are they no longer available to be installed after the upgrade to tumbleweed? What happens if I later realize there were more packages in packman that I want? I assume I do not have to reinstall the OS and start from scratch?
On 09/02/2011 10:16 PM, Quantumboredom wrote:
>
> But why should I install the packman packages before going to
> tumbleweed?
because that is what you are supposed to do…
one thing (imo) @consused accidentally left out of his note, just
following “Make sure those are up to date before doing Tumbleweed.”
should be something like:
After all updating and packman applying, then use your system a while
(weeks or months) until you know that everything works well and the
system is as it should be. Then you know how it works and what to
expect, so when you go to Tumbleweed you will have the experience needed
to know when you have a new problem introduced by Tumbleweed code and
can cogently report it to the Tumbleweed gurus here…
Weeks and months… ?? That’s a bit extreme. Tumbleweed isn’t a bomb with a dicky fuse. IMHO all you need if you’re unsure is to make a backup of the original openSUSE 11.4 if you’re worried. That’s a 10 minute process. Then pull the trigger of zypper dup.
But I’m wondering why that is so. And even if I did it this way (installed all packages from packman that I think I will ever need), how can I know that I will not need any new packages from packman in the future? And if I do, what happens then? Do I have to reinstall the OS to get the packages? Or is it possible to install them, but there is a high chance of breaking the system in the process?
It’s a good idea to install all the proprietary stuff like multimedia and stuff from left-field repositories, and get all the bug fixes (updates) and improvements on board first: that housekeeping is fairly easy. At this time, a new Tumbleweed user is dragging openSUSE 11.4 forwards into a bunch of factory packages that are newer by maybe 6 months than the 11.4 versions. If you start with a complete, well functioning, up to date platform, you’ll know that you’re in good shape to move forward.
Some ppl like to lock certain packages so they can’t be upgraded, like some multimedia packages. Some like to lock libreoffice, I lock my java because I’ve got a dicky charting program.
Only “packman-essentials” is built for Tumbleweed i.e. “Tumbleweed Essentials” versus “Tumbleweed All of Packman” makes no difference according to that page.
Most of the packman packages needed for trouble-free multimedia playback are in packman-essentials. It makes sense to get that working on standard 11.4 as it has been available now for many months with exposure to many more users and thus more testing compared to Tumbleweed. Tumbleweed apps are subject to more frequent change. I would have thought it best to install and become familiar with the various multimedia apps/rpms on standard 11.4 first. If you are already familiar with multimedia and the necessary packman rpm’s on your audio/video hardware, you could install after doing Tumbleweed. The risk is yours to take.
Once you have installed Tumbleweed you can of course add more packman rpm’s without starting from scratch. Some of those may have to come from non-tumbleweed repos, but there is always a risk they will not function properly as they were not built for Tumbleweed.
I did, but that’s the problem with not using the web interface - you don’t see the edits (e.g. my comment #3.) made in the subsequent 10-minute grace period.
consused: That would indeed make some sense, however if I browse the repositories, I see that there are lots of packages in other subfolders than essentials. For example the multimedia subfolder of tumbleweed has about the same number of RPMs available as the multimedia subfolder of 11.4 (though there seem to be some differences). Can that be consistent with what the wiki article is saying?
But anyway I guess the next step is figuring out which packages have the relevant media stuff. I’ve only been able to find one-click-installs for KDE and Gnome, but since I’m using xfce I’d much rather have a list of the packages that give MP3/x264/DVD support. If anyone happens to have such a list handy I’d be much obliged
On 09/02/2011 11:36 PM, consused wrote:
> I did, but that’s the problem with not using the web interface - you
> don’t see the edits (e.g. my comment #3.) made in the subsequent
> 10-minute grace period.
ah, yes i see now (having look at the web side’s version–GOOD edit)…
