Hi,
I really like openSUSE but I still have a trouble: What is the best way to keep the system up to date? Should i just let do the update icon in the task bar his job or should I use zypper up, dup, up -t package…what are the differences? I read some manuals but I still do not really understand the differences between these update possibilities…
Can anyone help me out?
Until 11.1 with KDE4.2 I didn’t have any problems with the automatic updates you configure in YAST. With KDE4.2 it always had some kupdate GUI problem. I didn’t like KDE4.2 anyway so I got the 11.1 LiveCD with KDE3.5 image am installing it now.
~don
If the tray icon is doing what it’s supposed to be doing then just use that.
If it keeps turning into a red triangle with an exclamation mark in it you’ll want to use either YaST software management or zypper.
Until 11.1 with KDE4.2 I didn’t have any problems with the automatic updates you configure in YAST. With KDE4.2 it always had some kupdate GUI problem. I didn’t like KDE4.2 anyway so I got the 11.1 LiveCD with KDE3.5 image am installing it now.
~don
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And I was just wondering what the hell that blue arrow in my tray was while reading this thread, turns out it’s a working KDE 4.2 updater
Thank you for the fast answer
But what are now the differences between these up date possibilities? I see that the update icon doesn’t install new packages when they are available, but zypper up or zypper up -t package does.
What I’m going to say is for openSUSE 11.1, doesn’t applies to 11.0.
“zypper up” is the same than “zypper up -t package”. It’s the correct way to update.
There exists a “zypper lu” command that only list updates, without installing them. Since 11.1 the updates listed by “lu” should be the same than the ones listed by “up”.
The KDE update applet, by default with the PackageKit backend, shows the updates of “zypper lu -t patch”. If you check the option to show all updates it should do a “zypper lu” (zypper lu -t package)… but it seems the PackageKit backends doesn’t supports it. With the ZYpp backend it works correctly.
So, the update applet will show official updates, but no updates from Packman. You can change to the ZYpp backend to also see Packman updates, but I don’t expect this backend to be further developed… and I already saw a problem trying to update something.
If you don’t mind about Packman updates you can use the update applet… but if you want them I would just run a “zypper -v up” from time to time, removing the applet.
Don’t use “zypper dup”, it isn’t just a more powerful “zypper up” but something different that you will just want to use to update to openSUSE 11.2. It can change packages from Packman for versions without multimedia support.
Thank you, this really helped 
I’ll see if the Zypp backend works
