How do I know if I should upgrade packages not included by zypper up?

English Applications
1

I ran the command “Zypper up” and it said:

The following package updates will NOT be installed:
  alsa alsa-firmware alsa-plugins alsa-utils gstreamer-0_10 gstreamer-0_10-plugin-gnomevfs gstreamer-0_10-plugins-base kaffeine libasound2 libass4 libfluidsynth1 libfreebl3 
  libgstapp-0_10-0 libgstinterfaces-0_10-0 libgstreamer-0_10-0 liborc-0_4-0 libqt4 libqt4-qt3support libqt4-sql libqt4-sql-sqlite libqt4-x11 libQtWebKit4 libschroedinger-1_0-0 
  libshout3 libsndfile libsoftokn3 libtag-extras1 libvdpau1 libvdpau-devel libvdpau_trace1 mozilla-js192 mozilla-kde4-integration mozilla-nss-certs mozilla-xulrunner192 
  mozilla-xulrunner192-gnome mozilla-xulrunner192-translations-common python-numpy taglib xdg-utils

While some of those things I don’t care about, any improvements in alsa, I do care about. How do i know if I should try to upgrade alsa? What causes zypper to reject it?

2

They are held by your use of the switcher

Like on Packman and Mozilla repos

Leave them be

3

On 2011-10-28 22:13, 6tr6tr wrote:
> While some of those things I don’t care about, any improvements in
> alsa, I do care about. How do i know if I should try to upgrade alsa?
> What causes zypper to reject it?

Priorities, vendor changes… I think there is an option that gives more
detailed info about the upgrade possibilities of one package. Maybe someone
else remembers the incantation.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

4

Thanks for your help. Can you explain a bit more about what “the switcher” is?

5

Like this.
http://www.su2root.ukfsn.org/files/Switcher%20Pics/11.4_packman_switch.png

It’s recommended procedure to keep multimedia all from Packman