When I use KDE’s Software Updates program (that resides with the clock on the taskbar) to check for updates it will show a number of updates available. At this moment I am seeing updates for akonadi, cifs-utils, gimp, grub, etc. Yet, if I launch YaST, then start the Online Update, the results are no updates available. It’s just empty.
Why is that? Shouldn’t both update programs see the same updates? If not, why not?
YaST Online Update (YOU) is used to get patches to correct and improve your existing installation. YOU can be started through the YaST Control Center which you’ll find under System in your menu. Or you can press Alt+F2 and type: yast.
YOU will only install official patches and not package updates from various unsupported or 3rd party repositories.
In short:
YOU is equivalent to zypper patch and only uses the “official” Update repos (for security and recommended updates of the “official” OSS and non-OSS repos).
You KDE tool tries to do the same as zypper up, which will install all newer versions in all of your repos when a newer version is available, but without doing a vendor switch. (BTW, zypper dup will include the zypper patch action).
But while the above is technically true, it is not the way to keep a Tumbleweed installation up-to-date.
But wouldn’t those official repos, the ones I have in my repo list, provide the rolling updates/patches that are released every couple of days? I have not added or removed any repos since installing TW on my laptop.
I’ve been running TW for a few weeks now and not once have I ever seen any updates via YOU. All updates have come through the KDE Software Updates tool. I always thought that was strange.
What am I doing wrong that prevents YOU from showing me the regular, rolling updates that are released for TW?
I tried to answer your question about understanding the technical difference between YOU (zypper patch) and the “Install newer version of the packages in this list” somewhere inside YaST > Software > Software Management (zypper up).
I was not explaining how Tumbleweed uses this. I am noot using Tumbleweed. But I am not sure Tumbleweed uses the Update repos at all. And that would explain why you do not see anything happen with YOU.
But better look for threads about: How do I keep my rolling release Tumbleweed up-to-date.
Or wait until somebody here explains. There is a new option for zypper dup to avoid vendor changes, but I can not find it.
On 02/17/2017 06:46 AM, hcvv wrote:
>
> I tried to answer your question about understanding the technical
> difference between YOU (zypper patch) and the “Install newer version of
> the packages in this list” somewhere inside YaST > Software > Software
> Management (zypper up).
>
> I was not explaining how Tumbleweed uses this. I am noot using
> Tumbleweed. But I am not sure Tumbleweed uses the Update repos at all.
> And that would explain why you do not see anything happen with YOU.
I have been using TW for a few years now. Since TW is a rolling release
it will rarely if ever use the Update repo. Only in the case of an
emergency update will that happen. In the use case of TW any “updates”
are actually new versions of programs and therefor it is recommended to
use “zypper dup --no-allow-vendor-change” to perform the upgrade. Keep
in mind that each release of TW is a new distribution version hence the
recommendation of using dup (DistributionUPgrade).
–
Ken
linux since 1994
S.u.S.E./openSUSE since 1996
Ah ha, now I understand what you mean about YOU and ‘zypper patch’. Sorry, I am a noob (kinda) and am not real familiar with openSUSE’s way of doing things. I’m more familiar with CentOS. I understand what you wrote now.
Like @Kensch said, the consensus appears to be the right way to update TW that contains repos other than the defaults is ‘zypper dup --no-allow-vendor-change’. Although, if you’re using the default repos that come with TW, ‘zypper dup’ is perfectly fine.
You need it wen you want to use Multimedia (sound and video files).
Basicaly openSUSE has crippled multimedia software because of licence reasons. If you nevertheless think that you, in the place of the world where you live, are allowed to play those files, you need to replace a lot of your OSS multimedia packages by the corresponding Packman ones. The sticky threads at the start of the Multimedia forum explain it. Or:
With YaST.
To add the Packman repo:
YaST > Software > Repositories Management. Then the Add button below. Choose Community Repositories in the next screen and click Next. Select Packman from the list shown and click OK. The Packman repo will now be added to your list of subscribed repositories.
To do the Vendor switch:
YaST > Software Management, then from the View menu choose Repositories. Then in the list of repos, select Packman. At right, above the list of Packages there is a line saying something like: Switch system packages to … Click on the underlined part and continue low-right.
