Expectations of SlowRoll Users: Diverging from the Tumbleweed Experience

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As an early adopter of OpenSUSE SlowRoll, I wanted to share some insights from an end-user perspective. My goal is to make SlowRoll as adoption-friendly as possible, before it reaches a broader audience. Here are a few points I believe are worth discussing:

  1. Package Management with Zypper: I’ve noticed that using zypper dup installs a range of additional software by default, which could be perceived as bloatware. While it’s great to offer a demo package, automatically including a bundle of applications as recommended during the first update might not align with user preferences. Fewer “surprises” would be appreciated.
  2. File System Choices: The use of Btrfs might be optimal for developers and enthusiasts, particularly in the Tumbleweed environment. However, considering that many potential SlowRoll users might be operating on older hardware with SATA drives, EXT4 could be a more suitable default file system. Btrfs tends to perform slowly on such setups, impacting the user experience.
  3. GUI for Distro Upgrades: The current implementation of zypper dup lacks a GUI-based approach for distribution upgrades, which is a common expectation among general users. Ensuring that the existing GUI tools are capable of handling system updates effectively is crucial for user convenience and should be considered as an expectation for SlowRoll.

I want to clarify that my intention is not to criticize OpenSUSE SlowRoll. On the contrary, I am a current user & supporter, I believe in its potential. I’m merely recognizing that certain choices, beneficial for Tumbleweed enthusiasts, might not align with the expectations of the broader user-base that’s destined for SlowRoll.

Enthusiastically hoping SlowRoll will be even more user-friendly and widely accepted,
Lance

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Hi, Lance - your feedback is much appreciated, but to make sure it gets to the right folks, you might look at joining the factory mailing list (I believe that would be the correct list) so the Slowroll developers see it. These forums are generally user-support, and while we have some developers here, there aren’t as many as on the mailing lists. :slight_smile:

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@LanceHaverkamp Hi, as per @hendersj comments, Mailing List is the place to be, will add some comments though…

  1. Use the command line option --no-recommends or configure /etc/zypp/zypper.conf to change the default for installRecommends to no. (System Admin choice).

  2. I doubt Btrfs will change from being the default, Tumbleweed is the development project and out to the likes on MicroOS with which btrfs is the bread/butter so to speak… You can change at install?

  3. That is a desktop environment issue, nothing to do with zypper or transactional-update (it just works…). Maybe add some verbosity to the command (-vvv) and don’t forget to use the screen command, sometime the desktop environments don’t work well with some updates…

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I have slowroll installed with “ext4” in a VM, and with “btrfs” in an external usb drive.

For my install with “btrfs”, I have

solver.onlyRequires = false

in “/etc/zypp.zypp.conf” which reduces the pulling in of bloatware.

As far as I know, the GUI updater in the tray (with KDE) does use the equivalent of “zypper dup”. However, Yast doesn’t.

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I had confirmation of that behaviour with Tumbleweed on one of the MLs a few weeks ago, so this would be true for Slowroll as well.

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Nope:

erlangen:~ # grep ^solver /etc/zypp/zypp.conf 
solver.onlyRequires = true
solver.allowVendorChange = true
solver.dupAllowVendorChange = true
erlangen:~ #

Users may want to undo the restrictive default configuration and enable vendor change again. They call it “brute force”. However considerate usage of vendor change does away with most issues of distribution upgrade:

“Note that there can be some subtleties with updates, especially with multiple repositories. See for example recent discussion about using zypper dup versus zypper up and zypper dup priorities.”

https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Tumbleweed

" zypper dup ensures that all installed packages come from one of the available repositories. It does not consider the version or architecture, but prevents changing the vendor of the installed packages by default, using the --no-allow-vendor-change option. If you have third-party repositories enabled, some repositories may break during the upgrade. In this case, use --allow-vendor-change instead."

The GUI updater relying on PackageKit and Yast2 use libzypp too. Some implementation details differ, e.g. The package glibc is essential to correct operation and cannot be removed using this tool - #41 by karlmistelberger. This warrants some extra fun Tumbleweed folks aren’t asking for.

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I am impressed by the experts’ posts here. :face_with_monocle:

Maybe i am a good example for the lower end of Leap Users, which shall one day migrate to Slowroll: :smiling_face:
I am not into Terminal orgies :nauseated_face:, dislike anything that forces me to google for solutions, which include the risk of shredding my system :scream:. I like a well designed GUI :+1:, that allows the user to configure what’s of interest without breaking anything :nerd_face:. That’s why i went for Suse, because YaST is awesome! :heart_eyes:

So my expectations in Slowroll would be simple:
It should be the same as Leap/YaST, but with more & smarter updates.

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@BierPizzaChips If you want that stability, then look at MicroOS, on Tumbleweed likewise only stick to the standard repos (oss, non-oss and update) use flatpacks… and should have a very similar experience to Leap.

