Thinking of installing openSuSE on my laptop and wondering how the upgrade process is. I know 12.1 is coming out in only a couple of months. I don’t really want to spend all my time customizing 11.4 and then find out a straight upgrade is very buggy or even not possible and have to reinstall.
Thinking of installing openSuSE on my laptop and wondering how the upgrade process is. I know 12.1 is coming out in only a couple of months. I don’t really want to spend all my time customizing 11.4 and then find out a straight upgrade is very buggy or even not possible and have to reinstall.
Thanks
So there are lots of ideas on this I am sure, but I don’t recommend doing an upgrade (from 11.4 to 12.1) at this time, but rather a clean install. What I do suggest is to create a separate /home area as recommended, go ahead and install openSUSE 11.4 now and get it working as you like and then when openSUSE 12.1 comes out, do a clean install, but only mount your home area and do not format it. Then, you only need to install any missing apps from the default install. Your personnel settings will be maintained. Do make a backup of certain configurations like those for Samba and any you want to keep not located in /home. In the end, you will not need to start completely over, but those things that really matter will be cleanly installed. It is just one opinion but I wish you much luck in your decision.
Online upgrading normally works very well, but in any case, it is sensible to wait for a few weeks after 12.1 goes live, and wait until any major bugs are publicised and hopefully ironed out (with updates).
I prefer to download the DVD first. That way at least I have the install media. I also have several machines, so I don’t appreciate using my broadband quota for each upgrade.
The version scheme was the subject of a poll and a community decision not so long ago. I can’t readily find the news article but I’m sure if you search it will be there, or someone will post it.
On 09/05/2011 05:06 AM, potatomash wrote:
>
> What is the best way to do an upgrade? Download the DVD and choose
> upgrade (if there is such an option at all?) or through yast/zypper?
some folks say to do just as you say (select upgrade on the DVD)
however, see the only two ‘supported’ upgrade paths i know of, for sure:
[personally, i use neither…i always backup data [complete copy of
/home plus anything created outside of /home], do a fresh format install
of the entire system and home, run updates, install all new
application…then join data into the new system…that, prevents
dragging old code and/or their configs into the new system…ymmv]
I should add that sometimes I do an upgrade and sometimes a fresh install. It all depends on how I feel about redoing all the services config on my workhorse (I have quite a few services most people don’t run), how dispensable the machine is (workhorse or playground), my mood, the phase of my moon, and whether I’m starting on fresh hardware. So I know the pros and cons of both approaches.