I don’t run tumbleweed but the kde updater has been about in previous normal opensuse releases before tumbleweed was introduced. I would imagine that the main difference between it and yast or zypper is still the same. It will update items that opensuse haven’t as yet included in their updates. This effectively means that it can at times break your system leaving you with a machine that just wont work or has more bugs than an official release will have.
I’d hope it’s better in this respect than it was but the main difference is that opensuse go to a lot of trouble to make sure that an update wont break anybodies system. The problem comes down to the fact that the various distro’s that are about tend to use software packages that have been modified to work with their own distro so a package intended for one may not work on others. In fact it’s very likely to not run correctly even when it’s say from another as opensuse is rpm based distro. In that case it’s just likely to be more similar to what opensuse would release but is very likely to use underlying library files that differ in some way. They may use newer or even older versions of all sorts of those or even ones that don’t exist on opensuse.
The KDE update applet uses PackageManager. PackageManager is an effort to make an umbrella that hides the the different methods of software management used by the different distributions under one interface. But it is using libzypp like zypper and YaST Software Management. And it uses the same information as zypper and YaST Software Management, the contents of the enabled repositories your system is subscribed to.
It will thus not “It will update items that opensuse haven’t as yet included in their updates”. Simply because they have a higher version number in either in the Update repos (for “official” packages) or in the other repos. The same information for all. And the applet is not clairvoyant.
The only difference between the applet and YaST > Software > Online Update (zypper patch) is that the latter only handles updates from the Update repos (called patches in zypper language) and the aplett additionally handles all newer packages in all other repos (like zypper up does).
The story that the applet can bork your system is for the most due to the fact that the first versions of the applet/PackageManager were not realy stable. Now a days your very seldom see problems here on the forums (but it is not nil) that seem to be created by the use of PackageManager (through the applet) and have to be cured by zypper commands.
The usage of the applet is purely personal, where the change to introduce problems are not great and threads here prove that when they happen, they can be repaired.
IMHO, to decide if you want to use the applet, it is more important to decide if you want an applet to be shown to the end-user at all, and when yes, if you want it to do updates at it’s will instead of at the moment the system manager thinks it is the right time. Many that do not use the applet do so because a) they see no need for other tools for software management then the tools that are typically for the openSUSE distribution and were once one of the reasons to go for openSUSE and b) only want to do any software changes in a controlled (time and system usage) environment of e.g. a weekly maintenance window.
On 02/18/2017 04:46 AM, hcvv wrote:
>
> Silverclipper;2812907 Wrote:
>> Indeed I am. I wouldn’t know what’s in that repo. I will have to check
>> it out.
> You need it wen you want to use Multimedia (sound and video files).
>
> Basicaly openSUSE has crippled multimedia software because of licence
> reasons. If you nevertheless think that you, in the place of the world
> where you live, are allowed to play those files, you need to replace a
> lot of your OSS multimedia packages by the corresponding Packman ones.
> The sticky threads at the start of the Multimedia forum explain it. Or:
>
> With YaST.
>
> To add the Packman repo:
> YaST > Software > Repositories Management. Then the Add button below.
> Choose Community Repositories in the next screen and click Next.
If you are using TW there are no community repos to select.
–
Ken
linux since 1994
S.u.S.E./openSUSE since 1996
On 02/18/2017 09:01 AM, Ken Schneider wrote:
> On 02/18/2017 04:46 AM, hcvv wrote:
>>
>> Silverclipper;2812907 Wrote:
>>> Indeed I am. I wouldn’t know what’s in that repo. I will have to check
>>> it out.
>> You need it wen you want to use Multimedia (sound and video files).
>>
>> Basicaly openSUSE has crippled multimedia software because of licence
>> reasons. If you nevertheless think that you, in the place of the world
>> where you live, are allowed to play those files, you need to replace a
>> lot of your OSS multimedia packages by the corresponding Packman ones.
>> The sticky threads at the start of the Multimedia forum explain it. Or:
>>
>> With YaST.
>>
>> To add the Packman repo:
>> YaST > Software > Repositories Management. Then the Add button below.
>> Choose Community Repositories in the next screen and click Next.
>
> If you are using TW there are no community repos to select.
>
Just to clarify, you will need to add community repos via URL selection.
–
Ken
linux since 1994
S.u.S.E./openSUSE since 1996