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Other than a few hiccups early on (all resolved), Slowroll has been running quite nicely on two external USB SSD’s with both kernel-default and (the new) kernel-longterm installed. I’ve been booting into them using kernel-longterm.

I kept the fs as btrfs on these drives, as well as on my Tumbleweed desktop (BIOS) installs.

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Install is smooth experience. Followed the instructions and got the following:

slowroll:~ # zypper repos -uEP
# | Alias        | Name         | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh | Priority | URI
--+--------------+--------------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
6 | packman      | packman      | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   70     | http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Slowroll/Essentials/
7 | update       | update       | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   80     | http://cdn.opensuse.org/update/slowroll/repo/oss/
1 | base-non-oss | base-non-oss | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | http://cdn.opensuse.org/slowroll/repo/non-oss/
2 | base-oss     | base-oss     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | http://cdn.opensuse.org/slowroll/repo/oss/
5 | h264         | h264         | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | http://codecs.opensuse.org/openh264/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
slowroll:~ # 

slowroll:~ # snapper list
 # | Type   | Pre # | Date                     | User | Used Space | Cleanup | Description           | Userdata     
---+--------+-------+--------------------------+------+------------+---------+-----------------------+--------------
0  | single |       |                          | root |            |         | current               |              
1  | single |       | Tue Jan 16 08:36:38 2024 | root | 116.00 KiB | number  | first root filesystem |              
2  | single |       | Tue Jan 16 08:44:31 2024 | root |  22.49 MiB | number  | after installation    | important=yes
3  | pre    |       | Tue Jan 16 08:56:23 2024 | root |  23.43 MiB | number  | zypp(packagekitd)     | important=yes
4  | post   |     3 | Tue Jan 16 09:03:06 2024 | root |  64.87 MiB | number  |                       | important=yes
5  | single |       | Tue Jan 16 12:24:18 2024 | root | 116.00 KiB | number  | rollback backup of #1 | important=yes
6* | single |       | Tue Jan 16 12:24:19 2024 | root | 105.77 MiB |         | writable copy of #2   |              
7  | pre    |       | Tue Jan 16 12:33:24 2024 | root |  16.08 MiB | number  | zypp(zypper)          | important=yes
8  | post   |     7 | Tue Jan 16 12:37:29 2024 | root |  42.30 MiB | number  |                       | important=yes
slowroll:~ #
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At least on Tumbleweed, Discover does that already (Discover → packagekit → zypper dup). I assume it will be the same on Slowroll.

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Why is recommended to set pacman priority at 70 and update at 80 (or lower than base repos)?
Whouldn’t it be ok to have all at the same priority (99)?

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I posted frequently on priorities and got many embarrassing comments: Search results for 'zypper priorities @karlmistelberger' - openSUSE Forums

You may watch openSUSE Conference 2018 - Repository priorities for the real world user and try yourself.

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Can’t thank you enough for recommending this video to me in the past. Best 10 minutes of content to prevent 99% of future repo issues. :100:

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And, if I have it correct, when KDE6 Plasma is released on S.R., that feature will disappear.

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Right. But if you install “discover-notifier” then that will serve as a tray icon to indicate updates are available. And if you click it you will get “discover” which can update your system and should be using the equivalent of “zypper dup”.

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I disagree about almost nothing.
The only point I agree with is number 3.
Point 1 Pre-installed applications are not mandatory, during installation it is possible to deselect and block them, however the fact that they are there is positive, because it means that these applications are tested and working, tests are not done for non-default applications, furthermore they are all applications that a user normally uses and their weight is truly insignificant today.
Point 2 btrfs file system, it is exactly the opposite of what you say, the fact of having old hardware is irrelevant, but in this way the user has the possibility to restore his system in case an update is not successful or due to of an incorrect setting that the user has changed.
It’s really suitable for beginners and it amazes me that other distributions like Ubuntu (for humans) don’t have it yet (we’re in 2024).

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I like btrfs as much as anyone else, but it’s not for the hands-off admin/user.
In addition to the unstable features like raid5/6 that btrfs ships albeit with a warning (IMHO a filesystem should never do that), there are several other issues with it in the latest kernel versions:

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In your opinion, SUSE is a company that develops enterprise distributions and many other companies send their customers an unstable and even dangerous file system? It would not make sense.
The only limitation is RAID56, but I don’t think there are many users using it nowadays.
“This is not intended to replace official documentation” seems so from the moment you post it.
It is not even true that it is not suitable for the user who does not intervene, I have always used the default settings and have never had any problems.
The opposite is true, btrfs has saved me on several occasions thanks to automatic snapshots, a system that all modern systems have or should have today.

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Perhaps it could be the major issue with btrfs quota/qgroup does not affect older kernels, but it is definitely not isolated to my use case or machine, not only have I reproduced it in a VM but I’ve helped others here with the same issue.

Can’t speak for Leap/SLE as I use Slowroll (SR) and Tumbleweed (TW).

I’m glad it works for you, honestly :hugs:

Same here, I use it every day to perform dup and switch into a new snapshot using atomic-update