Hi all, I’m a bit confused about the information regarding the lifetime of opensuse releases on this site: https://en.opensuse.org/Lifetime
First is says that every major 42,15 etc… is supported for about 36 months and every minor release for about 18 months.
Then it says that leap 15 is supported until november 2019, that’s 18 months support not 36!
This had me confused when I was running 42.1 thinking that was a minor release.
It was the first release of the 42.x series but there was never a 42.0 release, so I thougt OK whatever.
Now I’m running 15 dot zero, a major release, thinking I would get support for 36 months.
But now I don’t know anymore.
What is that page telling me?
Do I really have to upgrade to 15.1 to get support after november 2019?
Or does it mean that when you keep leap 15 up to date it wil evolve into 15.1?
I mean if not the latter, then there is no 36 months support for any release, right?:dont-know:
Can somebody help me understand the lifetime of opensuse releases?
The support is for dot releases as well, generally you have about six months to update to the next dot release, I would expect Leap to progress to at least .3 if not .4(?). Updates to the next minor release should not be a big issue.
I read that as saying that Leap 15 (that is, the series Leap 15.0, Leap 15.1, etc) will be supported for about 36 months, but that invidual releases such as Leap 15.0 are supported only for around 18 months.
So yes, I think you have to upgrade to 15.1 at some time. As to whether there will be an automatic upgrade – I have the impression that they might be thinking about that but they don’t have a current plan to achieve it.
OK Malcolm and Nrickert thank you both for clarifying that.
But it does makes me wonder though that if it is a series of the 15 version then why have these versions at al?
Why not keep stuff up to date via regular updates?
If I have to do a distro upgrade (zypper dup) to get to the next release that means it is not a part of the previous version but a new distrobution, it doesn’n matter what you call it.
I do understand the naming offcourse in relation to the sle brand.
But they are new distrobutions nevertheless with new software with functionality added or removed wich could have a impact on the workflow that a user is used to.
And that is exactly what I do not want.
Anyway, I do not have a problem with the upgrading process itself since I have done that for years since SuSE 7.3.
But was hoping I could leave it alone this time for at least 3 years because 15.0 runs very well on my desktop and laptop and have absolutely no need for newer software.
My feeling is that you should not have any impact on your workflow by upgrading to the next point release, or it should be reported as a bug maybe. If some important system element changes in a point release there should be still a “compatibility” package or some equivalent measure; say, you can install the new pieces but the old pieces are still available and supported.
When a major release comes, like in the transition from 42.3 to 15.0, you should expect that a major element may change, say systemd, cron, networking etc. and no “compatibility” path might be available, so you might have an impact and might have to rewrite custom scripts or configurations and might no longer be able to run software that has not been ported.
To say that in other words, a “zypper dup” from 15.0 to 15.1 should run as smooth as silk, while dup-ing from 42.3 to 15.0 resulted in headaches for a few users as we are witnessing on the Forums…
When we went from 13.1 to 13.2, that was a completely new distribution, with no relation other than the numbers.
But for the Leap 15.x series, the plan is to avoid drastic changes, as I understand it.
I have been regularly testing 15.1, which is at Alpha version right now. The kernel is still at 5.12.14. It isn’t the same kernel, and probably more bug fixes from the latest kernel have been back-patched into it. But there is an attempt at continuity for the kernel version.
Plasma is at 5.12.7, which is only slightly up from the 5.12.6 in Leap 15.0, and is way short of the 5.15 just released by KDE.org. Again, we see an attempt at continuity.
So sure, most of the software from 15.0 will be replaced by newly compiled versions. But there is an attempt at continuity, at avoiding big version change, and concentrating mainly on bug fixes.
Upgrading to 15.1 will be the way to go, and should not have a major effect on workflow (as seen by users).
[QUOTE=nrickert;2894407]That’s not quite right (in my opinion).
When we went from 13.1 to 13.2, that was a completely new distribution, with no relation other than the numbers.
But for the Leap 15.x series, the plan is to avoid drastic changes, as I understand it.
[/Qd UOTE]
That’s right. FWIW, the devs don’t even speak about 15.1 as a new release, but as a Service Pack, like SUSE has. But … this is based on using the distro as is, maybe only including Packman ( that stuff won’t break a system upgrade ). I’ve ( in a VM ) tested the upgrade from 42.3 with KDE. LAMP server-> 15.0 by doing nothing more than replace the 42.3 by 15.0 in the repo URLs, after fully updating 42.3 first, and ended up with a newer KDE, working LAMP server. And did so on bare metal with a dozen of systems, no failures, except for the extensively described resolv.conf issue. Most of the times this upgrade breaks is when proprietary drivers are involved, when people tinker with their systems because the interweb tells them they should do these 12 things after installing openSUSE.
Each minor Leap 15 release will be supported for at least 18 months, giving the user 6 months ( or more ) to upgrade / use the Service pack, before it’s end of maintenance.
The described method IMO is safer, since it will get the packages from the repos, not from the DVD image, which does not have all of them, simply for size reasons.
Regular updates mostly are individual updates, which is normally accomplished by “zypper up” or similar.
Minor distro version upgrades both minor and major likely involve a more comprehensive sub-component upgrade like an entire Python version, and requires a “zypper dup” In the case of Tumbleweed for instance, although most system sub-component updates are minor, a major sub-component replacement can come at any time.
Major distro version upgrades might include more extensive sub-component replacements, but I haven’t noticed that to be the case too much since the LEAP series even from 42 to 15. The distro name change in this case might be more for the purposes of making clear the relationship between SUSE and openSUSE development than the components change. It used to be that there were very significant changes for instance from 10 to 11 to 12 to 13, and then to LEAP.
That said, some major changes have happened but in incremental fashion, like with each new systemd version. systemd changes have gone relatively unnoticed because of attention to backwards compatibility and how changes are implemented, but some of those changes have been substantial over the years without waiting for distro upgrades.
Although it’s very early, at this time I wouldn’t expect that 15.1 should be a major change from 15.0, so if nothing changes I’d recommend the upgrade as likely “mostly safe” and recommended when the time comes to extend active support for every part of the system (eg security patches, enhanced features).
Reading the comments in this thread tells me that the changes made to a new version in the 15.X series are minor as was the case with the 42.x series.
And like I said before, I have no problem upgrading opensuse to a newer version.
That has gone well for years.
But I still cannot quite understand why the changes from one version in a series to another has to be done with an upgrade rather than via regular updates?
Why can’t the distrobution evolve step by step via updates?
I guess what I realy want to know is, when does changing packages to a newer version in a distrobution becomes an upgrade instead of an update?
We get updates to the kernel, systemd, python, zypper etc…etc… now also, core packages, but these are called updates and not an upgrade of the system.
Maybe I’m overthinking this, it is just my curiousity.
It might have to do with how many incremental updates you want to support at a time. When you release a new version, you’re essentially saying that the new image is a new foundation upon which to add more incremental updates. Otherwise, with no new distro versions your update repo would have to grow to an enormous size and support every intermediate step from the original image to the current, latest state.
Also, each distro version allows application developers to build to a specific, stable environment instead of having to constantly modify for every tiny possible change.
TSU
This would probably be very easy to manage, if everyone used only the standard repos or the standard repos plus packman. But some openSUSE users use other repos. And that’s why it becomes trickier, because the upgrade can then introduce new dependency conflicts.
OK thanks everybody for making the lifecycle of opensuse more clear to me.
And sorry for the late reply, I’ve been working extra hours this week and got really tired.
But today we can get to go home earlier! lol!